Florence to Naples

 Feet, trains, and taxis were a big piece of our day today. We started our day off in the usual way with showers and breakfast.Then it was time to pack up our stuff, check out of our hotel and walk ourselves and our luggage to the train station. It was an easy 15 minute walk. Once there we got tickets for the direct train to Naples, with luggage we are trying to change trains as little as possible, we relaxed in the lounge waiting for our train to arrive.

Once we arrived in Naples, we caught a cab as the app said it was over a half our walk. That was longer than we wanted with luggage in a city we knew nothing about. I was glad as it has major crazy traffic here. I don’t mind the walk, but handling luggage in crowds can be hard. This is the view from our window at our hotel.

We could also see this fortress from our windows. When looking it up, we saw it was open for a few more hours, so that became our afternoon plan. It’s name is Castel Nuevo Museo Civico

It was even more impressive as we walked up to it.

The huge wood and bronze doors were open. The relief work in bronze was very impressive.

Though the doors had taken some damage over time, but for being around eight hundred years old, they were in decent shape in general.

The courtyard had one upper walk way with this giant helmet perch upon it.

So as it gets dark so early anymore, as they are off daylight saving here now, our tour started up on the battlements. Four long sets of stairs up, I am not in stair climbing shape, but made it!

These three shots are from up there to the north over the majority of the city.

As you can see bigger streets, more cars, and it feels crowded.

This a shot from the south side of the walkway. There was a tall wall and this was the best shot I could get of the harbor by holding my phone above my head and snapping some photos. This building is right at the harbor.

This was a shot of the west side of the north battlement at sunset

This is a statue up above the corner tower

I am not sure what this building I could see from the battlements was, but we speculate it might be a castle or monastery

Then it was down under the fortress. The fortress was built in the thirteenth century so it is about 800 years old.

It was not the first or even the second building on this site. About 1200 years ago a monastery stood here in this picture you can see skeletons buried there during that time.

Then in this picture you see the ruins of the Roman city that first occupied this site before the birth of Christ. We were walking on a glass floor which is alway a bit weird for me.

We then travel back up a few floors to the kings meeting room. There was a fireplace probably 10 feet wide by 6 feet tall opposite where the kings throne sat. The domed ceiling was several stories up and had places for archers to sit. The king invited his dukes who were having problems with him for a feast. When they all were in this hall he had the doors barred and archers rained arrows down killing them all.

This door leads into the chapel. Those large stone balls were all around the area. They were cannon ball that were shot out when they were under attack.

The chapel is rather plain now, but I would guess it was impressive in the kings time.

The floor had marble grave cap, one was the first king that built this fortress, I believe we were told.

Up at the front of the chapel this sculptures are still present.

One weird thing that happened when I was first sorting these pictures, all the ones with this statue of marry and child had this strange effect of a light that outlined it in a chasing pattern. When I went back to load them that effect had disappeared. I guess it is Halloween night.

Here is a small piece of surviving fresco on the wall. It looks like at one time most of the walls were covered with murals.

After we’re left the fortress, we stopped for dinner at a restaurant across from this square.

The fountain was lovely.

We walked the couple blocks back to our hotel and I am writing this blog. Naples is nice, but the magical feel I felt in Florence just seems to be missing here.

We will see how I feel after tomorrow.

Florence day 3, changing plans

This morning was another of those set the alarm morning, but we woke up before it went off and just relaxed in bed a bit until it rang

Then it was showering, breakfast and heading out. Today as it was cloudy we took umbrellas 

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We crossed the river on one of the many bridges heading towards the Giardino di Boboli. On our way, this plaque was on a pedestal by the sidewalk. The bright building in the center is Palazzo Pitti, which was purchased in 1550 as the home of Cosimo I de’ Medici and his wife Eleanor as the new Grand Ducal residence.

The gardens we were heading for were part of the estate.

This is the side of the walled estate as you come from the river a couple of blocks away

This is the front of the estate, the ducal home

This this the view if you are facing away from the ducal home near the doors. There is a lot of space between the front of  palazzo and the buildings across the street.

Unfortunately for us the whole place closes down the first and last Monday of the month.

The gardens were supposed to be the ones Versailles gardens in France were modeled after. There was a gate we could peak through to get a couple of photos. This one is of a grotto. It appears they are working on it now

This was what we could see as we peaked the other direction.

