Florence

Rose window of Duomo... ...the entire façade is dedicated to the Mother of Christ

Rose window of Duomo… …the entire façade is dedicated to the Mother of Christ

Dates visited: September 14, 2004 – September 15, 2004

We travelled from Paris to Florence in little over 12 hours in an overnight train. I loved Florence and we visited it primarily for the Galleria degli Uffizi (Uffizi Gallery), Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze (Gallery of the Academy of Florence) and Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower) aka Duomo.

  • Galleria degli Uffizi (Uffizi Gallery): No pictures are allowed here, so unfortunately my memory of seeing these fantastic paintings is fading over time. Botticelli’s Birth of Venus is one of the star attractions here, along with Caravaggio’s Medusa and Sacrifice of Isaac, Leonardo’s da Vinci’s The Annunciation, and Raphael’s Madonna of the Goldfinch.
  • Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze (Gallery of the Academy of Florence): No pictures are allowed here either but who can ever get the Michelangelo’s David out of their memory? I wasn’t expecting the marble statue to be 17 feet tall, but it speaks volumes for David’s determination to take on Goliath.
  • Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower) aka Duomo: I had read about the Duomo in one of the thriller novels by James Hadley Chase so I had some frame of reference. However, the beautiful architecture was no match to what I had imagined. The elaborately decorated façade of the basilica has to be one of the most striking I’ve ever seen. This cathedral, along with Battistero di San Giovanni (The Florence Baptistery) and Giotto’s Campanile (bell tower), is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Comments

comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *