In Florence
Walking around Florence’s inner city feels like walking around an outdoor art museum. Every corner, every alley, seems envisioned by some artist, the perfect setting for the birthplace of the Renaissance.
The train station lets you off in the center of the city, within walking distance of many of the attractions. You don’t need, nor want, a car (plus, it makes it easier to get your hands on the sweets that fill the bakery windows).
There are countless museums, churches, and castles to visit, and I was enamored by the works of Michelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael and others. (And there’s a great new exhibit of one of Florence’s native sons, running until August 30, 2009 at the Palazzo Strozzi: Galileo: Images of the Universe from Antiquity to the Telescope. It’s a fascinating look at a time when art, religion and science were once united under one orthodoxy, and the split of the three that ensued after Galileo focused his telescope on the moon in 1609.)
What I enjoyed most was just walking through the city, turning each corner, seeing remnants of time passed. The Piazza della Signoria is the center of Renaissance Florence, and you can imagine how the city clamored forth from here in medieval times. Here is a copy of Michelangelo’s David, Ammannati’s Fountain of Neptune, and Cellini’s Perseus.
And be sure to walk, or take the bus, across from the river from the old city to Piazzale Michelangiolo. There you’ll have a stunning view of the city’s skyline, with the Duomo holding court in the city’s center. Go at dusk, as the sun sets, and the imagination can run free along the skyline, thinking of the giants who walked the streets below centuries ago.
Benjamin Thomas
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