Creative Musings

Up above the city overlooking Florence there is a large Piazza, devoted to Michelangelo with one of the replica's of David as it's mascot. As you can guess, it's called Piazza Michelangelo. The other day we decided do one of the walking tours from our Lonely Planet guide book and decided on the "Sunset Views & A Country Mile". Except that it was more like early afternoon views, and it ended up being about a 3k walk. Since it was ice cold outside, we took the bus up, and walked down.

To give you a nice idea of how cold it was here, I was wearing long johns and tall socks under my pants, a tank top, long sleeve shirt, super warm Italian Sweater (which is backless but still is really warm), my puffy coat and gloves. After we got walking we did warm up, but when we sat down for a break it got cold again.

From Piazza Michelangelo you have a beautiful view of Florence and of the surrounding hillsides. From there we walked down the windy road that surprisingly has a lot of car traffic. We took tons of pictures and had a nice leisurely walk. After a while we stopped for a snack and sat on a bench that had a beautiful view.

After a while of walking down this street I figured I should look at the map to make sure we were going the right way. It just so happened that the place where I stopped was right in front of the side street that we needed to turn down! From here we didn't have any more country views, but it was very fun none the less. This road, got continuously narrower and narrower. Also, the sidewalk was about a foot and a half wide, so whenever we heard cars speeding towards us we had to plaster ourself against the stone walls. These stone walls happened to be on both sides of the road, and were probably 7-8 feet tall.

We ended up walking down past Fort Belvedere, which is directly behind the Boboli Gardens (which are behind the giant Medici palace, Palazzo Pitti). At this time we were getting into a more residential part of town, and eventually ended up at the Ponte Vecchio. It ended up being a gorgeous afternoon, and what a way to spend it!

There are 5 other walking tours in our guide book that we plan on taking ourselves on ranging from specific areas of town, to the Last Supper trail, and Cinema Scenes. I hope you like my photos from this day! Check them out here. I will be posting another album of more artsy photos like the one below, from the walk for you to check them out if you are interested!

Labels: Arno River, Florence, Piazza Michelangelo