Florence

Florence 9th–14th November
Tomorrow we take off, become sea borne again (and must warn our readers that we may no be able to regularly post as we make our way home). It seems therefore quite fitting to have spent our last few days on land in the most glorious of cities, Florence. There is nothing quite like walking around the Duomo, admiring Florence’s greatest contribution to architecture, and seeing it at a distance from the beautiful terraces of the Giardino di Bardini. While here we took a bus tour to Siena (another glorious essay in architecture), San Gimignano (a 13th Century antecedent of Manhattan), and a Chianti fatoria, in classic Tuscan countryside. Incidentally, our fellow passengers included at least three whom we will join on the MV Athene. We’ve really enjoyed Florence, stepping out into streets once walked by Dante and admired by characters in Room with a view. Of course we made mandatory visits to places like the Uffizi and admired the Botticelli’s, the Fra Angelico, went to the Pitti Palace where we were overwhelmed by the scale and breathtaking ostentation. We also indulged in more than a little retail therapy. Leather is almost a perversity here, but we resisted the allure (at least Claire did) of lambskin jackets, kid gloves and wallets, though Colin couldn’t resist a pencil case! W

e also saw an exhibition of Bronzino paintings—he wrote also poetry on the side—in the Palazzo Strozzi, which was magnificent. We may have noticed in this travel(b)logue that we complained about not seeing much Australian ‘art’: well, surprise, surprise there was an Australian painting on display; it was a Bronzino, from the Gallery of New South Wales no less. We also ‘loved’ the Museo Nazionale Allinari della Fotografia, where there was survey of Camera Work, which included one photograph from Julia Cameron, whose work we have first encountered in Freshwater, Isle of Wight. It’s a small world. Next door (well, practically next door) to our wonderful little hotel (Hotel Casci, via Cavour) is the Palazzo Medici-Ricardi and which has a wonderful panel by Fiippino di Lippi.

We also indulged our love of food in Florence, where such delights of the Tuscan cuisine as tripe can be indulged ad nauseam. While we might have written quite a lot of tripe in these pages, neither of us has been courageous enough to eat it yet (there is still tonight), but we have enjoyed the bread soups, the beef stew and sea bass, the fresh artichokes and so on. All-in-all, we’ll be very sad to leave the pleasure and retail palaces of Florence.