Florence, Page 1

We're here, instead of Capri, for a variety of reasons. Main reason: the airline changed our flight from Athens to Rome, making it physically impossible to get from Athens to Capri on the same day. We last visited Capri four years ago, and we hadn't been to Florence in years, so we settled on Florence instead, and it's good to be back. We  head for Rome Sunday, the 27th, and then home on the first of June.

Let me say that the accommodations in Florence are a step in the right direction.

   

The Novotel is spoiling us after Athens .. that's Ramona in the open window, center .. take my word for it ..

Now, to the business of seeing the sights .. Ramona:

 

Florence, the Renaissance City, where Michelangelo sculpted, and Leonardo Da Vinci painted, and Dante wrote. The city where interest in art and literature and new ideas, absent since ancient times, once again emerged in the 15th century, under the patronage of wealthy families like the Medicis.  It was here that the end of the Dark Ages began.

Florence has dozens of museums and public squares, crammed with treasures that are the heritage of us all. In 1967, when the Arno flooded the city, people of many ages and stations in life converged here from around the world. They came at their own expense, simply out of love for the beauty of this city, and worked together to save the many priceless works of art and books, which would otherwise have been lost. As a result, very few sustained major damage.

  Three buildings comprise what, to me, is one of the most architecturally stunning squares in the world. Though they were built at different times, their harmony is remarkable.

 

 

  The oldest building is the Baptistery, which was begun in the 11th century, and completed in the 15th. Florentines still bring their children here to be baptized. The Florentines held a contest to see whose design would win the commission to create the doors of the Baptistery. Ghiberti beat out his arch rival , Brunelleschi. It took Ghiberti 28 years to finish the doors, and when he did, Michelangelo pronounced them beautiful enough to be the Gates of Paradise. The name stuck. The originals floated away in the flood, but were saved. The panels on the door today are copies, and the originals are in the Museum of the Cathedral.

 

 

     

These are the fakes ..

 

The REAL ones, and more on Florence