A magical Meditteranean vacation - the Italy road trip COMPLETED - Page 28 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Everyone is saying stunning...we definitely need more adjectives!! Breathtaking!!!!
Time to get the thesaurus out then...
Quote:
I just love the statues! They are just so majestic and the details are just amazing!! I could probably just stare at them all day!
Hey those guys look familiar!!! My Uncle Mikey was a Franciscan Monk and he dressed like that every day! His priest name was Father Jean-Marie but we always called him Uncle My-My. He married all of us kids and their parents and baptized every one of us and our kids! In fact when he baptized me some 50ish years ago, we used my Latin name, Aurora. So I told my daughter that I have the same name as a princess instead of Dawn!!!
Those were two great meals you had in Florence and you certainly can't beat the value! Who'd expect that in the centre of the city!
Great photos from the Ponte Vecchio and of the River Arno and the beautiful architecture surrounding it!
Your segway tour is off to a nice start and what a great time to do it, just before the sun is setting, with all the beautiful colors and shades on the buildings!
Hope you're having a great time in DLP!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Those were two great meals you had in Florence and you certainly can't beat the value! Who'd expect that in the centre of the city!
Great photos from the Ponte Vecchio and of the River Arno and the beautiful architecture surrounding it!
Your segway tour is off to a nice start and what a great time to do it, just before the sun is setting, with all the beautiful colors and shades on the buildings!
We're back from Disneyland Paris, so let's get this trip report back on the road again!
Thursday 17 July – part nine: out on the road with cars…
We headed up a street to see the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, which was home to the Medici family for 100 years from 1444. We learnt about the family crest – see the balls on the corner of the wall of the photo below? That’s it, and also how they put out seating joined to the palace at ground level to show how kind they would be, giving everyone somewhere to sit.
Then we headed over to see San Lorenzo church, with Cosmo Medici, the first of the Medicis buried below it in a pillar, so that he’s holding up the rest of the family, who are also buried here. It was their parish church, and apparently inside it’s very lavish, although the façade was never completed (are you seeing a pattern here? ). As we stood there looking at it, I felt it was a shame we hadn’t taken this tour the night before, as I think it would’ve given us more places I’d have wanted to see today on our walking tour.
Then we headed back to the Duomo to see some photos outside it…
… before heading over to the Piazza della Repubblica. Here our guide showed us this model of Florence, explaining where we’d already been, and where we’d be going on the rest of our tour.
He explained how this area was revamped when Florence became the capital of Italy, as it was previously a very nasty area of the city with prostitutes and they didn’t want that feel now they were the capital…
We then headed down an actual road, which is used by cars…
… before stopping at Palazzo Strozzi, which we had seen earlier. The others headed inside, but we took the opportunity to have a break, and I really needed to sit down, as I was getting very tired, and we were only about halfway through the tour.
From here, we headed down to Piazza di San Trienta or square of the holy trinity, so named for the church here…
This square also has a column, commemorating one of Cosmo’s many victories, which was apparently made by the Pope in Rome and was shipped up here – no mean feat!
From here, we headed back to the Mercato Nuovo, which was good, as I’d realised earlier that we’d missed the boar statue that’s here. It’s called il porcellino, which means piglet (oh boy! ) but it’s really a boar, and it’s a 17th century bronze statue that’s a copy of an original Roman masterpiece that’s in the Uffizi. There are various superstitions about this. One is if you rub its nose you’ll return to Florence one day, according to my guidebook, but our guide also told us that if you can get a coin into the fountain by dropping it by its mouth, that’s good luck. I wasn’t sure about the details of that, so I may have that wrong, but anyway, Raleigh managed it, so apparently he’s due some good luck!
I also got some general shots of the marketplace, now it was all quiet…
As we left, we saw various tourists actually climbing on the boar. Oh boy!
Next: who am I to pass up a photo opportunity of a butt?
You ended up with a great time of day for that tour. Just light enough to see everything with some daylight, and just dark enough for some lights to be on for some ambience.
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Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
You ended up with a great time of day for that tour. Just light enough to see everything with some daylight, and just dark enough for some lights to be on for some ambience.
It was a great time of the day to do the tour and I'm so glad we took it.
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The segway tour looks so interesting, and as others have said, you all had the best time for it. I can't believe someone was climbing on the boar, just silly and foolish.
The segway tour looks so interesting, and as others have said, you all had the best time for it. I can't believe someone was climbing on the boar, just silly and foolish.
Sadly, as I think we all know, there are lots of silly and foolish people around.
Thursday 17 July – part ten: who am I to pass up a photo opportunity of a butt?
From here, we headed back to the Piazza della Signori, and it was so nice to see this after dark. It still looks just as beautiful.
