Independent wandering in Florence

[recker]

We're hopeful that some past cruisers who have been to Florence can help us.

 

We're docking at Livorno on May 31. The only "must sees" in Florence on our list are the Duomo and David (already have reservations!) -- which will likely only take us 2-3 hours. We'd like to fill the rest of our time just being able to wander in neighborhoods or areas that have some local character, whether or not there are any tourist "must-sees" nearby. It's not that we have any illusion that we can see the "real" Florence in just a day trip, but some of our best traveling experiences have not been traditional tourist attractions.

 

We have a good map and have researched guidebooks, but it's hard to discern from a guidebook what might be a good "wandering" area. Ideally, we would find an area with interesting architecture, narrow streets, more locally oriented businesses, and slightly smaller crowds. The worst case scenario would be fast-food joints, acres of leather shops, throngs of people, and shopping that can be found at any upscale American mall.

 

Any past visitors that can give us some recommendations? Our best candidates would be the Santa Croce area or the Oltrarno west of Santo Spirito, but we would welcome input from any who's been there.

[carlmm]

I would have suggested the Santa Croce area. This is were the "small" people used to live and where you can still find some more "locally oriented businesses, and slightly smaller crowds". Yet this implies of course that it is not the area with the most famous architecture.

 

If you like to know how life of the working people of Florence was like 60 or more years ago, there is an interesting book by Vasco Pratolini "Il Quartiere" which plays in the Santa Croce quarter. I do not know if it is available in English.

[Nonna and Papa]

When we were in Florence, we crossed the Ponte Vecchio and wandered through the Oltrarno area. Because the day was so clear, my husband wanted views overlooking the city. We walked up a steep hill, lined on both sides with charming houses attached one to the other. At the top of the hill, we came upon Fort Belvedere, a former Medici fortress. This isn't mentioned in too many guidesbooks, I don' think, probably because there's not much too see at the Fort anymore. But the views over the city were unbelievable. The gardens of the Fort backed up to the Boboli Gardens.

 

So, if you're interested in something off the beaten path, this is a suggestion that we're happy not to have missed.

 

Mary

[cruisemom42]

I second (or third) the Oltrarno area. Lots of interesting streets to wander and shops with individual craftsmen, etc. It also tends to be a bit less crowded with tourists. You get the feeling that this is still a neighborhood, not just a destination.

[NYC2FLA]

We're hopeful that some past cruisers who have been to Florence can help us.

 

We're docking at Livorno on May 31. The only "must sees" in Florence on our list are the Duomo and David (already have reservations!) -- which will likely only take us 2-3 hours. We'd like to fill the rest of our time just being able to wander in neighborhoods or areas that have some local character, whether or not there are any tourist "must-sees" nearby. It's not that we have any illusion that we can see the "real" Florence in just a day trip, but some of our best traveling experiences have not been traditional tourist attractions.

 

recker...Have you made arrangements to get to Florence from the Port? And, if so, may I ask who/what you are using to get there? We too would like to do Florence on our own since we'll be there on a Monday ( Museums closed ) we thought we might wander as well.

 

PJ and Amy

[Jade13]

We're hopeful that some past cruisers who have been to Florence can help us.

 

We're docking at Livorno on May 31. The only "must sees" in Florence on our list are the Duomo and David (already have reservations!) -- which will likely only take us 2-3 hours. We'd like to fill the rest of our time just being able to wander in neighborhoods or areas that have some local character, whether or not there are any tourist "must-sees" nearby. It's not that we have any illusion that we can see the "real" Florence in just a day trip, but some of our best traveling experiences have not been traditional tourist attractions.

 

We have a good map and have researched guidebooks, but it's hard to discern from a guidebook what might be a good "wandering" area. Ideally, we would find an area with interesting architecture, narrow streets, more locally oriented businesses, and slightly smaller crowds. The worst case scenario would be fast-food joints, acres of leather shops, throngs of people, and shopping that can be found at any upscale American mall.

 

Any past visitors that can give us some recommendations? Our best candidates would be the Santa Croce area or the Oltrarno west of Santo Spirito, but we would welcome input from any who's been there.

 

 

I haven't been in over 20 years but am going back this summer. Just fyi, I heard from our driver this morning. He is recommending that we skip going into the Duomo because the line is at least 45 minutes in the high season (may be not in May) in a lot of heat. Only fyi, that half of group has been there before, and we are going to Pisa that day as well as have reservations at the Accedemia, Pitti Palace, Synagogue and Medici Chapels.

