Florence was the second city that my husband James and I, and our son Micah & his wife Jancy visited on our trip to Italy in 2018. We stayed at an Airbnb that was mostly convenient, and probably would have been very convenient if we had already known our way around Florence but we spent a lot of time lost and trying to figure out where we were and where our destination was. GPS on our American phones did not work properly on the streets of Florence! It kept spinning us in circles. If we'd had 2 days in Florence we probably would have figured it all out by the end of the second day.
There was a lot to see in Florence, but not much time because it was so congested with people in early May. There were lines at most places and even though I'd bought the Firenze cards that should let us skip the line, there were enough other people who had also bought the Firenze card that we still ended up wasting a lot of time in line. I was a bit frustrated by that, but there's no argument that Florence is a very beautiful place. I had bought cards for transportation also, but we never ended up using them because everything was close enough together that we just walked everywhere. We checked our bags at the train station for the day (which ended up costing 80 euro by the time we picked them up!). We wasted a little time waiting for the TI to open to pick up our Firenze cards so by the time we got to the Accademia museum there was already a long line. Everywhere we went we had to go through security, which wasted time too. But in the end, we did end up visiting every place that I had hoped we would.
We visited the Accademia where the famous Michelangelo statue of the David resides, Baptistry of San Giovanni, climbed the Duomo dome, went on an Inferno Tour of the Palazzo Vecchio (secret itineraries through unmarked passageways), walked on Ponte Vecchio (the most famous bridge in Florence), and visited the Uffizi Gallery. That evening we rode the train from Florence to Rome, but only after waiting in the train station for an hour as our train was delayed. The Airbnb that we stayed at was modern and clean, and the only down-side was that they had advertised having a dryer (not many places in Italy have dryers, they hang their clothes and everything else to dry) and I had planned on doing laundry in Florence. It was so wet from all the rain that we would never have been able to dry our clothes if we had washed and hung them that night. So that was a minor hiccup in our trip, but we were fine.
One of the biggest highlights of our trip was our tour of the Palazzo Vecchio since I love Dan Brown's Inferno movie so much and it was so fun to be able to see the specific places where it was filmed and even follow the secret passageways that they used in the movie. We saw where the painting says "Cerca Trova" in the Hall of 500 and even saw the area above the Hall of 500 where the woman supposedly falls through the ceiling (it's actually a wooden ceiling, not canvas, so she wouldn't have really fallen through). We came out the secret exit onto the street where hundreds of tourists were bustling around. We saw Dante's death mask, which actually wasn't a death mask because Dante was still alive when it was made (but it is really Dante). Not included in the tour, but while we were in Florence we visited the baptistry where Dante was baptized and which was also featured in the Inferno movie. I had already experienced the Duomo climb because I watched a video of someone climbing it before I booked it - I had to be sure that I was going to be able to handle it because of my great fear of heights. I was OK most of the time, until we got to the top of the dome and it was raining and the floor was slippery and I didn't dare go anywhere near the edge. Part of the climb included coming out on the interior of the dome and walking along a ledge that was framed with glass so we could look down into the Duomo. That was a little scary for heights also because it was like we were out in the air of the dome. We came out a level higher on our way down from the dome. The dome climb itself was a little claustrophobic (they warned you about that when buying the tickets), but luckily I don't have claustrophobia so I was OK. It was a work-out. But SO worth it!
The day we toured Florence we walked 10 miles (according to James' watch). James went on a run early that morning and got lost - and didn't have his phone with him and didn't know our address. It was kind of a miracle that he found his way back to our apartment. He said it was an awesome run, though. He ran 7 miles, so in all he went 17 miles that day. For all the rain that we got the night we arrived in Florence, we luckily had a pretty clear day the next day when we were touring Florence. It was fun to see the Duomo and Palazzo Vecchio at night. There was great gelato in Florence also!
