TRAVELS (and more) WITH CECILIA BRAINARD: Travel Italy: Florence Tuscany in September

Florence or Firenze is the capital of Tuscany, Italy, and driving there from where we stayed in Montegufoni would have been challenging. Traffic would have been bad and parking even worse. We decided to take the train. First we drove to Montelupo, a municipality fairly close to Florence, parked our car, and took the short train ride to Florence.

Florence was crowded! I didn't expect so many tourists in September but there they were in clusters trailing behind their tour guides. I was not happy to see them but understood that's the price one pays to see an incredible place like Florence.

Florence is filled with museums, galleries, and churches; and the place is vibrant and alive and exciting. Enough of the historic part is preserved so that one can imagine how the place might have been during the time of Michelangelo or Da Vinci. The "greats" whom I studied walked and ate and lived in Florence -- people like Giotto, Botticelli, Galileo, Dante, and many, many more. Fantastic!

Right there, in the Galleria dell"Accademia stands Michelangelo's famous "David." There at the Uffizi Gallery can be found Sandro Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" and "Primavera" -- images that are familiar to many. The Uffizi also has masterpieces by Giotto, Leonardo Da Vinci, Raffaelo, and so on.

These two pictures by Botticelli are courtesy of Wikipedia

And if that's not enough to impress you, visit the Basilica of Santa Croce where many famous Florentines are buried and be awed that Dante, Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and others are resting right there.

The other places we saw included the Duomo, the Baptistry, the Piazza della Signoria with the replica of "David", and the Ponte Vecchio with jewelry shops that are now so incredibly expensive. (In the past I had bought cameo and gold earrings there.)

One place that was new to us was the Mercato Centrale, the central market, where I found truffles! We had a lovely lunch there.

Another fun thing that we did in Florence was --- and this was just serendipity -- we joined some relatives for dinner. They just happened to be there when we were there.

Enjoy the pictures which show the Mercato Centrale, the Duomo, Baptistry, Ponte Vecchio (the bridge), the clock tower of the Old Palace, Santa Croce, and the relatives. All the pictures are mine, except for the Botticelli pictures, which are courtesy of Wikipedia.

Stay tuned for more about Italy.