There were windows that looked similar to this one all across the front of the build with the difference being this is the only one with what looked to me like a tub with stairs leading up on both sides. No idea what it was but found it interesting.

We spent some time window shopping. Some of the places were not open today. This was a common way to cover the store windows in the area we explored. We did each get a new leather jacket at the store that Dale read an article on. It is a family business that has been around for many generations 

This church I mentioned in my first blog of Florence it is right next door to a lovely restaurant we ate at that first afternoon. We loved there grilled vegetables so much we had lunch there again today

As you can see it is gated off, but I was able to zoom in to get this picture. It is a comparatively simple church for this area

 This is the side street next to the church. We went for a bit of a ramble after lunch

We worked our way a short bit up the other side of the river

From where we were standing I could see one more bridge and the start of the hills and mountains of northern Italy

Then I turned towards the side of the river we were exploring yesterday and found we were across from the way we came out of the Palazzo Vecchio and the Piazzale degli Uffizi, which had all the statues of famous Renaissance people

I am not sure what this is for sure, but I kind of wonder if it was not one of the watch towers as Florence was a walled and fortified city state in the Renaissance time

Another more wide angle look across the river. In front of the Piazzale was the only way I had seem in the old city to get to the river area. It has ramps, a dock area, and even seating like for a restaurant 

This is a look back at the Ponte Vecchio bridge, that dates back to the Middle Ages. The shops on both sides of the bridge  hang out over the river. Nowadays the shops along this bridge are watches and jewelers. Very beautiful gold, precious gemstones, cameos, and old coins made into jewelry. The old part of the city is mainly pedestrian, there are some cars, but almost everyone is walking

This side of river also seems to have some steep places, I would hate to climb these stairs several times a day.

This is a picture back as we crossed the Ponte Vecchio bridge, as you can see people walk on the roads

As we wander another part of the city on our side of the river we came upon another street market abounding in leather goods, scarves and such. It is not just a pedestrian walking area, cars drive on these road too, sometimes, but people seem to have the right of way.

This statue sat at the head of this market.

It is called Fontana del Porcellino, it is said that rubbing his snout will ensure you will return to Florence. Many must want that as his snout is very shiny from being rubbed.

I have no idea what these build are beyond the one on the right is a small local church and the one on the left looks as if it was a fortified home at one time.

We took another excursion across the river and I saw these terraces with roof gardens. I have seen a ton of stone, but few plants. I think there are green spaces, but I also think most of them are behind walled areas 

This is another area a few blocks away

And this is the most greenery I have seen at ground level.

Another snap shot of the shopping bridge from the bridge closer to our hotel. Dale rambled on, but I headed back as my feet had had enough.

As I head back to our hotel I passed another fun door.

Dale got back awhile after me. He said he wandered to the edge of the old city and it changed from mainly pedestrian and charming to traffic clogged, few pedestrians and modern. I am glad I did not go that far. I am enchanted by the old city. 

Tomorrow we will be leaving Florence adventuring to make our way to Naples 

Florence Day 2

 Florence-day 2

My day started much earlier than the day before as I set my alarm. I set it for 9 am, thinking that it would  wake me before I slept too late. Florence summer time zone ended last night here. My phone dropped the Wi-Fi, apparently earlier in the evening, so it did not adjust until I put WiFi back on in the morning. That means the alarm went off at 8am local time, instead of 9am, which was what it was set too. This meant that we had a leisurely time showering and getting ready. We then had breakfast at the hotel, before setting out on the 20 or so minute walk to the museum we decided to visit.

Our walk took us by the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore

We did not go in as where you could get in required tickets, but this is a door into the baptistery 

These beautiful doors are one of the three into the baptistery. The fun fact is these doors’ friezes out of gold and have never been opened. They are truly amazing though.

The churches outside is finished in green and white marble

Many of the building that have ground floor window are heavily fortified with either iron grating or huge thick wood doors.

We reached the place that houses Michelangelo’s statue of David. The line was crazy long wrapping around at least two or three sides of the large block, so Dale pulled out his phone and booked an English speaking tour that was happening in about an hour and a half. After that we walked to their office a block away and found where we were to meet. Then we wandered to fill the time until we were to meet.

