After the excitement of visiting Southampton Art Gallery it really is quite difficult to imagine an experience that could put that in the shade. However, our trip to Florence comes close. I do love England, but in November the skies can be very grey; in Florence they are a beautiful blue and that really raises the spirits. Lucy Honeychurch is the heroine of A Room with a View as many of you know, and on her first day in Florence she visited Santa Croce, so we did as well. This lovely church contains some frescoes that were thought to be by Giotto and are now believed to be by one of his pupils. Lucy didn't know which ones they were though, and neither did I. All the same there were many many amazing artworks to look at. Here is a pretty one:
Florence is absolutely brilliant, and one of the really brilliant things about it is that the old part of the city is completely pedestrianized. So we could wander about staring at everything without worrying about being run over. There were some vehicles about, but they seemed to have shrunk in the wash.
The Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, known as the Duomo, is the fourth largest cathedral in the world. St Paul's is bigger, but it doesn't seem it because it is dwarfed by the surrounding skyscrapers - whereas in Florence there is no higher building than the Duomo.
The dome was designed and built by Filippo Brunelleschi. It was finished in 1436 - can you believe it? It is possible to climb the 463 steps to the top of the dome; so we did, because after all that's why we go to the gym everyday. The views across the city were absolutely amazing.
The picture on the left is a close-up of the top of the bell tower, or Giotto's Campanile as it is known. This is pretty high as well, and it is possible to climb up the 415 steps to see the view. However, we decided that we would visit the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo instead. This building was originally where Michelangelo just happened to do a lot of his sculpting work, and now it contains numerous stunning works of art from the cathedral and baptistery. Everywhere you look there are just incredible things to look at. This is one of my favourites, just because he is so cute.
There are also amazing displays of wealth. This artefact is 750kg of silver:
Our trip had got off to a great start - we'd seen works by Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Vasari, Giotto and Jeff Koons! The buildings were fantastic and we walked ourselves to a standstill. Next time I'll tell you about the Uffizi gallery; in the meantime here are some more pictures