How's it gonna be? (Florence)

And so begins our last full day in Florence. Tomorrow is a transit day to Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre. Looking forward to the seafood and swimming. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The day stuttered to life at 2:46am. Unimpressed, we were woken to the sound of our buzzer. I know Zoe had left her sunglasses behind but suspected it was not her wanting to collect them. I staggered to the bathroom and peered through bleary eyes down onto the street. The stalls had all gone for the night, but there were a number of groups of young men wending their way home after a night of revelry. Clearly one of them thought it would be amusing to ring the buzzer of a random apartment. In Australia he would rightly be referred to as a "dick".

The day finally commenced with breakfast at 8:30 in Mercato Centrale. The food and coffee there is seriously good, as was the wine we sampled last evening. However, they win no prizes for efficiency. They have baristas working both ends of the bar and the cash register is centrally located. You are supposed to know, presumably by osmosis, that you order at the register and then they will direct you to a barista. This morning I was sent one way and our coffee was made at the other end. Whatever. It's Italy.

The central courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio

The Palazzo Vecchio and the Museum Del Bargello were the targets for today. The palazzo was the former town hall in its heyday and has the tallest tower in Florence. One curious little tradition that is worth a mention: if you thought politics was a suitable career choice, you spent 2 months locked inside the town hall once you were elected to ensure no outside influence impacted on your vote. Mind you the rooms were, as you would expect, palatial.

We climbed the tower first. It was an excellent view and certainly rivalled that of Piazzale Michelangelo. There were 233 stairs to the top but that was after you had already climbed to the base of the tower. Photo opportunities were limited at the very top because the parapet around the edge of the wall was cordoned off - except for one area where they invited you take a selfie. Sadly dear reader neither Jayne nor I have had a lobotomy so a selfie was out of the question. 

The level below the top is where photographs could be taken between the bars. I'm sure you would realise dear reader that I am not a happy camper when faced with a steep drop to certain death. Vertigo is more than just a scary Hitchcock movie. Normally with a wall between me and oblivion I would be fine, but the floor sloped towards the abyss. I thought of Third Eye Blind and the line from How's it gonna be? "the soft dive to oblivion". 

The tower is the tallest in Florence but this was not always so. Florentine families used to display their wealth and power by building tall house towers - until the Medici family decided to move from their original palazzo of four storeys to this one so they could oversee the democratically elected government (read replace) because they knew better what was good for Florence. This tower and its buildings became the Palazzo Vecchio - the  new Medici residence and as such had to be the tallest tower in the town so other prominent families were told to knock as many storeys off their towers as was necessary to make them lower than the Medici tower.  Hmmm ... thinking they would have got on famously with a present day tower owner in the U.S. ...

We wound our way down to the top level of the palace museum and thought we would begin our tour there and work our way back to the ground floor. As you would expect, the ceilings were adorned with marvellous images and the walls of the great hall had paintings the length of each side wall. Some of the rooms contained period pieces as well, beautifully crafted cabinets with semi-precious jewel inlays.

Wall art.

The decorations are stunning and this doesn't do it justice.

Check that out Michelangelo.

We were out by 11am and went in search of the Museo Del Bargello. It resembled the Palazzo Vecchio but on a smaller scale. I was going to write: like Magellan we circumnavigated the building, but upon checking my facts I see this is another myth I was force-fed in primary school. Much like the stories around the white occupation of Australia, the Magellan story is a little short on truth - he died before the job was complete. So, much like Juan Sebastian Elcano (google him), we circumnavigated the building in the company of some other tourists, to find ... no open doors. Back at the door with the posters we see that museum is closed on the second and fourth Sundays of the month. Hmmm, random, but we had checked the guide. On closer inspection the times in the guide are listed next to a white square or a black square. The black square means closed. Traps for young players.

That meant it was time for a beer. Yes dear reader it was still early but there was a Kiwi at the Mercato Centrale who had a beer at 8:30 when we were getting breakfast. He was probably drinking to drown his sorrows after the All Bleaks failed to win a second test match in succession. 

I wanted to have a beer in the Piazza Del Repubblica where all the designer stores are and all the beautiful people go to be seen. We made our way to Gilli where one can relax in a lounge chair and drink a 9€ beer that you can pay 4,50€ for elsewhere. Ah, no. To the other side of the piazza, 4,90€ but they weren't open so we went next door and sat down content that we were not being ripped off. Until the menus arrived that is, yes, my perceptive reader, it was 9€ a beer. Jayne was keen to leave, reminded of the ridiculous price of a coke on the Champs Élysées, but I wanted to people watch for a while so we paid the price and enjoyed being choked to death by two young smoking tourists. You wouldn't get away with it in Australia, smoke-free air is something we take for granted.

I can't look at the river without thinking about the 1966 flood.

A random doorway around the corner from the apartment.

It was still too early to go back to the apartment so we looked at our map to see if there were any areas that had been identified as places of interest that we had not yet visited. There was a recommended gelataria on the other side of the river near Santo Spirito so that became our destination. The gelato was lovely and cooling on another hot day. Worth the walk? I don't know, I'm not a gelato afficionado. And then home, out of the sun, to regain our strength for the final  Florentine evening's festivities.


This afternoon concludes as a black armband day for Australian cycling as Richie Porte crashed in the TDF and was taken to hospital.

We returned to Fuoco Matto for dinner. The waiter recognised us and welcomed us back. On top of the free prosecco and focaccia we also received some pizza bread and salad. The food was, once again, sensational. We had a tasting plate of ham and pecorino cheese to start followed by pizza and pasta. The guy at the table next to us was discussing having a T-bone steak so the waiter brought the steak up for him to look at ... all 1.3kg of it. A massive amount of meat, which scared our would-be meat eater into changing his order to a pizza.

We stopped in at the wine bar at Mercato Centrale on the way home and were recognised there too. Lucky we are leaving tomorrow, I think we are getting a reputation. The night finished with Zoe and a couple of Cointreaus around the kitchen table. Tomorrow it's farewell to Florence as we head to  the coast and Riomaggiore, one of the Cinque Terre towns.