Tuscany

Following the death of my brother, my mum, my sister and I went on holiday to Florence. It was a wonderful trip and helped to calm things down after a frantic couple of months. Florence was at the heart of the renaissance and deeply Catholic, so it's no surprise that we found momuments to the dead everywhere. The trip was inspiring, educational and full of some of the most beautiful art and architecture I've ever seen. It really opened my eyes about the origins of the Renaissance and how it sowed the seeds for the Enlightenment.

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Florence has history going back to the Romans, but the real appeal comes from the mediaeval history, and we spent most of our time soaking it up. The city prospered from the 13th century, with merhcants developing powerful banks, supported by the wool and textile industries. Wealthy families grew in influence (the most infamous being the Medici family), each trying to outdo the others in demonstrations of wealth and power. It was at this time that influence of the Papal states and Holy Roman Empire were slumping, allowing city states to emerge.

As the families spent more and more money on their estates they demanded more advanced techniques in crafts and art. They funded extravagent building programs, glorified themselves with the help of local artists and produced some of the most beautiful art in the world. Much of this is still around today, in the art galleries and on the piazzas.

The Uffizi gallery is probably the most important Renaissance art gallery in the world, home to many famous works of art. We spent a whole day just walking around admiring the paintings and sculptures. Like most galleries, it was laid out in chronological order, and given the number of paintings on display it was easy to see how the styles developed over time. Until I'd seen the Uffizi I'd taken much art for granted and assumed that people had always known what perspective was. Some of the art on display was really quite primitive when compared to more modern art. Seeing the Birth of Venus was amazing.

Piazza del Duomo is Florence's most famous and recognisable landmark, home to Il Duomo, the dome that dominates the skyline of Florence. We passed this every day on the way into the centre of Florence, so we had an ongoing joke that went along the lines of "How do we get to..." "First go to Il Duomo!" It was funny at the time. I think that what really makes this complex special is how it captures the light at sunset. The red tiled dome complements the sunset on the white marble just right. Alongside Il Duomo are the Battistero and the Campanile, which while not quite as impessive do lend to the majesty of it all. (I used to have a three dimensional jigsaw of Il Duomo and Il Campanile, and didn't believe that the colours were really that stark- they are!)

The construction of Il Duomo was a masterpiece of engineering. A dome that large had not been built for several centuries, so many people believed it to be impossible. However, Brunelleschi rediscovered the secret- there were two domes, one nested within the other and this kept the dome standing. Climibing all the way to the top actually allows you to see this structure and it's ingenious. Once at the top the views are very pretty.

There are so many other things to see in Florence, including Michelangelo's David, the Cellini's Perseus and the Palzzo Vecchio, which was just another very pretty palace of one of the wealthy families. Every square inch of the courtyard was decorated. It was very difficult to take it all in.

The River Arno flows right through the middle of Florence (with Pisa downstream) and breaks up the urban sprawl, giving some spectacular views. As the Germans retreated through the area in 1944 Hitler ordered that Ponte Vecchio be left standing, and a good job too! When we were passing the bridge one night there was some international peace festival taking place and the bridge was lit up with the colours of the rainbow (the colours of Pace flag). It looked great against the pastels shades of the rest of the city.

On the other side of the river is Piazzale Michelangelo, where there are glorious views over Florence. We spent quite a while there. However the main attraction on the other side of the river was San Miniato al Monte, an 11th century church at the top of a hill. While the church itself was quite interesting, and the views even better than those at Piazzale Michelangelo, what really kept my interest was the memorials to the dead. There were hundreds of graves packed into a very small area. There was some strange crypt-like sructure where graves were stacked on top of another, most of them with candles and flowers showing that they were well maintained. Outside, some of the graves had ornate statues and sculptures. There were even mausolea stacked side by side, with just enough space to walk between them. Each one was beautifully decorated, but putting them so close seemed awkward and made me feel as if they'd missed the point somewhere. I could have easily spent a whole day just walking around the graves there.

While we were there we enjoyed what was allegedly the world's best ice cream. I don't remember much about it (except it being very creamy and nice) because i was distracted by Santa Croce, Italy's largest Franciscon Church. All of the buildings on the Piazza were beautiful, with frescoes covering the first floor of one of them.

