[The following post is from the archives of my In Search Of Incredible blog, originally published on 7 April 2015]
28 October 2014, Tuesday
Day 4 of the trip, and it’s goodbye Rome, hello Florence! This morning, we checked out of our apartment early (we’re always early), and walked a short distance to the bus stop, to catch a bus to Roma Termini train station. Mind you, it wasn’t easy dragging our luggage over the cobbled roads and pavements, all the while trying to minimise the damage to the wheels. So one piece of advice when travelling to Europe: don’t bring your best suitcase along, because the cobbled roads are really bad for the wheels.
For the public buses, tickets are not sold onboard. You’ll have to buy the tickets in advance at a Tabacchi, which means “tobacconist”. A tabacchi is essentially a convenience store selling essential items like bus tickets, cigarettes, postage stamps, phone cards, sweets and other day-to-day stuff. Just look out for a big “T” sign outside the shop. You can usually find them all over the place, so it is not an issue locating one.
Bus fares within Rome city are charged at a flat rate of 1.50 Euros for a Standard Ticket, regardless of the distance. It is valid for 75 minutes on all buses or for one Metro (underground train) ride. Alternatively, you can get a Daily Ticket for 6.00 Euros, valid for unlimited Metro and bus travel within Rome. So on this occasion, we purchased a Standard Ticket each for our bus ride.
The ride took about 15 minutes and we arrived at Roma Termini at 8:20am, way earlier than our train’s departure time of 10:50am (I told you we’re always early). For this trip, I had pre-booked all our inter-city train tickets. We would be catching the Train Frecciargento 9418 to Florence, and the duration is 1 hour 32 minutes. The ticket costs 29 Euros per person. The price of the train ticket fluctuates. The earlier you book, the cheaper it is. Here’s the link to the official Trenitalia website to book train tickets.
The first thing to do when you arrive at the train station is to find the big electronic board that shows the train number, the departure time and most importantly, the platform number. You should also look out for any updates on train delays (more on that when we’re at Venice en route to Milan). However, as we were so early, our train wasn’t even listed on the board yet. Thankfully, there were some shops at the terminal so we spent some time window shopping. To kill time, I bought a copy of Dan Brown’s latest novel, Inferno, which is set in Florence.
After much waiting, it was finally time to board. The train was very clean and comfortable, even better than an airplane. It travelled at speeds of 245km/h and it was very smooth. Before we knew it, we had arrived at Florence. Yippee!
I had chosen an Airbnb apartment that was within walking distance from the Firenze S.M. Novella train station. I had also saved the Google Map in my phone so that I could use it even though I was offline (because I had no data connection). So I was quite confident and led the way after exiting the train station. However, on this day, I was super wrong. We walked for about 15 minutes, dragging our luggage, and ended up nowhere. When we finally asked for directions from a kind gentleman, he told us that we were in the opposite direction of where we were supposed to go. So we ended up walking back to the train station, and decided to give up and hired a taxi instead.
The female taxi driver was very friendly and helped us load our luggage onto her vehicle. She was very warm and made us feel very welcome. After a few twists and turns around the narrow streets, we arrived at our destination. A lady called Cristina, whom the host of our Airbnb apartment had arranged to pass us the keys, met us when we alighted. We apologised for being slightly late but she waved it off and greeted us cheerfully.
Airbnb apartment
Address: Via Ricasoli 8, Tuscany 50122
Host: Katia Toscano
Cost: S$477 for 2 nights, for 3 pax
We took a lift up to the apartment (thankfully, the lift was working) and when she opened the door and we had our first glimpse inside, we feel in love with the apartment immediately. It was very big and spacious, and very clean too. Cristina patiently showed us all the features of the apartment and the wi-fi password (the most important thing), and she saved the “surprise” for the last.
The surprise was of course, the balcony, which had an unbeatable view of Il Duomo. It was simply marvellous and it was even better than what I had imagined. I knew about the balcony view when browsing the Airbnb website, but seeing it in real life was even more splendid. We thanked Cristina for her warm hospitality, and after making arrangements for returning the key upon checkout, she left.
Mum and dad really loved the apartment, and I was happy to see that they liked it. After the small apartment in Rome, this was a big improvement. The bathroom was very spacious and dry (no leaks!), and importantly for mum, the sink area was large enough to put all the toiletries barang barang. We spent a long time taking photos and making ourselves feel at home, literally.
When we finally settled down, our stomachs rumbled and it was time to head out for some lunch. We found a nice restaurant almost right at the doorstep of our apartment block, and decided to give it a try. I ordered a set lunch with salad, spaghetti and a glass of wine. As I sipped the wine, I felt that Florence was off to a good start already.
