Another continuation of Florence’s good weather. Can’t believe our luck. I woke up to a good breakfast, Italian again. Whacked the breakfast jialat jialat, or so I thought. Still, I brought some snickers with me. Zhi Xian went for service at the duomo, so there’s just 4 of us left. Supposed to meet him on the northern end of the old bridge.
The morning walk along river of Firenze is simply great. We had not seen such a sun for a long long time, not while in London anyway. Reached the old bridge in a short while. Already, there are vendors selling imitations of Gucci and Louis Vuitton. Soon, Zhi Xian arrived and we crossed the bridge. The bridge’s uniqueness is the presence of buildings on it. As the oldest bridge in Florence, the tourism value had caused the rent of shops on the bridge to rise beyond normal rates. Nowadays, only goldsmiths set up shop there. Beyond the bridge, we decided to reach the hilltop where the fortress was located. 1st in line were the steps, 30 to 40 in all I guess. But that’s not the thrill. Beyond the steps, the streets leading up the hill were simply up sloping. In some places, the angle of elevation went beyond the norm of 5 degrees and we had to trudge up the slope literally. Trees blossoming in the spring lined along the streets, guarded by walls of 2 metre height. Flowers were everywhere, and gives a light hearted touch to the walk, no matter how physically stressed. It’s more like a hike anyway.
Reached the gate of the fortress. It’s opened. Apparently, there are quite some people in there. The entrance into the fortress was like that of a castle. Reminded me of Edinburgh and Warwick castle, where there were obvious horse and wheel tracks. Up in the fortress, the view rivals that from the duomo. The paranoma that spans the entire Firenze city is unbelievable. More importantly, as we walked to the back of the fortress, the landscape changed drastically. From the man-made horizon of straight lines to the random curves of nature, the greenery is a very good alternative to the urban scenes that we are used to. Gardens, forests, hills and even a hilltop castle provides every bit of difference in traveling experience. Fascinated by the castle, I even tried asking working personnel within the fortress about the castle. All I got was that it’s private property and is off bounds to the public. Damnit. What luck.
We lay on the daisy filled pitch on top of the fortress of a moment of the sweet sunshine. It seems as though time should just stop this second and last forever. The carpet feel of the grass and the warm sensation of the sun rays tell me this is close to paradise. But ultimately, we got bored. Tried to take jump shots of ourselves, even resorted to kicking shots. What a laugh. Anyway, we thought we should be on our way. There’s one whole stretch of ancient city walls that we’ve yet to explore.
At the end of the city walls, we climbed up another hundred of steps to reach Piazza del Michelangelo. It’s a tourist hot spot, no doubt. There’s loads of food vans and illegal imitation vendors hawking their stuff to tourists passing by. Here, the view is paranomic like that of the fortress. The only difference is that now we can see the fortress and the ancient city walls from afar. With the sun at an angle, it adds a touch of romance to the place. Then there’s the other statue of David here. It’s copper though, and after years of eroding in the rain, the entire sculpture is copper green. Throughout the journey till now, Janice had bore the front of jokes on statue of David. She is very fascinated by it, for it exemplifies ‘the perfect man’ or so to speak. Not that I would even care about any perfect woman anyway. Anyway, we would point the statue out to Janice every time we saw it, no matter how fake, how unreal or even how disgustingly the sculptors make out of the lower body. Well, just a joke. Janice, keep your cool ok?
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