 

Also, I noticed that a lot of tours go to see the famous (Bapistry?)doors in the Doumo, but I understand that they are a reproduction and the originals are in the Duomo museum across the street.

[Nanatravel]

Recker, let me know what you find out about this area. We have reservations at the Accademia for 11AM. Going into Florence by PCL Transportation on our own. Do you have other site reservations?

 

Nanatravel

[JPO]

If you have any interest in science consider the History of Science Museum. Lots of neat stuff like Galileo's telescope, experimental devices etc. As I recall, we found it because the line at the Uffizi Gallery was very long so we wandered past Uffizi to the river and turned left ... after about a block we headed back away from the river and there was the museum.

http://www.vacationidea.com/florence/history_science_museum_florence.html

[Nonna and Papa]

Just a small clarification about the bronze Baptistry doors. They're not IN the Duomo, but outside in the Duomo piazza. The Baptistery is a separate building. I'd hate for you to spend time looking for them in the wrong place. :)

 

The Ghiberti doors are probably the ones most people are interested in. They are the ones which depict the Gates of Paradise, in 10 large squares. And yes, they are a reproduction, since the original doors were damaged years ago.

 

Mary

[KnoxvilleSam]

Just a small clarification about the bronze Baptistry doors. They're not IN the Duomo, but outside in the Duomo piazza. The Baptistery is a separate building. I'd hate for you to spend time looking for them in the wrong place. :)

 

The Ghiberti doors are probably the ones most people are interested in. They are the ones which depict the Gates of Paradise, in 10 large squares. And yes, they are a reproduction, since the original doors were damaged years ago.

 

Mary

 

The original baptistry doors were moved to the Duomo Museum (behind the Duomo) after the flood in Florence in 1966. That Italian name of the museum is Museo dell'Opera del Duomo.

[katie26]

hi guys,

 

thnaks for all the advice as we are also there on a monday. How did you get from the port to the city? i seem to recall reading somewhere it is walkable btu can you advise?

 

thanks

[Welshlady]

The quickest way is by train, journey time about 1hr 20 mins. The trains are fairly frequent from Livorno and returning again in the afternoon. The trains go via Pisa so quite easy to stop off at Pisa if you wish. We're planning on getting to Florence first, spend a few hours wandering, then stop off at Pisa on the way back if we have time. The train fares are really cheap and times etc. can be found on http://www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html

[katie26]

Thanks- is the station in Livorno near the port ie walkable distance and is the tower far from the station in Pisa?I have been looking at the RCCL tour but this sounds manageable if i can get a handle on the trenitalia web site! As we are there on a Monday when some things are closed I am loathe to book one of the full scale tours.

[carlmm]

Thanks- is the station in Livorno near the port ie walkable distance and is the tower far from the station in Pisa?

 

The station in Livorno is too far from the port to walk. The best way to go is by taxi.

The tower in Pisa can be reached in less than 30 min walking. Too far for just a look at the tower. Taxis and buses are available. In my opinion the additional travelling time is too much for seeing both Florence and Pisa inone day. Pisa itself deseves a day at least, Florence of course weeks.

[Welshlady]

Yes, the ship's tours are expensive. We're not really interested in the museums just want to wander and enjoy the architecture in Florence. If we have time left then we will stop at Pisa on the way back, it's only 15 minutes on the train from Pisa back to Livorno but then you need to allow time to get a taxi back to the ship from the station. All things you need to take account of!

[Nonna and Papa]

You can walk from the train station in Pisa to the Campo dei Mericoli in 15 - 20 minutes - just follow the crowd. Most of the attractions you'll be interested in, are in this grassy area, and are well worth seeing.

 

Mary

[Jade13]

The original baptistry doors were moved to the Duomo Museum (behind the Duomo) after the flood in Florence in 1966. That Italian name of the museum is Museo dell'Opera del Duomo.

 

Can someone clarify if the Bapistry doors or Ghiberti doors are in the museum? So, both in the Duomo are not the originals, correct?

 

I think people are going to see the Ghiberti doors.

[cruisingmimi]

Does anyone have taxi driver info or bus transportation from Livorno to Florence/Pisa? My friend is looking to go there on the Millie in July. The ship is offering transportation only to both places but no guided tours. I saw a hop on hop off bus for Florence on Viator website but don't know where you'd get it. Plus you need to get from the port to Florence. Anyone know how much a taxi ride would be from Florence and/or Pisa?