This was one of the homes of the Medici family. The family ruled Florence for around three hundred years. They were the bankers for the Popes

This was the church right around the corner from the Medici  house in the above picture. I would guess it was the primary church for the family

A couple of streets away we found the central market upstairs in a building. 

It looked like you could get all your food type groceries there and also have something to eat as well

This is the doors we went in and out of. They had an escalator to take you up, but you had to climb back down regular stairs

In the streets around this building was this huge open air markets. We did a little exploring of them. Florence is famous for many things. Two of which are their goldsmiths and their leather products 

We talked by the Medici church again on the way back to meet our tour just as the bells were ringing the hour. We met our group and proceeded to the Accademia Gallery. It was founded as a school to teach new artist at the end of the renaissance when some of the master’ started dying out. The city of Florence wanted to continue their tradition of supporting the arts. It is still a a working artist academy as well as a museum. It holds many of the music instruments of the Medici family and works of art in various stages of completion by many of the great masters of the renaissance.

This is the original plaster casting Giambologna did before he carved the marble statue. Most of the master carvers did this stage. The one major exception was Michelangelo 

On many of the extremely old painting before and around the renaissance the colors used to paint with were toxic and/or ground powdered stones for the color. The gold is still bright as it was actually golf leaf. These painting were extremely expensive then and now.

This is part of the musical instruments on display. The Medici family had many musicians in it. They are credited with the first “ upright” piano. It is the third from the right. You would have to have tall 

Ceilings to house it

They also had this herdy gerdy 

This viola is an original Stradivari made just by him for the Medici. It bears their crest and the guide said it was valued at 80 million euros. There was also a cello and violin, but due to not having the crest of the Medici family, they are only worth about 1/4 to 1/2 of that. A minor 20-40 million euros each. Even though they are all part of a quartet

This bronze of Michelangelo was made from his death mask when he died at the age of 89.

This is one of the four works in progress they have that Michelangelo was working on at his death.

A sculpture like these would take him between two and three years a piece.

This is the David. It took around three years and was carved out of the only piece of marble Michelangelo did not personal choose.

The detail of the figure is almost lifelike. You can see all the veins, muscles, and tendons of the figure 

The tour ended at the David, but our tickets allowed us to visit a couple of the other areas on our own. This room contained plaster cast various famous artist created to help them sculpt

If you look carefully you will see dots  on the plaster. These were used by the artist to proportion the sculptures if the did them larger or smaller than the casts

We stopped at sidewalk bodega for a bite of late lunch

Another view of the Cattedrale. It really shows the contrasting of white and green marble. The whole complex cover a large square.

Each entrance is different. We loved the mosaic on this one

Here is a view of that door from further back. We spent a bit more time looking at the building this pass

Also Lindt had a store on the corner by the square. I got a couple of bars and a few wrapped pieces to keep me in chocolate

Then we walked over to the Plaza Della Repubblicia, where they have the version of the arc of triumph, large statue on a pillar, and a Merry-go-round.

 There was also an Apple Store on the other side of that arch, so we spent a half hour plus replacing my watch and getting it set up. At least we had stools to sit most of that time

A closer picture of the arch

 Then we were on to Palazzo Vecchio. Dale went through the museum part and climbed the tower stairs yesterday. I was fine to skip that part.

This palace was the home of the head of the Medici family for the three hundred years they ruler Florence as the most powerful family there. This was the strongest ruler in family

It is surround by palazzo, statues, and a huge fountain.

Here is a replica of the David. It is impressive, but not in the same category as the original 

Dale had me go into the courtyard through the doors in the above picture. All parts of it are so elaborate 

Across from the entrance to the palace is an open air sculpture garden. Some are replicas, but some like the far right are the original marble sculptures 

To leave the palazzo you walked down this open air corridor. Their are statues of famous renaissance artist, writers, inventors, musicians, and other very powerful people. Dale joked that the Teenage Ninja Turtles were well represented with statues of each of their namesakes gracing an alcove.

From here we headed back to our hotel. I stayed in until dinner resting my feet, who have become wimps and hurt after a minor five or six mile walk. 

Dale took a break then he put more miles on his feet with a walk to the school of leather-working.

When he got back we went out to a nearby restaurant and had a nice dinner.

This evening I have mostly been working on this blog. It is about time for me to head to bed.

Night all