Tuscany

Florence

My two main objectives in Florence were the Uffizi Gallery and the Accademia Gallery, though we also visited the Duomo (a bit dull inside...), Baptistry (which has beautiful doors) & Campanile, Ponte Vecchio (really messy, with buildings built on top of each other and the Medici Corridor over the top of all of them), Piazza Della Signoria (with a group of sculptures on display, including Perseus with Medusa, The Rape of the Sabine and Hercules & the Centaur) and Basilica di Santa Croce (which contains Galileo's, Michelangelo's and Dante's tombs).

The Uffizi has so many wonderful pieces. Many people go to see the famous Boticelli paintings the Birth of Venus and Primavera but I prefer La Calunnia (The Calumny), which hangs between them. It shows an innocent man being dragged by Calumny, Malice, Fraud & Envy to face Midas, who is being advised by Ignorance & Suspicion while Anger, Remorse and Truth look on. Another favourite of mine was the Niobe room. The room itself was awesome as were the set of sculptures in it - the murder of Niobe's 14 children by Apollo and Artemis. Each statue is either running away, pointing at the sky or falling down, having been shot by one of the gods. I also liked the Caravaggios, like Medusa's head on a shield.

Michelangelo carved David out of one piece of marble. Two other masters had tried to use that piece of marble and had deemed it unsuitable before Michelangelo, with the arrogance of youth and talent, decided to give it a go. David is almost the only thing the Accademia Gallery has. Other pieces of interest were the 4 prisoners, which Michelangelo started for a Pope's tomb but never finished.

I had a particularly upsetting experience with gelati in Florence. Having gotten a cone with 3 flavours, it proceeded to melt much faster than I could eat it, which resulted in some of it running down my hand and me having to gulp the rest down as fast as possible. Definitely not the way to savour gelati. Consequently, I got cups with 1-2 flavours from then on, once in Prato and twice in Pisa, which was much more satisfying.

Prato & Villa La Ferdinanda (a Medici Villa)

We stayed in Prato, a town that is 17km from Florence and is the home of Monash Uni's European campus. The green marble that is part of the distinctive banded design of Tuscan cathedrals comes from this area. The Duomo of Prato has a holy relic (snicker, snicker) - a girdle of Mary, which is paraded on an external pulpit carved by Donatello once a year.

For dinner one night, we went to the Medici villa 'La Ferdinanda', a country mansion near the village of Artimino built by the Medicis (Ferdinand I), who controlled Florence and Tuscany on and off for about 300 years from the 1400s to the late 1700s. It is called the villa of a hundred chimneys because of the many chimneys across its roof. We had Tuscan antipasti in the cellars and then dinner in the Hall of the Bear. The typical Tuscan views from the front door were beautiful.

Siena

We took an evening trip to Siena and got there just before the Duomo closed. The inside of this cathedral was our favourite out of all of the cathedrals we visited. It was designed by the father and son combo of Nicola and Giovanni Pisano. It has a fantastic set of marble mosaic floor panels. The gorgeous Piccolomini Library was commissioned by Pius III to commemorate the life of his uncle Pius II, Enea Silvio Piccolomini, and to house his book and manuscript collection. The outside is crammed with statues and sculptures.

We had dinner at a little restaurant just off the Piazza del Campo, where we had the most delicious tiramisu.

Pisa

The Campo dei Miracoli is a really pretty square, home to the Baptistry, Duomo & the Leaning Tower.

The insanity of the Leaning Tower is that it started to sink when they were building it but they decided to keep going anyway. To compensate, they curved it around, banana-like with shorter columns on the 'top side' and longer ones on the 'bottom'. You can see the curve quite clearly.

The Baptistry has the most amazing acoustics. One of the staff stood in the middle and sang notes one at a time. The echo of her notes combined to create a harmony so that it sounded like there were several people singing. A choir would be a real experience.

The Duomo and the Baptistry have pulpits sculpted by Giovanni & Nicola Pisano respectively. Giovanni's one in the cathedral is bigger and better than his father's. He spent 10 years working on it. The coffer ceiling is beautiful, decorated in gold on blue with the Medici coat of arms.

One last comment on Renaissance artists. Everytime Michelangelo, Raphael or Donatello's names came up, I kept thinking of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So much for culture!