A short visit to Florence, Italy

During my recent trip to Rome, I decided to visit Florence and Pisa for a day. My knowledge about Florence was very limited and the only reason I knew a bit was due to a chapter on “Florence Nightingale” in my school textbook!! Recently, I read the Dan Brown’s novel “Inferno” and my knowledge about Florence had increased to some extent. Having gone through the theory, it was time for some practical stuff and my visit to Rome helped me on that.

Travel to Florence

Florence is about 270km north of Rome and can be covered in high speed train in just 1.5 hours. Since the high speed train requires advance reservation, I booked the tickets 3 weeks before my trip in Trainitalia website (Link here). The sooner you book, the cheaper is the price of the ticket. There is no need to book tickets in advance for regional trains, which are generally slow and has many stops.

I took morning train at 7 and reached Florence at 8:30. The train reached the maximum speed of 250 km/hr. Very comfortable journey. The central train station in Florence was named as “Firenze S.M.N” which could be confusing for some people!!

Duomo 

I had no definite plan in Florence. Being the birthplace of Italian renaissance, Florence is filled with historical monuments and museums. My plan was to just walk and appreciate the beauty of Florence till afternoon. My first place of visit was Duomo, a cathedral that dominates the city. It was just 10 minutes walk from the railway station. People were waiting in the queue to enter the building and the line was longer than 250 meters. I did not wanted to spend my little time waiting in the and hence decided to see it from outside. It is quite a huge building with impressive architecture.

Palazzo Vecchio

I went to see Michelangelo’s “David”, a masterpiece by the Italian artist Michelangelo. But the sculpture that stood outside was the replica and the original is housed in Galleria dell’Accademia, for conservation purpose. 

Uffizi Gallery

A short distance from Palazzo Vecchio was Uffizi gallery, known to be one of the famous art museum. I did not enter into the museum and spent some time looking at the exterior!!

Ponte Vecchio

By then I had reached the Arno river and Ponte Vecchio was visible. It is the oldest and most colourful bridge in Florence, lined with jewellery shops. I heard a guide mentioning that the shops were existing from 15h century!! A very nice place indeed.

Pitti Palace

As I moved to the other side of the river, the roads were less crowded. I went till Pitti Palace which had a nice plaza in front of it. It was already hot by then and I had exhausted the water in the bottle. I was happy to find a water fountain in the plaza. It was also time to have a gelato and walk back to the railway station.

Final words

My visit to Florence was very short. You can spend several days visiting the various museums and art gallery if you are interested in art. The old city is really beautiful.