We did so much walking that we had to stop every now and then to rest. One of the places we went to was an Irish pub (why visit a pub after travelling a few hundred miles to get away from Britain?) which sold Irish themed cocktails. One of them was called a car-bomb. Oh, how we laughed. Resting for a bit gave me a chance to see some of the street artists- human statues, pavement artists, people in costume, dancers. There was so much going on that it was easy to miss as we walked past.

I'll no doubt return to Florence at some point in the future and see some of the sights I missed this time round, as well as getting a deeper appreciated of the art. It's an area rich in culture that I'd recommend to anyone, even though the tourism leads to some fairly surreal sights. (Selling prints of world class art on the street as if they were noise makers, covering on the most beautiful bridges in Europe that hosts up-market jewelry stores in cheap, tacky merchandise, peculiar souvenirs such as the Il Duomo umbrellas.)

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We decided after a few days to venture beyond Florence and appreciate some of the other beauty that Tuscany had to offer. San Gimignano was about an hour away by bus and I refused to pass up the opportunity.

San Gimignano is a small town on a hill which for a long time had little value to anyone. Then it became a stopping point for people embarking on pilgrimages. The town grew quite prosperous and two rival families emerged. They built towers to demonstrate their affluence, each trying to build towers higher that could see further and been seen from even further away. At its peak there were 72 towers and tower build was eventually prohibited. Today 14 of the towers survive, giving rise the nickname "Mediaeval Manhattan".

While San Gimignano is very small, it takes all day to explore properly. Mum and I decided to climb the largest towers to get some views from the top. It was a long journey, but well worth it. What makes San Gimignano truly beautiful and not just an curious historical oddity is its location. The views across the town and into the Tuscan coutryside are breathtaking. Since the town is on a hill, when standing on the top of a tall tower you can see for miles in every direction.

Back on ground level we found plenty to explore. There was more Christian art here, except this art dated back to they heyday of San Gimignano, which was the 13th century. (The town suffered greatly during the Black Death of the mid 14th century.) Nearly all the art we saw was pre-Renaissance, and informed what I'd already seen at Florence. This art was flat, lifeless, with poorly-shaped figures and garish colours. The interpretations were very literal rather than symbolic, adding an haunting lustre to the visit. Given that the area served pilgrims for so long it's not surprising that the art features the extremes of Catholic experiences- Mary and Jesus at every turn in garish blue and gold, charicatures of demons and the devil posessing poor innocents. The art in Florence was subtle by comparison!

Piazza della Cisterna is a welcome area of open space in the town that is crowded due to decades of dense over-development. The courtard houses a well (that gives it its name) and is also covered in frescoes. After a while it becomes second nature to expect faded frescoes everywhere, especially at sunset. We were pleasantly surprised to find a museum of torture too. Mum really enjoyed that.

San Gimignano is one of the most peculiar and intriguing places I've ever been to. If you're ever within a couple of hours drive then make your way there, appreciated the Tuscan landscape en route.

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We spent our final night in Pisa. The only reason we stayed there was that we had booked one night too few in Florence by accident, so we decided to spend some time enjoying somewhere other than Florence. There wasn't a great deal to see in Pisa. Obviously there is the Leaning Tower and the Piazza surrounding it. We went there at night and contemplated just how ridiculous it is. The Piazza is beautiful and awe inspiring, but seeing such a tilt on the Tower made everything just a bit surreal.

For those who don't know the Tower started to lean before it was even completed, and Galileo never dropped anything off the Tower, though that does make a nice little story. The rest of the history of the Tower is quite interesting. Mussolini wanted to straighten it out, but ended up increasing its tilt. The Nazis used it as a military observation post and it was considered as a target for an artillery assault by the allies, but luckily was saved from that fate. It was the subject of much discussion and closure in more recent times, as engineers from around the world attempted to make it safe, prevent further leaning and maintain the tilt. After much effort it was reopened in late 2001 with a guarantee of safety for another 300 years. At the moment the tilt is as it was in 1838. (Thank Wiki for history!)

Pisa has some beautiful palaces, just like any other Italian city state, so we went for a walk and saw the riverfront, but it really couldn't compare to Florence. By that stage we'd seen just about as much mediaeval beauty as we could manage.

The chalet site we stayed at had a swimming pool as it was still warm enough to go for a dip we spent the final afternoon relaxing in the water and unwinding. I would have read up the Medicis, but by that point my brain was fried and I wanted to bask in the sun a bit more.

Tuscany is a wonderful place and somewhere I will return to some day. We only got a glimpse of what the region has to offer in terms of art, history, food, wine, culture and sights.

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