Our Mid Life Crisis Gap Year: Exploring Florence

We thought we would go for a short walk around where we are staying and see what sights were close by. As it so happens, we are that central, we appear to be close to everything.

We are sharing an apartment with a really nice young couple, Breditz and Nadja, and have a reasonable sized room. The building itself is over 600 years old and looks amazing. Lesley is gradually coming to grips with the stairs that we not only have to climb to get up to the apartment, but hat we have to go up and down just to move through the apartment.

The old stone stairs up to our apartment room

Immediately outside of our building is the Piazza and Basilica di San Lorenzo as well as the leather market. The Basilica lays claims to being the oldest church in Florence (as do a number of other churches in Florence) as it was consecrated in 393AD. Incidentally, San Lorenzo is the patron saint of cooks, so this place has a special feeling for Lesley and her cooking capabilities..... I am starting to wonder where she actually got the idea for the business name of Simply d'Vine Cooking from!

Basilica di San Lorenzo surrounded by the leather market

We had only just left the piazza when we arrived in another, the amazing Piazza del Duomo. The building, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore totally dominates the piazza..the dome is about 114 metres high, it looks incredible. It is so hard to believe this building is nearly 600 years old, however, when we walked around the back and saw all of the scaffolding and restoration work being done you get an understanding why these buildings look so good.

Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore

Just another short walk from the Piazza del Duomo we found ourselves in the Piazza della Repubblica, which has some impressive looking buildings and fancy restaurants.

The Arch in Piazza della Repubblica

You do not have to walk very far in Florence before you come across an amazing looking Piazza, next we wandered into Piazza della Signoria, which arguably is most probably one of the more impressive.

Statues, fountains, buildings...Piazza della Signoria has it all

Here you will find the Galleria dell'Accademia, the museum that contains Michelangelo's statue of David. For cheats there is a replica statue that has been placed outside of the museum in the Piazza, guess which one we photographed!!

The fake David

The fountain of Neptune

Plenty of statues outside of the museum

There are plenty of statues to photograph in a brilliant undercover area at the edge of the Piazza. Only a short distance (again) from the piazza is the much photographed Ponte Vecchio.....so many sights so close to where we are staying, just amazing!