Baron in Italy, Tue, 17 Dec 2019 | written by Jemma
Jemma and Simon at a City, Museum, Temple, UNESCO site in Europe, Italy

Another delicious lazy morning with waking up in a proper bed! We were clearly super tired from traveling and didn’t get up until 10am, but headed out for sightseeing soon afterwards.

Florence is so full of amazing things to see, I was feeling quite concerned about getting distracted and wasting time on ‘random’ churches. However, I was made to eat my words – Simon asked if we could quickly have a look at a church just around the corner from our airbnb (Basilica di Santo Spirito), and it turned out to house Michaelangelo’s crucifix!

We crossed over the river, with great views of Ponte Vecchio. Then had a quick look in the Bascilica di Santa Trinita (no Michaelangelo’s here though), and walked to Piazza della Signoria. There are so many amazing statues in this piazza, including some that are Roman, a copy of Michaelangelo’s David, a couple of amazing Giambologna sculptures, and Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Cellini.

Next, we visited the town hall, Palazzo Vecchio, situated on Piazza della Signoria. This was only meant to be a quick visit, but we left 3 hours later! It had so many rooms to see with great interiors and amazing artworks. We also climbed the tower and had amazing views of the city.

Simon had a work call at 3.30pm and I wanted to have a little wander around shops, but we met up again at the Palazzo Pitti at 5.30pm. This was another amazing palace with sumptuous rooms and lots of great paintings. So many by Raphael (a dime a dozen) – as if they had too many and had to hang them high up on the wall just to find space for them.

We really needed more time for this palace as we hadn’t seen everything when we were kicked out at 7pm. We were pretty tired though, so we had a quiet night in the airbnb and did some work prep.