TripTracker.net - Western Europe 2010, Exploring Florence

Prologue: Tribute to the SWC South Africa 2010!D-Day: A beginning Eastfield to Istandbul: Grumpyness at 30000ft Turkish shuttle Istanbul by day Istanbul by night Long walk to freedom Lisbon walking tour Discovering Lisbon Exploring Sintra Fado’s night out The rain in Spain falls mainly on my brain A day in medieval Toledo Madrid on a Sunday Flamenco por una buena causa To Barcelona Barcelona! Barcelona!Gaudi in the morning Olympic in the afternoon Chilling in Barcelona La Rambla To Nice A Nice night Relax, take it Eze Monaco in an afternoon Chilling in Nice To Venice Our first day in Venice The attempt at Venice night photos The second day in Venice The last night in Venice The Farewell Frenzy in Firenze Exploring Florence Conquering the Dome Conquering the Torra Lucca, I am your father Picnic in Pisa A day in Pisa When in Rome…Ancient scorching Rome Welcome to Naples (and its crazy traffic)A day in Capri Ancient scorching Pompeii To Santa Fortunata Chilling in Sorrento Back to Rome Aida and the catacombs The Vatican in a flash The End

jnroux

Western Europe 2010

Exploring Florence

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Jul 6 2010, 06:19 PM

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Traveler

jnroux
Somerset West, South Africa

Journal

Location

Florence, Italy

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For our first day in any city we just like to walk, and walk, and walk… this day was no exception. The first building that we came upon was Cappelle Medicee and the second was Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Viore which has the biggest dome in the world! The cathedral is really magnificent and in contrast with the others that we’ve seen, green and red marble were also used. The resulting structure is very impressive, colourful and with a high attention to detail. In front of the cathedral we found the Battistero with beautiful golden doors, known as the paradise doors (this name is contributed to comments that Michelangelo made about the doors). Many claim that the competition held to design these doors marks the start of the renaissance era. From there we walked to the open air museum where a replica of the David statue is on display (the replica is situated where the original stood). We then reached the river Arno and saw the beautiful Ponta Vecchio. Unfortunately the sun was not in a good position to take nice photographs and, of course, they were busy with restoration of the bridge! We then walked home and stopped at De Spar for lunch and bought 8 croissants, ham, cheese and juice for 10 Euros. When we got home we found out that the croissants were too sweet, the ham too smoky and the cheese tasted like soar-cream… not a good way to spend R100. However, what followed made up for the bad supper. We walked out into the square where we lived and a guy invited us into their restaurant for a drink while watching the soccer (he recognised my Bafana Bafana jersey). Inside we sat at the bar with the locals and had Birre Moretti (the local beer they had on tap) while watching the Ollanda – Urucry game in HD on Sky Sport. The beer was delicious and Holland won, the night was perfect.

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	50. The End Jul 17 2010, 05:26 PMCape Town, South Africa4 photos Our flight in Istanbul was delay by 1 hour and 45 minutes AND our aircraft dated out of the 70s. No in-flight entertainment, warn-out chairs and very shaky (physically shaking) overhead compartments. Regardless of these things, we were still going home and it felt good. There was a lot of Afrikaans...

	49. The Vatican in a flash Jul 17 2010, 09:56 AMCape Town, South Africa11 photos For our last day in Rome we decided to visit the Vatican Museum, since we did not get to visit it during our previous trip to Rome (refer to Journal entry 41). Fortunately the closest Metro to the Vatican was also on our Metro line and we were “there” at about 8:55. We then stood in the longest...

	48. Aida and the catacombs Jul 16 2010, 02:46 PMRome, Italy9 photos Our first mission for the day (besides the getting to Rome part) was to see the catacombs and the second to watch Aida at the Baths of Caracalla. On our way to the bus station we saw our first accident in Italy (really a surprising first considering the way they drive). I heard a hard sound and...

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