Florence

07/06/2010

Catherine stayed with her family in Florence when when she was 5 and, as we pulled into Camping Michelangelo, she commented, 'I'm pretty sure that this is where we stayed last time'. I don't know how she can remember back that far. I can't even recall what happened this morning. Anyway, she's going to ask her Dad to confirm.

The campsite is set on a hill overlooking Florence and we trekked down a long staircase and steep road to get into town, all the while dreading the climb back up later. We wandered around for a while just sightseeing, including Dante's house, and went inside the Duomo, the latest in a long line of impressive churches that we've visited. We had a bit of a hunt for some of the gelataria that were mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide and popped into the tourist office for a better map. In a stroke of good luck, we noticed a sign there indicating that there was free entry to the Accademia this evening from 8pm to 11pm. The Accademia doesn't have much in it except for Michangelo's David. So we went back to camp, labouring up the hill, had dinner and headed out again for the Accademia at about 8:30.

The gallery had hardly any people in it so we didn't have to jostle our way in a huge crowd to see David. In fact, for a few minutes I was able to sit down and just enjoy looking at it with just me in the room. For me, this was one of the highlights of the trip so far, if not the highlight. David is a lot bigger than you expect and is just amazing. Much more than made up for having to tackle the hill twice in one day.