The Creator made Italy from designs by Michaelangelo

♦ April 18, 2013 ♦ Leave a comment

Our first stop in Italy was Pisa to see the famous leaning tower. The leaning tower is a free standing bell tower (campanile) of the city’s cathedral, located in Pisa’s Cathedral Square, along with the cathedral and baptistery. The tower began to lean during construction, which took place in several stages over almost 200 years. The tower has previously leaned at an angle of 5.5 degrees, however this was corrected to 3.99 degrees during restoration work in the 1990s. We had some time to wander around the tower and take some photos, including taking some of the typical “hold up the tower” photos.

After leaving Pisa, we continued on to Florence where we checked into our hotel, The Hotel Arno Bellariva. I found this hotel probably the most disappointing one of the tour. The room itself was a decent size but the bathroom was a nightmare. The toilet didn’t flush properply most of the time, the shower head looked like it was about to fall off the wall and there was no side or curtain to the shower which meant that water ended up all over the bathroom! The wifi was quite expensive and only worked in the lobby and even there it was quite slow and kept dropping out.

After we had checked in and got changed, we headed into the centre of town where we had a quick wander around and got some money out if we needed to before we all headed to Francesco Vini‘s for dinner, one of Lyndsay and Frenchy’s favourite restaurant. There I tried their specialty, Florentine steak, a traditional meat cooked rare which is so tender it melts in your mouth as well as some gelato.

We started off our full day in Florence with a walking tour of Florence with a local guide. We started off in the Piazza della Signoria, one of the main squares in Florence, where there are numerous statues (mainly copies) by famous Florentine artists including Michelangelo’s statue “David”.

We then headed back along the Arno River to the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge) which was Florence’s first bridge across the river and the only surviving bridge from the medieval days. The bridge is lined with many shops selling jewelry. Finally we headed down to the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the main cathedral of Florence. 

Our walking tour ended at a local leather store where we had a leather demonstration. I got to stamp a piece of leather with gold foil using some traditional tools and we were told a few tips to distinguish if leather products were real or fake. There was also a jewelry store in the leather shop, so we did a bit of shopping and then had the rest of the day free.

Nearby there was a shop with lot of wooden carvings and toys where there was a wooden Pinocchio sitting on a bench that we took our photos with. We wandered around town for a while and then headed back to the hotel mid-afternoon to head out to a Tuscan winery for a tour and included dinner. The winery was only small but we were given an overview of how the wine was made and then we tasted some of the wine with dinner.

After dinner we headed back to our hotel, stopping on the way to take some photos overlooking Florence. When we got back to the hotel, some of us went out to see if we could find any gelato, but the couple of places the hotel staff told us about were shut, so we headed back to the hotel, having to wait until tomorrow for our gelato fix.

 

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