Prossima stazione...: Firenze

Everything starts here, at Porta Nuova station in Torino

Culture is like jam: the less you’ve it, the more you spread it (French expression)

I could tell you how much Firenze is beautiful, tell you who built that building, painted that painting and sculpted that sculpture, speak about the story of Firenze, the Medici and a lot of other academic and tourist things.
But I won't do it, simply because: 1) I don't know who built/painted/sculpted that building/painting/sculpture, 2) you (and me too)'ll get quickly bored.

Maybe, the main (and hopefully true) things that I remember about Firenze are:

it’s a city that was very important during the Renaissance (14th-16th centuries) ; the currency from Firenze was used all over Europe ;
this is the city of the Medici ; even if Firenze was supposed to be a republic, it became more something like an oligarchy/monarchy controlled by this family of bankers ;
all the important families of Firenze ordered paintings, palaces, sponsorised the building of the churches, etc. to show how important they were (today, they’d buy big cars and houses) ; this is why Firenze is full of beautiful buildings and masterpieces

For more information about Firenze, you can have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence.

According to me, the greatest thinh of Firenze is that, contrarily of other tourist cities and places, there aren’t some spots with nice buildings and other things to see. No, the entire city (at least the centre) is beautiful! You can walk in the centre of the city and discover wonderful buildings, fountains, palaces, bridges, sculptures, churches, towers, etc. It’s a bit like if you were living in the city 6 centuries ago (of course, you’ve to disregard the cars and Vespas).

The hostel

Fortunately we (Pierre, FX and me) went in Firenze during a non-tourist period. So, it was quite easy to find a hostel in the centre of Firenze. The best way is to look on Internet (www.routard.com, www.hihostels.com,…). However, there were already quite a lot of other students, mainly from Japan, USA and Great Britain when we arrived at the hostel.
The hostel was really nice, well located and not too expensive (21€ by night, breakfast included). Moreover, all the walls of the hostel were covered by signatures, drawings and messages from the previous customers. It gives to the hostel a nice and characteristic “design”.

Some drawings are fabulous...

One of the corridors of the hostel...

For the scientists...

Firenze by day

Panorama of Firenze with the Duomo, the Palazzo Vecchio and the Ponte Vecchio

The same panorama, but you can keep it as wallpaper!

Panorama with the Arno ; Ponte Vecchio on the left

Another Panorama with the Arno

Piazza Santa Croce

Ponte Vecchio

Piazza something...

The Duomo

When the Duomo was built, it was the biggest dome in the world

Palazzo Medici

Palazzio Medici (you can notice that some houses where quite nice to make big parties with a lot of guests...)

Inside the Palazzio Medici

Palazzo Pitti

Boboli's garden (garden of Palazzo Pitti)

Panorama from the Boboli's garden

Piazza della Signoria

Palazzo Vecchio

Like a museum in open air... I let you imagine all the Japanese toursit making pictures of themselves with some sculptures in background (ad looking ultra serious)

Sculptures

The David of Micchelange

Persee with Meduse's (you know, the girl with snakes instead of hair) head

Bouh, you're ugly! Bacchus, god of wine

Some personal thoughts about the museums

During our trip in Firenze, we visited some museums, buildings, etc. We visited mainly the
Galleria dell'Accademia (4 hours!) and the Palazzo Pitti.

The problem of those museums is that they’re really too big, and there’re too many things to see. So, at the beginning, you looked at all the sculptures and paintings, but at the end you go quickly through the rooms, trying to find ASAP the exit. It’s like an overdose of paintings!

My second thought about those museums is about the paintings. I think there is a second hint meaning of most of them. There’re a lot of paintings where all the people look sad, even if they should be happy. For instance, several paintings represents the birth of Jesus, and a lot of people are around him (Marie, Joseph, some angels, and other people). All are sad, like if somebody was dead, while they should make a big party to celebrate it!
Some other pictures are quite gore : Jesus on the cross, one Saint with arrows in his body (and looking like normal, if nothing happened), another Saint taking a plate with her nipples (also looking fine), etc.
Thus, in conclusion, I made a theory about that: there’s a second hint meaning of those museums; there’re like an horror gallery, to divert and make afraid the children visiting them with their parents. It’s like the haunted house in Disneyland but from the Renaissance.

Firenze by night