Tilly Goes to Italy 2017: Episode 5 - Florence - Culture - pure, never ending, all embracing, wearisome

Mon 5th June

We’ve been here 4 days - longer than we usually stay in one place. We like Lucca. Touristy, but not excessively so, Our next stop will be VERY touristy! 4 days cost E40, and the machine takes credit cards.

Next stop Florence. Sally took us almost into Pisa before turning left for Florence. At one point she tried to takes through an arch of an aqueduct that was both too low and too narrow. Instead we took the road beside the aqueduct, which ran for about a mile. On the motorway into Florence we attempted to buy LPG, as we have emptied one cylinder. The garage refused to sell us any - we have heard of that happening to other motorhomers, but it is the first time it has happened to us.

In Florence we tried one sosta, but it felt very unsavoury, we so moved on to another. Being Florence, they all cost E15 per night. There is a bus stop right outside, but you have to buy tickets before you board, normally at bars and tobacconists. The bar near the sosta had sold out, and the girl behind the counter was not at all interested in telling us where else to get them. We walked down a long straight hill, mercifully in the shade, and with a cool breeze, to Porto Romana, where there were more shops. However, at Port Roma we had walked half way into Florence, so we walked the rest of the way, and over Ponte Vecchio, eventually making our way to San Croce, the church where various famous people are buried, with elaborate tombs - Michelangelo, Rossini, Machiavelli, Dante, Galileo (ironic - he was almost burned at the stake for suggesting the Earth went round the Sun), This costs E8 each, works out at about E1 per famous tomb.

Macchiavelli

Galileo

When we came out, the sky was black and a few heavy drops of rain made us nervous - all the skylights are open (and my side of the bed is under one of them), and we had no wet weather gear. Magically, umbrella sellers, almost all African, appeared from nowhere. I invested E4 in a small folding umbrella - and magically, it stopped raining.

Ponte Vecchia

The girl with the pearl ear ring

Mmm- street art

We managed to buy some bus tickets, but the disadvantage of walking in is that you don’t know where to catch the bus back. Then when we did find a correct bus stop, there was a sign on it saying the route had been diverted, just for today. So we ended up walking back as we never did find the right bus stop. Tomorrow we will get the bus in to suss out the route. (NB we later discovered you can buy tickets on the bus, but at double the price)

N 43.7523 W11.2448 height 510 feet

Tues 6th June

Well we did catch the bus in, but it took such a circuitous route in we had no chance of following it on the map. We got off at the station, but the No 11 bus the other way doesn’t go from here. As yesterday, crowds, queues, armed soldiers with armoured cars, lines of ambulances waiting beside the cathedral “just in case”, expensive coffee, market stalls full of seriously expensive leather jackets. I have had Renaissance culture up to here, so Rosemary went into various culture palaces on her own. I would have gone up the cathedral dome, but you couldn’t just buy a ticket for that, it had to be a combined ticket with a stack of other places, each of which meant an hour’s queue. I did find a quiet haven of a cafe with free wifi, slightly outside the main tourist area - still tourist prices, though.

I never did find the bus stop to get back - road works by the station meant the route had been diverted - but they didn’t say where. In the end I caught the bus the wrong way then, when it looked as if buses were coming the other way, got off and waited for the correct bus.

Here lived Elizabeth Barratt Browning

Wed 7th June

Rosemary went off on her own in the morning - I can only take so many museums! Meanwhile, I caught up on odd jobs - like the soap dispenser continually dripping soap. We met up in town for lunch - we can recommend Strozzi Caffe, and up market by the modern art gallery of the same name, but prices very similar to most other cafes. It is cool, quiet, and has excellent food. (and a good wifi connection)

Back at the sosta, a French convoy has arrived. It seems the French mostly travel in convoy outside of France. We are now quite an international sosta - French, Dutch, German, Belgian, Spanish, and one Brit

Thurs 8th June

bronze copy of a Roman sculpture

cathedral

A lost and lonely bear:(

UK general election, and a disaster for the UK whoever wins. We have a proxy voting for us. Unfortunately Screaming Lord Sutch, being dead, is no longer a candidate - one of the few party leaders with decency, intelligence, integrity - and a sense of humour.

....and the soap dispenser has started dripping again...

We had prebooked tickets for the Uffizi Gallery today - saves an hour’s queueing but costs an extra E15 each. It is reckoned to be one of the best art galleries in the world - and so it is if you’re into Renaissance and medieval religious paintings. If I never see another Madonna and Child again it will be too soon. I know Rosemary will disagree with me, but in my view the National Gallery knocks it into a cocked hat, and entrance is free. Even its little brother, The National Portrait Gallery, is better. I was hugely underwhelmed.