 

Thanks so much.

 

Mary

[bdwyer]

Can someone clarify if the Bapistry doors or Ghiberti doors are in the museum? So, both in the Duomo are not the originals, correct?

 

I think people are going to see the Ghiberti doors.

 

The original doors will not be in the museum this summer. They are on tour in the US, going to Atlanta, Chicago and NY.

[franu]

The doors of the Baptistery "the gates of paradise" by Ghiberti where removed to the museum a number of years after the flood. I remember seeing the doors including the damage which were still in place in 1979. The waterline was apparent as it was also apparent in the synagogue then.

 

The copies in the doors of the Baptistery are wonderful and I am sure that you would not be able to tell them from the real ones. It was very hard to separate my DH from them as he was completely enthralled. Enjoy them as they are there for all to see anytime.

 

IMHO the Duomo is more magnificent from the outside. The size and use of marble were something which has stayed with me all of the years.

I hope that you will love it too.

Fran

[Jade13]

I found the tour information and it is posted below.

[Jade13]

The doors of the Baptistery "the gates of paradise" by Ghiberti where removed to the museum a number of years after the flood. I remember seeing the doors including the damage which were still in place in 1979. The waterline was apparent as it was also apparent in the synagogue then.

 

The copies in the doors of the Baptistery are wonderful and I am sure that you would not be able to tell them from the real ones. It was very hard to separate my DH from them as he was completely enthralled. Enjoy them as they are there for all to see anytime.

 

IMHO the Duomo is more magnificent from the outside. The size and use of marble were something which has stayed with me all of the years.

I hope that you will love it too.

Fran

 

Our group has decided to skip going into the Duomo as our driver has told us the line is about 45 minutes in the summer.

 

We have reservation for the Pitti Palace, Accedamia, Synagogue and Medici Chapels.

 

I assume you need to go through the Duomo to get to the babistry. We will see the doors in the US.

[Jade13]

The early-Renaissance sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti spent 27 years creating the monumental gilded bronze doors for the eastern portal of the Baptistery in the Piazza del Duomo in Florence. And it has taken teams of conservators just about as long to restore them.

 

Their 10 panels, completed in 1452, depict scenes from the Old Testament, intricately illustrated in high and low relief. Michelangelo is said to have pronounced the three-ton, 20-foot-tall doors grand enough to adorn the entrance to paradise, and so they became known as “The Gates of Paradise.” They have for centuries been considered one of the masterpieces of Western art.

 

Now three of the newly restored panels are scheduled to tour North America for the first time, traveling to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in April, and then to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

 

Tourists visiting Florence today may not realize that the giant bronze doors on the eastern end of the cathedral’s Baptistery are not the original “Gates of Paradise” but modern bronze copies made and installed in 1990. These reproductions are not temporary: the delicate 15th-century doors must be kept in a totally dry environment, isolated from modern pollution.

When the original door panels return to Florence after their tour, they will be reassembled in their framework and placed in a hermetically sealed, oxygen-free case at the Museum dell’Opera del Duomo, never to travel again, officials at the museum say.

 

“This was a chance of a lifetime,” said Michael E. Shapiro, director of the High Museum. “ ‘The Gates of Paradise’ are a major pilgrimage, a major turning point in Renaissance art.”

 

The restoration of the doors is a tale of patience, scholarship and technological innovation. They were last restored after the devastating floods that ravaged Florence in 1966. But soon after, their surface became mottled.

 

“It happened with alarming speed,” said Gary M. Radke, a humanities professor at Syracuse University who is a consultant to the High Museum and has worked as the curator of the traveling exhibition for five years. “In the beginning nobody was sure why. Was it an increase in modern pollution or did the hundreds of plaster casts made in the 19th century leave behind residue that penetrated the surface?” Scientific analysis of samples from the panels revealed that a soluble salt had crept under the surface of the gilding, causing a corrosive action that Mr. Radke described as an “electric charge” between the gold and the bronze underneath. A result was bad blistering, which also put holes and bubbles on the surface.

Conservators began with four panels that had fallen off in the 1966 flood, but had then been reattached. “Initially we cleaned them with a chemical bath,” said Annamaria Giusti, the director of the Museum of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, who heads the conservation project. “The project began in 1980. I took over in 1996.”

