Europe Weekender - Italy3 - Florence

The traffic in the main road was blocked and we saw a huge demonstration escorted by Police (with helmet, shield and baton) ! What a welcome !

We quickly cross the road, got off the road to the cut roads, and walked to the hotel. It was a small hotel in 2^nd floor, run by a family. Checked in, left our luggage and came out. It was getting dark.

Walked back to the station, the demonstration has passed peacefully and life is back to normal. Had a coffee in one of the shops there, and then started our walk through the heart of the cultural part of the town. First to reach, was the Duomo (Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower), a building made in 15th Century. The exterior of this building made in Gothic style, is faced with marble panels in various shades of green and pink bordered by white. This building as well has a baptistery and a campanile. This three buildings together standing in the historic centre of Florence, are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The whole place looked like an old World by itself… narrow streets, old buildings, stone paved roads…. It was still reasonably crowded, minvan-like buses plying around, which are the best possible public transport in these streets…

I felt it very similar to my experience in Udupi, where it is a normal town except you enters the heritage part of it! There, it is narrow streets, cows walking along with you…I felt that I am here on a pilgrimage!

But for Pranav, it was a hard day. He was getting really frustrated, started crying out of the extreme protest…And we were just getting helpless. We had just begun and this guy is not cooperating ! We at last settled him for a MacQueen magazine, after a reasonable amount of protest had already shown.

We walked to Piazza della Signoria. It is an L-shaped square( J ) in front of the Palazzo Vecchio (Old palace), the town hall of the city. This square more gives a feel of the Italian art with a dimly lit open museum with Michelangelo’s David, Hercules and Cacus, Perseus with head of Medusa, the rape of the Sabine woman and many other beautiful sculptures and the Fountain of Neptune in the middle of the square.

Then, it was time that we were also getting tired. We were planning to walk back to the hotel, and were planning dinner in one of the restaurants we had found in the street nearby. Time was around 7:30.

But instead of heading back, we took a wrong turn in the narrow maze, and were in another wonderful square, Piazza Santa Croce! This is another historic square in Florence, overlooking Basilica of Santa Croce; this is the place where famous Italians Michelangelo and Galileo are buried.

The square in front of the Basilica was full of chocolate stalls, a complete festive atmosphere. There was so much of variety in chocolates! Pranav was not keen, or rather his interest was focused on the candies, and he picked only the ones which has gelatin, specifically pork gelatin. I agree kids love it and he is no exception, but I take it as I have no other choice than to say no. We had to walk back quite quickly to the restaurants we were planning to have our dinner, as we saw many of the restaurants were closing by 8.

We had, again Penne Arabiatta and Italian pizza at a very traditional looking place, with wooden oven. Wood was cut beautifully and arranged all over to almost look like the restaurant has wooden walls J.

I was feeling like going back in to the Duomo square and just spend more time walking in these narrow streets, but my legs were not cooperating. We were back in hotel around 9:30 to end a long and hectic day.