Florence 2008

This blog is put together from emails sent to friends and family during the month I was in Italy and I’m using it as a practice run to learn how to put together a blog. The dates and headings come from the emails sent.

Thursday 2 October: Florence-bound

At last, after many months of planning, the day has come and I’m off to Florence for a month. My flight for Dubai left at 10.30pm. I was very lucky as there was no-one next to me and I had three seats to stretch across for the 11-hour flight. Arriving at Dubai’s old airport was a bit of a shock, it was hot, dirty and crowded. Worst of all, there was no Rome flight. What? Eventually, I discovered that the destination was Nice, stopping in Rome first. Huge sigh of relief. The flights were good and so was the train. Everything happened so quickly and I was at the apartment by 3.30pm, much earlier than I expected.

Saturday 4 October: I’m here!
The taxi entered a very narrow street and there in front of me was a huge, heavy door with a buzzer and so I entered the wonderful Residenza il Carmine, and my excellent apartment Mirra. The building is mostly 17^th century and is next door to the house where Filippo Lippi was born.

Via D'Ardiglione

Garden at apartment

After settling in to the apartment, which is lovely, I went shopping to buy some food, wine etc and then crashed. Today, I’ve been out and about, I found a place to buy an Italian SIM card and now I have 2 mobiles!! I located the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace and then went to the agricultural market in Piazza del Carmine (around the corner from my apartment) where I bought some olive oil and some fantastic cheese, provolone piccante. All my research paid off and I can get by quite well without a map. I popped into Santo Spirito cathedral for a quick thank-you prayer.