Firenze in the Morning

Early morning in foreign countries will always have a special place in heart.  The way a city smells, the feel of the cool morning air on the skin and the pulse of everyday life and work coming alive, yes, those are the memories with the most enveloping and tenacious grip.  

The added bonus of those early morning wanderings through town is that the streets are mostly yours--there are very few of us who find 7am walks through the city to be one of the best parts of the day. 

Behold, a duomo without a mob of tourists jostling you from every side. 

For reference, this is the same street during the day.This line is to enter the cathedral and there's a line that starts way back near the duomo that is for climbing to the top.  It extends all the way around the corner to the back of the duomo. More power to all of you who will wait hours in line for anything.  The lines for the climb up the duomo or bell tower are about 30-40 people long right before opening and those groups headed straight up when the doors opened at 8:30.

Okay, I'm going to judge here on this next crowd photo so skip right on over if you like.   Seriously, the selfie stick? WTF.  Everywhere.  What I find more interesting annoying than the whole concept of people needing to smack people in the head in order to take endless selfies, is that this person is standing in front of the baptistry doors taking a photo of herself that maybe got the duomo steps in it.  She's standing in front of THE baptistry doors.  These are the doors that were at the very tip-top of my must see list on my first trip to Florence...the birth of the Renaissance, Ghiberti's relief sculptures (okay replicas, but the originals are inside the museum), centuries upon centuries of history in that baptistry but taking a picture facing the other way into a crowd of people without any location reference to take a selfie that probably looks exactly like the selfie she took 8 minutes ago is better?  Unbelievable. And I'm done.

We had to do a relief sculpture in plaster in art history class.  My professor essentially said I was really, really ridiculously bad at it, especially at linear perspective.  Okay, really, I sucked at all of it.  Ghiberti obviously, did not. I resented my professor at the time because I hated being graded on a talent I do not have nor felt was relevant to art history, but all these years later, I see that she really did teach me an art appreciation lesson.  I love sculptures all the more because I know how crazy difficult they are. 

It's nice to be able to see relief sculptures without selfie sticks smacking you in the head.

An empty courtyard where 100s will line up in a few hours to climb the bell tower. 

Getting a photo of the basilica steps without people is only possible early morning and extra late when the city has gone to sleep. 

An empty Ponte Vecchio...weird but true.  When the shops open up and the gold jewelry comes out, there is barely room to walk. 

An unbelievably empty Piazza della Signoria.  

Fake David will have quite a large crowd vying for space for a photo in front of him soon.

The Loggia dei Lanzi is a great place to rest midday  for a respite from the heat.  You can hear the echoes of your own footsteps early in the morning.

I'm a morning person so popping out of bed while traveling is extra-easy for me but even if you are not, you have to admit that it might just be worth the extra effort to get some alone time with a city.  It also makes a good reason for a  little nap when the afternoon sun is high in the sky. 

And just because I'm going through pup withdrawals.  It's unfortunate that no Bostons are carved anywhere on the Baptistry doors.