We then parked our Segways up, and were able to wander around for a few minutes. We were told to go and look at the backside of Cellini’s bronze statue from the 16th century, as apparently the artist engraved his initials on the back. Well, I was darned if I could see them, but heck, who am I to pass up a photo opportunity of a butt?
I also got some other, slightly more steadier after dark shots here…
We got back on our Segways, seeing our friendly server from earlier, who was a bit shocked that we were out on Segways, having drunk a fair bit earlier…
We were going to go down this medieval alley off Piazza della Signori next…
…. and this is where I got into problems. Up until this point, I had had no issues at all with my Segway, and I had been loving zooming around. Well, I zoomed off on this section, and I think it hit the speed limiter, so I tried to slow it down, but nothing seemed to be happening. I think this also coincided with it hitting some bumps, as the cobbles weren’t exactly even here, but I was really freaked out, and just couldn’t slow it down, so I ended up yanking my stomach muscles to pull it back, which really hurt. By the time we got to the Uffizi, I was really shaken up by the whole thing, as in all the tours I’ve done, that’s never happened to me, but I felt really out of control on the thing, and it wasn’t a pleasant feeling at all.
We heard about the Uffizi, while I sat down and tried to recover my nerves a bit…
… then we headed over to see the Ponte Vecchio at night. Wow, what an amazing sight – and one you could never see on a cruise.
We made our way back, and headed off again, and the rest of the way, I took it very carefully on mine, and started to lag a way behind the others, although Raleigh was very good at always staying with me, so I was never the last.
We stopped here to see one of the markers of the flood of 1966. It’s basically the white line above his head – I also did a close-up, so you could see which one it was.
Then we headed over to Santa Croce, which dates back to the 13th century and has the tombs of Michelangelo and Gaileo, although our guide told us that Michelangelo had declared he didn’t want to be buried in Florence, and was buried elsewhere, but I think it was the Medicis who paid his nephew to bring the body back.
Our next stop was the Bargello, which was once the city’s prison, but today is home to a museum of sculpture.
We then stopped by the House of Dante, which is a museum devoted to his life, although our guide told us there’s no evidence linking Dante to this place. Sounds like Juliet’s home in Verona…
We then made our final stop for a gelato, and by now, I was so exhausted a) from my chronic fatigue (it was past 10:00pm, which is very late for me and I’d done a lot of standing), b) my stomach muscles hurting so much, c) being so freaked out by the earlier incident and d) the insect bites on my right leg. I can’t remember if I’d mentioned these before, but I ended up with four all close together after dinner last night, and now it felt like my body was fighting the infection from those, making it very tough to walk, as I felt like my right leg had a lead weight around it. Note: as I add the photos into this, it’s late October and only yesterday I had a massage and the woman who did it asked if those were still the bruises from the insect bites she could see on my leg…
We finished up our gelato, and headed back to hand our Segways back. Don’t get me wrong, I had thoroughly enjoyed this, despite my little incident, but I was absolutely beat now. Mark suggested getting a taxi back to the hotel, which sounded good, but I just knew we wouldn’t see one, and of course that was the case.
We walked back very slowly, with me really dragging and feeling every single step. It’s been a long time since I’ve walked so slowly anyway. I only got these two photos on the way, which shows you how bad I was feeling…
I really wasn’t in a good way. I made it back, and literally crashed into bed the second I entered the room.
The weather today was very hot and sunny with temperatures in the mid 90s. The best thing today was our wonderful dinner. The worst thing today was the incident on the Segway and how totally exhausted I was by the end of the night. The funniest thing today was Mark and how much he was enjoying himself on the Segway! Today we tried visiting the Duomo And the result was it was beautiful inside and I’m glad I got to do it. The most magical moment today was seeing the Ponte Vecchio at night.
Next: “I guess we’re out of historic Florence now!”
That was a really long tour, holy cow! And at the end of the day, while beautiful with the lighting, that's a lot of standing! Glad you got to see as much as you did though, especially the bridge at night. Beautiful!
__________________
Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
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Who'd expect that in the centre of the city! 
). As we stood there looking at it, I felt it was a shame we hadn’t taken this tour the night before, as I think it would’ve given us more places I’d have wanted to see today on our walking tour. 
) but it’s really a boar, and it’s a 17th century bronze statue that’s a copy of an original Roman masterpiece that’s in the Uffizi. There are various superstitions about this. One is if you rub its nose you’ll return to Florence one day, according to my guidebook, but our guide also told us that if you can get a coin into the fountain by dropping it by its mouth, that’s good luck. I wasn’t sure about the details of that, so I may have that wrong, but anyway, Raleigh managed it, so apparently he’s due some good luck! 
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