Six centuries of art in one morning

Pitti Palace

Street signs by Clet

Clet's shop

Over excited about Florence

Michelangelo's carving

A typical day driving in an Italian city, people all over the road

A typical day driving in the Italian countryside

Our last day in Florence dawns sunny and bright and we are off across the Ponte Vecchio for a quick breakfast and be ready at Pitti Palace when it opens at 8:15am.  Thankfully there are no queues and we go straight in. Then we follow the not so sensible signs to the start of the gallery. We start off with a new exhibition of life and death with works by a variety of artists, from different centuries exploring the meaning of the soul.

Now the fun begins as wind our way through the palace built in the 1400’s for the Pitti family. Each room has amazing treasures of art, as we wind our way through I get more and more amazed by the beauty, intense colours and famous scenes. I have to say this is much better than the Uffizi art works (thanks, Amanda B for the tip). There are paintings, massive tapestries, marble tables and everything else imaginable. Years ago I read a fascinating book about the Medici family that commissioned or collected most of these works and it is quite wonderful to see the actual collection in the flesh. Next visit to Florence will include much more time here and the gardens as well.

Next stop on our centuries of art tour is to negotiate our way to the Oltarno district to find the store for Clet, the street artist we have been following everywhere. Last year on our Seven noses of Soho tour in London. We had seen an example of his work. Throughout Florence we had seen lots more of it and when researching places in Florence last night we found a page that explained who he was and that he had a shop. We tracked down his shop address and now it is time to find it. Armed with tourist map and a sense of adventure we dodge, buses, motorbikes and every other imaginable vehicle as we make our way along the river and arrive at the little corner shop. Alas it is closed (as expected) but we still enjoy our photo frenzy and feel like modern day adventures who have made a big discovery.

Our driver Sue is leaving soon, so we quickly step our way back across the river to search for our next secret Florence location, the profile carved by Michelangelo. We arrive at the spot and within seconds eagle eyed Jane has found it. We get all excited and all the other tourists are looking at us trying to figure out what they are missing. One of the stories about this carving is that Michelangelo was walking through the square and someone he owed a lot of money was locked in the stocks, however he was to be released soon. So Michelangelo did a quick portrait of him so he could be remembered there forever.

Half and hour to go, time for a quick trip up to the Duomo for some more photos. Oh there is a shop, wow, colours, wow, stationery. I ask what is more important photos or shopping. Jane screams shopping and in we go like kids in a candy store. We shop up a store and Fabriano is now our favorite shop in Italy.

A truly memorable morning.

Now for part two of the day, we get to the car and Gina the GPS leads us out of Florence and back into Tuscany. Without too much grief we wind our way to Cortona, another lovely little village. This is where Frances Myers wrote Under the Tuscan Sun and its easy to see why she feel in love with this area. Next stop is our final little town, by this stage I am thinking not another little town. We approach from the mountain below and negotiate to a parking spot, not an easy feat in Italy. This town is different all the stone work is a lovely soft grey, not the dirty colour of other towns. Everything is clean and well maintained, the people are calmer its all quite different in Assisi. I like this place.

After another excellent dinner, with a small detour for shopping at 11pm at night its back to our monk like accommodation for a good sleep.