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| When we arrived in Florence we went to our Airbnb first and then walked around the neighborhood looking for a place to eat. We found this great restaurant in our neighborhood and also a market to buy our breakfast. It started to rain and we walked around Florence in the dark and rain. We got soaking wet. |
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| This was the living room in the Airbnb that we stayed at. |
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| This is the kitchen of our Airbnb where Micah cooked us breakfast in the morning. |
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| This was our balcony at our Airbnb and the wet sheets that she was trying to dry (that were getting more wet from the rain). |
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| The train station |
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| Michelangelo's David in the Accademia Museum |
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| Everywhere we went was just filled with people. David was totally surrounded by people. It was hard to get close enough to take a photo. |
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| That is the Duomo in the background. |
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| The Duomo |
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| The dome of the Duomo |
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| The view of Florence from the top of the Duomo dome. |
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| The view of the Palazzo Vecchio from the top of the Duomo |
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| The upper level that we walked across on the interior of the dome. You can see the lower level that we walked across on the other side. |
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| We found Rebecca's store a couple times while we were in Florence. |
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| This is looking down on the Hall of 500 inside the Palazzo Vecchio |
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| Ponte Vecchio. There are shops on either side of the bridge. |
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| Standing on Ponte Vecchio |
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| One of the paintings in the Hall of 500 in the Palazzo Vecchio |
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| The ceiling in the Hall of 500 in the Palazzo Vecchio |
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| The views from the balcony above the Hall of 500. The painting closest to the balcony is the one with Cerca Trova painted on the flag. |
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| The round painting on the ceiling of the Hall of 500 is supposedly the painting that Vayentha falls through in the Inferno movie. |
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| This is zoomed in on the painting where Vasari wrote "Cerca Trova" (seek and find) on one of the flags. No one knows why he included this in his painting. |
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| This is the painting. The Cerca Trova flag is near the top in the center and is green. You cannot see it with the naked eye from the floor of the Hall of 500. To see it I had to take a photo of the painting and then zoom in on the photo with my camera. |
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| Looking up at the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio |
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| This is the TI where we waited until 9 am for it to open so we could pick up our Firenze cards. |
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| We saw and heard police everywhere! Ambulances too. |
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| In Italy they don't like to have plain white ceilings. They like to have paintings everywhere including on the ceilings. |
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| Florence was filled with art |
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| I am only posting a fraction of the thousands of photos that I took, and I only took photos of a fraction of the artwork that we saw in Italy! |
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| This is the Baptistery of San Giovanni. It was in the Inferno movie as well. Dante was baptized here, as well as the Medici family and other notable Renaissance people. We had to wait in line a long time to get inside. |
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| The doors to the baptistry |
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| These photos are from our dome climb to the top of the Duomo. |
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| A tiny window from inside the dome climb |
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| Statues along the dome climb |
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| A window on the dome climb |
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| Looking down on the duomo from the dome climb |
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| Micah and Jancy inside the glass cage on one of the interior walks along the dome. |
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| Steep stairs to the top |
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| This is the opening we came out of after our steep climb to the top of the dome. |
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| Going back down |
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| The interior of the dome |
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| Lots of twisty steps on the climb |
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| Inside the Baptistery |
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| The baptismal font |
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| Look at all the intricate carvings on the door |
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| In front of the baptismal font |
Scene from Inferno in the Baptistry of San Giovanni
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| The Palazzo Vecchio |
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| Statues in the courtyard outside the Palazzo Vecchio |
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| Our Palazzo Vecchio tour came with lunch. We had quite the time trying to find this restaurant! Google maps does not work on the streets of Florence when using American phones! |
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| We saw armed military all over the place too. |
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| There were people on the streets selling all kinds of things. |
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| The view from Ponte Vecchio |
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| A model of the Palazzo Vecchio |
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| Lions everywhere |
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| The beginning of our secret itineraries tour we entered through these double doors |
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| One of the secret passageways we went through |
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| Looking up at the bridge connecting the Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi gallery |
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| more secret stairways |
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| The Hall of 500 in the Palazzo Vecchio |
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| Hall of 500 |
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| Going into the area above the ceiling of the Hall of 500. |
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| All of this is still the Palazzo Vecchio |
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| Dante's "death mask" is not really a death mask because it was made while he was still alive. |
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| Beautiful ceilings everywhere |
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| This is the Map Room. In the movie, Armenia's map is a secret passageway in the palace. And in real life it actually is. We went "through Armenia." |
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| Our guide is about to open Armenia |
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| About to go through Armenia! |
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| This is a secret window in Palazzo Vecchio that the Cosimo's mistress used to peek through to watch what was going on in the Hall of 500. |
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| This is a rooftop passageway between two buildings that the women would use to get from place to place. |
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| This is outside the Uffizi |
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| The Palazzo Vecchio and Uffizi are right next to each other. This is out in the courtyard by both buildings. |
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The Uffizi was very extensive with multiple floors and halls and rooms. It took a long time to make it through the whole thing.
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| Uffizi |
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| Some of the delicious food we had in Florence. |
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| This is cheese gnocchi that was very delicious! |
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| I don't enjoy seafood, but James and Micah loved this dish! |
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| The train station in Florence |
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| Our train that will take us to Rome |
Duomo Climb
This is a movie clip from Inferno, filmed inside the Baptistery:
Inferno Baptistery Scene
Here is another Inferno youtube clip that shows a lot of the places we saw in Florence and Venice:
Inferno in Florence
This is another youtube clip and shows the "Cerca Trova" in the painting:
Inferno Cerca Trova
This is a Palazzo Vecchio youtube Inferno movie clip. They are actually in the Hall of 500 for this scene, but they reconstructed the ceiling so that they could walk across the beams. She couldn't really fall through the ceiling because it's made of solid wood:
Palazzo Vecchio Secrets
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