Before every decision, there were discussions and debates, sometimes lasting years. From 1990 to 1996 all work stopped for a debate about whether the remaining six panels should be cleaned in place or also removed from the doors.

“There were dangers in doing either,” Ms. Giusti said. At that point, laser technology wasn’t available, so the only cleaning method was a chemical bath of Rochelle salts, the chief ingredient in baking powder. “Had they been cleaned in place, we were worried that the toxic solution might seep behind the relief and damage it,” she said.

Ms. Giusti, a group of three restorers and a committee of scientists debated. The restorers favored removing the panels; they wanted to drill holes and push the reliefs out of the doors. (In 1966 holes had been drilled through the framework to remove panels for cleaning.) Ms. Giusti wanted to remove the panels, but without drilling any more holes. The scientists wanted to clean the panels in place.

Finally, they compromised: the panels were removed without making more holes. Glue was put around the plain bronze edges of the reliefs to attaching a steel frame; with the help of a crane, the reliefs were slowly nudged out.

By the late 1990’s, technology had advanced to the point that it was decided that laser treatment would be the best method for cleaning the removed panels. For the first time that she knows of, Ms. Giusti said, lasers were used to clean bronze. This was deemed safer because chemical baths always pose a danger that salts from the cleaning agent will become stuck behind the panels.

A team of scientists, conservators and art historians, with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, have studied the project for the last year. “We were trying to figure out how Ghiberti and his workshop accomplished this great feat,” said Francesca Bewer, a technical art historian at the Straus Center for Conservation of the Harvard University Art Museums.

 

“The Gates of Paradise” were created using what is called the lost-wax technique, in which a detailed wax model is imbedded in a fire-resistant clay mold. The wax melts when the mold is fired; then liquid bronze is poured into the mold where the wax had been. Ghiberti cast the individual panels in bronze and then gilded each section before inserting it into the giant doors.

 

In this way, Mr. Radke said, the bronze gives the viewer an overall impression of three-dimensionality, a technique that has been copied by artists ever since.

 

“We wanted to take advantage of having such close access to art of this kind,” Ms. Bewer said. “To see the tricks he used to create the sense of depth.”

 

The public will see not only the extraordinary workmanship, but the results of the restoration as well. The three panels on the North American tour are from the left door. They depict the stories of Adam and Eve, Jacob and Esau, and Saul and David. There will also be four sculpture relief elements — two prophets’ heads and two standing figures — from the original frame of the left door.

 

“One of the heads has been restored; the other hasn’t,” Mr. Radke said. “The same with the standing figures. In this way the public will be able to see the transformation that took place by cleaning them.”

 

The Italian government has financed most of the restoration and conservation of “The Gates of Paradise,” and additional financing has come from the Friends of Florence, an American-based nonprofit organization. The High Museum has also agreed to help finance the conservation of a 14th-century silver altar in the Museum dell’Opera del Duomo.

 

Sending the panels and sculptures to Atlanta will be no easy task. Specially designed oxygen-free cases will be used to transport the works by air. So prized are these bronzes that the Italian authorities insist that each panel travel separately.

 

“They are simply too precious to fly together,” Ms. Giusti said.

 

Panels will be at High Museum of Art in Atlanta April 28 to July 15; the Art Institute of Chicago, July 28 to Oct. 13; and the Met in New York, Oct. 30, 2007, to Jan. 13, 2008.

Correction: Oct. 18, 2006

Because of an editing error, an article in The Arts yesterday about plans to exhibit three panels from Lorenzo Ghiberti’s “Gates of Paradise,” a set of bronze Renaissance doors, at three American museums misstated the time frame in which Michelangelo was said to have declared the doors worthy of paradise itself. If Michelangelo made the statement, as the Renaissance biographer Giorgio Vasari said he did, he could not have done so in 1452, when the gates were completed, because Michelangelo lived from 1475 to 1564.

[Dushi]

Hi-

 

What is the train station name in Livorno? I logged into the Trenitalia site and there are two options: Livorno Centrale and Livorno Ferraris.

 

Pisa is a University Town. We enjoyed the walk from the train station to the Leaning Tower in March 2002. In the middle of summer - probably not so nice.

[franu]

Jade, Thanks for the very informative post. If you can stop at the Baptistery doors it will give you an idea about how the doors were there for the enjoyment of everyone and put it all into context. I actually was in Florence 5 times before I was able to enter the Baptistery. It is quite beautiful.

 

Stop, take the time, inhale and get the feeling of Florence.

Fran