After lunch, we walked to Il Duomo, and we realised that our apartment was literally a stone’s throw away from Il Duomo. It was less than 50m away, it was ridiculous!
Il Duomo di Firenze, or to give it its full name, Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, was consecrated in 1436, and its famous dome was engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi, one of the most esteemed architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. When the rest of the cathedral was finished, one hundred years after it began construction, it was still missing its dome, and Brunelleschi was picked as the winner in a competition to construct the dome. It was an engineering marvel because no dome of that size and height had ever been built, and the use of buttresses to support the structure had been forbidden.
After the dome was built, the decoration of the exterior of the cathedral was only completed in 1887. The façade of the cathedral is covered in pink, white and green marble. It is a very unique colour and I was instantly reminded of mahjong tiles of the bamboo suit. It was very beautiful up close, and it is certainly the most special cathedral I have ever seen.
We took a walk inside the cathedral and it was nothing like the outside. Where the façade was fanciful and elaborate, the interior was simple, elegant and understated. We also saw the underside of the dome, which was a representation of The Last Judgment. Giorgio Vasari’s fresco begun in 1568 and was completed by Federico Zuccari in 1579. That’s 11 years! I don’t think we have the patience to spend so much time creating art anymore. But that’s the value of art – it lives forever.
After Il Duomo, we headed to Palazzo Vecchio next, which was just 500m away. We soon found out that unlike Rome, Florence is a small and compact city and all the key sights are located close to each other. And unlike Rome, which has a higher concentration of ruins and old buildings, Florence is much more modern. Of course, Rome is the capital of Italy and it is the historic centre, whereas Florence is more of an artistic centre, so it won’t be fair to compare the two. But from our brief acquaintance with Florence thus far, we definitely prefer Florence to Rome.
Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence, but today, most of it is a museum. As I learnt from Dan Brown’s Inferno, Palazzo Vecchio houses the Hall of the Five Hundred (aka Salone dei Cinquecento), which is a huge room used for the Grand Council consisting of 500 members, thus its namesake. We did not pay to enter Palazzo Vecchio so we just snapped pictures outside.
The main entrance of Palazzo Vecchio is guarded by two colossal statues – a copy of Michelangelo’s David (probably the world’s most famous naked man), and Baccio Bandinelli’s Hercules and Cacus. The original David actually stood here from 1504 to 1873, but it was later moved to the Accademia Gallery, so what we have here is just a replica, erected in 1910. Overlooking Palazzo Vecchio is Piazza della Signoria, a huge square and the focal point of the city.
We then walked past Uffizi Gallery towards Arno River. Uffizi Gallery is one of the oldest and most famous art museums in the world. It houses many treasured paintings by great Italian artists like Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Caravaggio. However, we decided to give it a miss.
We walked along Arno River and headed towards Basilica di Santa Croce, the largest Franciscan church in the world. It is also the burial place for Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei, Niccolò Machiavelli and more. We were there more for the architecture, so we didn’t enter, just admiring it from the outside. It was a beautiful chapel, perhaps even more so due to the soft lighting from the evening sun. There weren’t many tourists milling around as well, so it was nice.
By that time, it was around 5pm and the sun was already beginning to set. We traversed through the many narrow lanes, which were filled with interesting shops of all kinds. Florence is famous for its leather, so we also visited several shops selling leather goods, but we didn’t buy any yet. Just look-see-look-see first. It was very enjoyable to stroll at our own pace and pop into any shop that caught our eyes. That’s the beauty of a free & easy trip.
We headed back towards Piazza della Signoria, and then along the main shopping areas along Via Calimala and Via Por Santa Maria. Together with Via del Corso, these are the areas where the big brand name shops and chain stores are found.
At the end of Via Por Santa Maria is Ponte Vecchio, which means “Old Bridge”. It is a bridge across Arno River and shops occupy both flanks of the bridge, consisting mainly of jewellery shops. As I also learnt from Dan Brown’s Inferno, the Vasari Corridor is built above the shops on Ponte Vecchio. The Vasari Corridor links the Palazzo Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti on the other side of Arno River.
After crossing the Arno River, we didn’t venture too far south. We came across a shop selling nice T-shirts and I bought three for myself, all sporting bicycle designs. Mum and dad also bought some. We had a hard time deciding which design to get as they were all nice.
By 8:15pm, we were back in our comfy apartment. I couldn’t stop admiring the view of Il Duomo from our balcony – it was just as beautiful at night, with the dome illuminated by white lights.
It had been a great day in Florence. We absolutely loved our apartment and the city. End of Day 4, looking forward to a day trip to Pisa tomorrow!
