Hi everybody. What an energetic day. We walked 220 steps down to the town, 441 steps up to the top of the Cathedral tower and down again and, at the end of the day, 220 steps back up the hill. We never did find the right bus stop. I am now sitting under the shade of a tree with my shirt off. The temperature’s about 30 degrees and am I having a well deserved beer.
One reads stories about horrendous queues in Florence and we experienced one. We started out to wait in the queue for The Uffizi Gallery which, as we joined it, was about 100 metres long . There was an initial burst of activity but then no movement for 20 minutes. After fielding a number of proposals which, for a cost significantly exceeding the 11 euro entrance cost, would have enabled us to avoid the wait, we abandoned our interest in visiting the Gallery.
We have no idea how long it would have taken us to get in but people have apparently been known to queue for four hours. You would have to be very keen to see it.
From there we went to the Cathedral where the queue to get in was substantially longer than we experienced yesterday. The photo on the right shows the queue which went almost all the way along the side of the cathedral. Perhaps we were lucky yesterday. In any event, our plan today was to climb the dome or the tower. There was no queue for the tower so up we went the 441 narrow winding steps. Well worth the effort.
From there we headed for The Medici Chapels . On the way, we went into any interesting doorway that we passed including the Basilica of St. Lorenzo. We saw quite a lot of interesting artwork, statues, churches, historical and religious artefacts etc. but with no queues!
We even did some shopping at a variety of street stalls and made a small purchase at one of the Ponte Vecchio goldsmith shops. For something different, we treated ourselves to a horse drawn buggy ride around the town.
The decision is made. Tomorrow we head for Assisi where they have a special 18 euro deal if you email them in advance which we have done. They have plenty of availability which hopefully, from our perspective, means there will be nobody there. From there, we will return the motorhome to Rome on Thursday morning.
As you would expect,Lady Elliot Island is not the only place where golf buggies are used for purposes other than golf.
The sad side of life in Florence. The lady in the long skirt is begging. It is said that they are gypsies about which one is warned with respect to pickpocket activity but we have seen no evidence of it yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment