Day 19 - Sunday 25 September - Florence

Slept til about 6ish. But not great sleep so still tired. Breakfast was good again.

We got back from breakfast and looked out the window and it was all blue skies and sunshine. WTF?? The forecast was for clouds all morning and showers and a thunderstorm in the afternoon. So at 7:45 I'm like we need to be at Piazzale Michelangelo NOW. So finished getting ready and raced down to get bus tickets and then raced across the tracks to the other one cause the first one was broken, and then raced to the bus stop. Only to find it was a 24 minute wait til the next bus. Gah!!! I could just see clouds coming over in that half hour to ruin my chance at photos. So the bus came right on time, but then part way along it just stopped and the driver got out and opened up the back then went back to his seat and turned the engine off. WTF??? I had visions of being stuck in the middle of nowhere, or having to wait ANOTHER half an hour for the next bus. Gah!!! But then he started up again and off we went. It was 9:05 by the time we got to Piazzale Michelangelo. But at least it was still mostly sunny. So I did get some better shots than yesterday.

Consolato Generale degli Stati Uniti

Parrocchia S. Frediano in Cestello over the River Arno

Pescaia di Santa Rosa

Florence from Piazzale Michelangelo

Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze

Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Frenze - Italy's largest national public library

View towards Forte di Belvedere

Ponte Vecchio

Palazzo Vecchio

Catterdrale di Santa Maria del Fiore

Me and Mum at Piazzale Michelangelo

Bronze statue of Michelangelo's David

We decided to take the bus back down the hill (since the tickets are valid for 90 minutes). But while the 12 seems to go one way, it doesn't seem to go back, only the 13 does. So waited for that. Fortunately didn't have to wait too long. That bus dumped us nearish the station, so went back to the hotel to pee.

Cool door knocker (??) on Palazzo Magnani Feroni I saw from the bus on the way back to Florence

Next up we headed out to go see the Duomo Museum, which we had tickets from yesterday for. It was interesting enough, with various sculptures and art works from the current and the previous cathedrals. Super annoying to navigate though - there's numbered rooms which is good, you follow the sequence of numbers, but there's groups of rooms all over the place and no logic to the flow and not enough maps to figure it out. Super dumb. My favourite thing was probably the video they had on the design and building of the cupola. And there were free toilets.

Eastern end of Florence Cathedral

Reliquary of the Passion (Cross of the Grand Duchess)

Reliquary of St Peter's Chains

Cast of Vatican PietÃ (1498-99) by Michelangelo

Bandini PietÃ (from 1547) by Michelangelo

Sculptures in Museo dell'Opera del Duomo

Jeremiah (1427-1436) by Donatello

Hall of sculptures

Architectural model of the dome of the cathedral and of two tribunes

Architectural model of the lantern of the dome

One of the options for the facade of the cathedral, by Giovanni Antonio Dosio

One of the options for the facade of the cathedral, by Accademie delle Arti del Disegno

View of Florence Cathedral from the museum

Silver Altar: with twelve scenes from the life of John the Baptist

The head of John the Baptist being presented to Herod

Choir book featuring Judith with the head of Holofernes

Northern door of Catterdrale di Santa Maria del Fiore

Headed back to the hotel. It was well after lunch time but we didn't find any inspiration on the way back. Mum wanted a crispy chicken burger from Burger King so I looked it up and sure enough there was one at the station. But fifteen minutes of walking around the station do you think we could find it?? In the end asked someone. Expensive burgers too :( The lunch we had in Pisa was cheaper.

Chilled out for a bit, then went around the corner to put on some washing. Mum stayed with the washing while I tried to do some computer stuff.

All done, back to the hotel to chill for a bit.

Me enjoying a beer on the balcony of our hotel room

And started getting organised for Rome tomorrow. We had a look at what things we might want to see, based on what the tours we're doing would be seeing. And then I tried to find out all the details for the night tour we're doing tomorrow night. Except TripAdvisor never actually provided any details. There's no details online. In fact all TripAdvisor says is "Traveler pickup is offered. The pick up location of the guests is their Custom Accommodation in Rome City" and "Hotel pickup is offered. View the hotel list on our checkout page to see if yours is included among the pickup points." but there's no link so I've literally got no way to organise it. In fact TripAdvisor is so bad there's no way to contact them at all other than a phone number in the US. So I tried to call the company directly, but my phone still won't work here to make calls and I have no idea why. It could be it's getting confused with the esim, but I tried different settings and they wouldn't work. Then I tried the hotel phone but they don't allow external calls, so went down to reception and they called but it was too late and after hours anyway, so left a message. Maybe they'll call me back. I also left a message with them online. Sigh, this is not the sort of drama I need. I actually considered cancelling altogether. I guess this is all my fault for not being organised enough to contact them sooner. Sigh.

So then we went out to find dinner. We tried the Chinese place we'd seen near the hotel. We sat upstairs but the table next to us was BLASTING crap off their phone and we couldn't think straight. So we went back down to see about takeaway, but one of the tables downstairs was also blasting the whole area with crap off their phones. Not to mention most of their menu was unavailable anyway. We still got some spring rolls and chicken wings takeaway but my brain was fried and I stood on the street having a meltdown.

Sigh.

And the spring rolls were pretty awful anyway.

Sigh.

Europe 2022

Day 19 - Sunday 25 September - Florence

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