Italian Renaissance Road Trip

Recommended days	7
Budget	£
Difficulty	Easy

“Welcome to Italy, please wait 20 minutes for the baggage handlers to finish coffee before we can deal with your luggage. Feel free to use this time to stock up on change for the €20 of tolls on your drive to Venice. You may also wish to buy sunglasses for your night time drive as no one here knows what dipped beam is. Finally, did we forget to mention that most of the drive there will be road works and contraflows?! Arrivederci. ” What an excellent introduction to our Italian Renaissance road trip.

Venice: St Mark’s Square

Due to flight schedules and charges for returning the hire car to a different destination we flew to Pisa then drove to Venice. It wasn’t a fun drive and we arrived at 2AM to our hotel on the mainland.

We were still able to leave the hotel about 9 to catch the bus and then water bus to St Marks Square before climbing the Campanelle for the views, luckily it had a lift so Deb didn’t have to climb a spiral staircase!

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Venice: Doge’s Palace

From the bell tower we walked through St Mark’s Square and did a tour of the Doge’s Palace – stunning. Although I can’t forgive Venice for sacking Byzantium in 1204 their architecture and synergy of eastern and western designs is superb. The prison and armoury were also impressive, with a particularly vicious chastity belt! Nice cafe too!

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Venice

Outside we then ambled through the streets with narrow gaps between the buildings, huge number of designer shops and centuries of ambience. Venetian architecture is just glorious and it is a tourist city for a good reason. The main streets are busy but there are usually parallel streets or alleys that are a lot quieter.

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It is certainly a city that is very weather dependent, both ecologically with the damage to the lagoon from global warming and photographically – in cloud the city looks grimy and dull but with blue sky and sun it really shines. The day ended with a massive thunderstorm that meant we got soaked despite my unerring sense of direction, I surprised myself when we arrived where I intended!

Florence

Well, after a lovely drive in the rain we arrived from Venice to our hotel in Florence, the Hilton Garden Inn just outside the centre. A quick sort of our stuff and freshen up and then we headed in to the centre to meet Zeynep.

The afternoon and evening were spent ambling around, choosing where to see on the next day and eating gelato. Interspersed with coffee stops. The weather was a bit drizzly but we had a pleasant time.

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Florence: Duomo

The next morning was an early start (oh joy!) and we looked at the cloud covered hills from the breakfast terrace…… We met up before 9 and started with the Duomo, the amazing dome of the cathedral of Florence that you can climb for views and masochism. Debbie managed the climb, despite both spiral staircases and people coming down whilst we were going up. The views from the top were ok and the fresco inside the dome roof was impressive.

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After this we had a well deserved snack stop and then climbed Giotto’s Bell Tower, this time Deb stayed on the first floor which was wise as the staircase was both narrower, steeper and busier with 2 way traffic.

Florence: Santa Maria Novella

The views were suitably worthwhile though. We followed this by, a snack stop – well guessed! The next major attraction was Santa Maria Novella church and cloisters – a huge building with some amazing artwork and religious story telling.

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We then ambled through the town in the drizzle, I failed to get Debbie to choose a new pair of boots for walking in. A proper Italian lunch was then in order, cold meats, stunningly strong cheese and then ravioli. I then failed to get Zeynep to buy a beautiful coat so I gave up on shopping and had a gelato instead.

Florence: Cafe Gilli

After more wandering we had some Moroccan tea and profiteroles in a glorious cafe (Gilli – the oldest in Florence) before heading back to the hotel. Waddled may be a better word!

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Florence: Fort Belvedere

Sunday was another early start but at least we could see blue sky at breakfast! It was relatively quiet when we met Zeynep and ambled across the Ponte Vecchio towards Fort Belvedere. It was quite a steep climb but the views were worth it and there was also a modern art exhibit there that was quite interesting. It also had a very good cafe where, like half of Florence, they were playing Queen!

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Florence: Ponte Vecchio

From here we walked back down the hill then up the other side to Piazzale Michaelangelo, which was well recommended but was actually crowded, touristy and tatty and had worse views than Belvedere. We didn’t even stop for a gelato and instead headed back across the river, finally bought Debbie some boots and then we stopped for a well deserved lunch. After that we went to our respective hotels to get sorted for Z’s birthday dinner.

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After a few days in Florence we wanted to venture out of the city to see some of the Tuscan countryside. Sadly Zeynep was not able to join us as she has work tomorrow suppress chuckles here so we had a late start to the day and headed out after 10AM.

San Gimignano

I selected the ‘No toll roads’ option on the sat nav so we could head out on the smaller roads rather than motorways. Some of the roads were interesting but generally it was pretty easy and the first sight of San Gimignano was impressive – medieval skyscrapers!

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We parked outside the town and walked in, with a million other tourists. How selfish of them! We climbed the Torre Grande (a mere 216 steps) for some incredible views and then looked through the museum there before lunch. A very different pesto lasagna was eaten whilst looking at blue skies and hiding in the shade. Which makes a change from 2 days ago looking at grey skies and hiding from the rain.

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We ambled around the town (Debbie loves it when I want to just amble!) and then called in to the archaeology museum and the pharmacy museum, which also had a strange modern art display upstairs. A quick diversion to look at Monteriggioni (another fortified hilltop town) and then we headed back to Florence before I fell asleep at the wheel!

It was lovely to finally see some countryside and it was as expected, rows of dark cyprus trees, rows of olives and rows of vines framed with a radiant blue sky.

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Pisa: All the sights

After a leisurely breakfast we headed to Pisa for our last day. We parked up and walked the short distance to the Field of Miracles, along with most of China and India ….. The three main sites are all concentrated here, as are the fake sunglass and watch sellers and fake charity collectors.

Some amazing sites but we were a bit blase by then and could have left after an hour but ended up being here for 7 hours and indulging in 2 gelatos due to flight times!

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A week that managed to see a lot of the glories of the Renaissance and three of the major Italian cities (or two plus Pisa anyway) that had such a big influence on Western history. It probably could have been done by train but having a car allowed us the freedom to see some of the countryside of Tuscany. An easy trip but a great experience.

2015