Florence

I was lucky enough to be in Florence for a few days some weeks ago.
Everything you've read and heard about how stunningly beautiful this Renaissance jewel is holds true. Thought I didn't experience the Stendhal Syndrome, I have to admit that my first view of the Cathedral square absolutely overwhelmed me. It was not Brunelleschi's Duomo what impressed me so much (from so near you're not so aware of the size of the dome), but all the incredibly beautiful marble panels (in white, green and red) covering the Cathedral, Giotto's Tower and Baptistery. These marble panels with similar patterns cover other buildings like Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella and San Miniato al Monte, and for me are one of the more distinctive marks of this city.



Well, there are tons of information freely available on the net to help you prepare your trip there, so I'm not going to repeat in my broken English what many others have said much better, so I'll just give a few personal advices.

• Queues: Sure you've read about the long queues for access to the Uffizi or the Duomo, and maybe you're considering reserving your tickets in advance (paying some extra 4 euros I think) to avoid the line ups. The queues seem to be real in spring and summer, but if you go there in December like I did, you'll have no problem at all, in less than 5 minutes you'll be into any of the big attractions, so you can save that extra money for a gelatto or a crostata



• Cathedral's Dome paintings (Vasari - Zuccari frescoes): Yes, everyone has heard about the impressive work done by Brunelleschi building that astonishing dome, but it was the paintings covering it and done one century later what really stunned me. 3600 square meters to represent The Last Judgement, it's absolutely breathtaking, much more appealing to me than Michel Angelo's one in The Sistine Chapel. The lower sections of this representation, full of demons and tortured poor human souls... remind me a lot of Hieronymus Bosch, so that's why I think I felt so moved by this.
  
  
  



• San Miniato al Monte: Well, moving away a bit of the city centre to go to Piazzale Michelangelo (Michelangelo square) is a rather well known activity. The square itself has little interest, but the views of the city from this small hill are really beautiful. The stairs to get up there, viewing an astonishing city from a height on the opposite river bank, all the people gathered there capturing instants for eternity with their cameras... brought to my mind memories from Prague Castle, Budapest castle or Rome's Gianicolo. Well, the thing is that if you climb the hill for other 5 minutes more you get to a small Romanesque church (with one of those dreamlike marble facades) called San Miniato al Monte. Cross the wooden door and you'll enter a dark, silent, lonely, ancient world, overlooked by an impressive Byzantine like mosaic and the mysterious Cappella del Crocifisso. I bet a spiritual person well could have a mystical experience here :-)
  
  
  

In one of my evenings there, when cold and darkness already ruled the city and wandering around the streets was no longer so appealing, I had a look into Palazzo Strozzi, finding a really interesting exhibition, Portraits and Power. Pretty interesting stuff there that kept me busy for more than 1 hour. From all the works displayed there I'd like to specially mention the ones by Rineke Dijkstra, Wang Qingsong and above all The yes men (men, you're brave to confront villains no matter how powerful they are).