First foray into Florence

We decided to cut out the detour to San Gimingnano this morning and arrived in Florence around 1pm. Florence was a bit more of a challenge to negotiate through as by the time the GPS had given us the instructions (and this generally involved some really long Italian street name) we could not see the names anywhere and had often gone past. However, with a bit of patience and a few wrong turns we eventually got to our hotel which was very nice. We then spent the afternoon doing some reconnaisance on where things are in Florence so that we are ready for more focussed sightseeing tomorrow. We walked about 20 minutes from the hotel along the Arno river to reach just short of the Ponte Vecchio (which was built by the Romans initally, rebuilt many times and had an upper corridor added by the Medici family somewhere in Medieval times as a "secret" way for the Medici's to get to church and go shopping without being seen). We had lunch at a restaurant just near the bridge (see photo for the view from our table) but think we might have paid 8 euros just for being seated on the terrace!!!! (Not that we asked to be). On the other side is the Uffizi Gallery, currently displaying a Caravaggio exhibition so we bought tickets to go around the gallery tomorrow morning at 9.30 am.

Florence looks like it is a shopping mecca for those who like jewellery, leather goods and fashion. We had an OMG moment when we entered the bridge as there were about 50 jewellery shops in a row that just sparkled in the sun. The shops were reasonably small and used to be mostly butchers shops until the Mediciàs decided that was too low brow.

After getting our Uffizi tickets booked for tomorrow (the queue for getting tickets to get in today was advertised as being up to a 2 hour wait whereas we just walked straight in to book for tomorrow) we carried on another block to see Il Duomo di Firenze (which we will return to tomorrow and David might climb to the top - I might but not sure yet). We strolled around the square outside which was interesting itself and then went into the area where they have the leather markets. This comprises numerous streets of stalls (maybe hundreds, selling mostly leather goods... (eat your hearts our shopaholics) but at some level it was quite overwhelming. So I might return to the market while David climbs the tower and he can then look down on me using the credit card!! By the end of today we were feeling a bit like the guy below.....

......So we returned to the hotel to a relaxing happy hour with free drinks and food and we are now in the process of doing the mundane things like the laundry - this is the first place that has had a laundry onsite so we are making the most of it.

So far - loving Florence!