December 10th, 2009
Last Day in Florence
We decided to make the most of our second to last day in Florence and we took a walk to San Miniato al Monte, which is perched up high on a hill that gives a fantastic view of Florence. We started from Ponte Vecchio, which wasn’t too far from our Florence hotel and we walked up a steep road, going past the home a Galileo Galilei and then on up to Forte Belvedere. The walk then took us up another steep hill, and them back down again, then up towards the church. Once we reached the top, we were rewarded with a spectacular view of the whole of Florence.
I’m writing this while lying in my hotel room bed, it’s our last day in Florence and it’s just after 9am and I’ve been for breakfast and am ready for another day of sightseeing, but it’s absolutely pouring rain outside! Plus, it’s dark and there’s lightning and thunder. I’ve never seen it rain so hard in my life; the rain’s bouncing off the ground! We were expecting a beautiful blue sky and sunshine for most of our vacation, because this is Italy’s dry season. Hopefully, this will be the only day of bad weather during our trip. So, we decided to stay in the hotel for a while and hope that there would be a break in the weather. After about an hour, the rain was letting up just enough for us to venture out. An umbrella was not what we wanted to carry around with us for sightseeing, but better safe than soaking wet.
Today, we set out for the Duomo, and if it hadn’t been raining, we would have taken the more picturesque route by the River Arno, but instead, we walked through the narrow streets to get as much shelter from the rain as we possibly could without making any shop owners angry. We reached the Duomo at around 11am and due to the rain, the queue was pretty small in comparison to yesterday. We paid 6 Euros entry fee and began the 463 steps to the top. I don’t recommend this climb to anyone feeling tired or under the weather or for that matter, unfit. We were fairly fit ourselves, but we found the step daunting. There are many narrow winding staircases and some steps became more ladder like and you get closer to the top. 463 steps later we were rewarded with a fantastic view of Florence in all directions.
On our way down, we walked round the inside of the Dome again, but this time on a higher walkway. This walkway has the “Last Judgement’ frescoes by Vasari. It began to rain, hard once we were outside to Duomo. We rushed back to our hotel, sopping wet and went straight to our room. Time to pack and head off to Siena!
Related posts: