Florence

Yay…2 nights here 🙂 and we have a lovely place to stay. I just had to add these two photos for fun 🙂

Another ‘must visit’ place. One of the oldest cities in Italy. Thank God for details on photo files though as I have taken so many photos of similar architecture from all over Italy. But Florence is probably one of my favourite cities to photograph.

The Ponte Vecchio (“Old Bridge”) is a medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno River, noted for still having shops built along it, as was once common. Butchers initially occupied the shops; the present tenants are jewelers, art dealers and souvenir sellers. The Ponte Vecchio’s two neighbouring bridges are the Ponte Santa Trinita and the Ponte alle Grazie.

The Bridge really is amazing and usually filled with shoppers and tourists

Looking at the next bridge along the river a bit.

Looking at the Ponte Vecchio bridge from the other side.

Further along the river away from the Ponte Vecchio Bridge

We had lost one of our tour members and were trying to find him. I found him in the crowd!

The first glimpse of the huge building that was amazing!

Florence is the home of the statues of David. With the original housed in the museum which we were lucky enough to have a tour through. There is another in a big square and also another on a hill on the edge of town but this one is in copper rather than marble. I photographed them all.

Ticket to Academy Gallery to see the original David - no photos inside! — Ticket to Academy Gallery to see the original David – no photos inside!

Yes....that's David behind me — Yes….that’s David behind me

We went to a leather shop which sold every imaginable product made with leather. As part of the tour we were shown how they make a wallet and also some of the ladies were chosen to model some of the leather jackets. Now these jackets are fabulous and I would have loved to have purchased one at euro500-1000 and possibly even more!

We were lucky enough to do an extra tour to the hilltop village San Gimignano, about 20 minutes away from Florence. This village is older than Rome itself, built on the 14th century. Talk about architecture that takes your breath away and the view from the surrounding area from the top of the town is amazing. The place is a UNESCO world heritage town, and is considered the medieval Manhatten of Italy die to its towers that dominate the skyline! consequently I took heaps of photos!

For the evening dinner we visited the Abbey Monastry. Four Monks still live at the Monastry but unlike in the past, these monks are able to talk to and see each other. Amazing sacrifice to God I must say! There are little porcelain heads on the top of each column in the middle courtyard and each head is worth millions. After we toured the Monastry we have an amazing meal in the next door building which is where the monks used to make their medicines.