Camping in Florence

The view over Florence from Piazza Michelangelo, next door to our campsite
see all photos »

I'd have to say that Florence is one of my favourite cities so far. It is a beautiful Tuscan town, surrounded by hills and countryside.

We stayed at a campsite on top of a hill overlooking Florence, right next to the Piazza Michelangelo. The campsite was surrounded with olive trees and we were able to watch beautiful sunsets over Florence each night. We even saw a couple of fireflys each evening buzzing around the campsite! We met lots of really nice people here too. I would definitely recommend the campsite if you're ever in Florence.

Home of the most famous piece of rock in the world

The Duomo
see all photos »

On our first full day in Florence, we ventured down into the city and started sightseeing. We visited 2 churches, the Santa Maria Novella and San Lorenzo/the Medici Chapels, where we got to see some of Michelangelo's amazing sculptures for the Medici family tombs. We also visited the Uffizi art gallery, supposedly one of the best in the world. We took a guided tour here to avoid the queues, which we heard could result in up to a 4 hour wait. Some of the more famous artworks we saw were Botticelli's The Birth of Venus and Da Vinci's The Adoration of the Magi. We were also looking forward to seeing Da Vinci's famous work The Annunciation, but found out at the end of the tour when we asked the guide, that it was at an exhibition in Japan! We also missed out on seeing The Last Supper in Milan (booked out until August!) and The Vitruvian Man in Venice (didn't realise it was there until it was too late!), so we have really only seen one major Da Vinci artwork while we've been here.

View from the top of the Duomo
see all photos »

On our next day, we started off with a visit to the Duomo (cathedral). The queues to enter were long, so we decided to take the 450 or so stairs to the top of the cathedral. It ended up being the right choice, because we got to view the inside of the cathedral anyway on our way up, and also got to see the amazing artwork on the inside of the dome close up. Plus, the views over Florence were beautiful. That afternoon, we visited some of the Medicee palaces on the outskirts of Florence. We were the only people on the tour, and the palace was closed to the public as they were planning for an event that night so we ended up getting a completely private tour!

Richard climbing up the stairs of the Duomo
see all photos »

On our final day in Florence, we visited the Palazzo Vecchio (a former Medicee palace and administrative building) and the Ponte Vecchio, the only original bridge in Florence that didn't get bombed during World War II. Later on, we visited the Accademia gallery, home of the most famous piece of rock in the world... Michelangelo's David sculpture. We had made a reservation earlier to avoid the queues, so got to go straight in - which was great because the weather in Florence was very hot while we were there. David was incredible. It is absolutely huge and so life-like, right down to the veins on David's arms. I can't imagine how Michelangelo could have sculpted it from one piece of marble, especially as once the rock had been chipped away at, you can't really go back if you make a mistake!