Mikes Blog

Assisi to Florence
14th April

Another run before breakfast. Different route. Good to be out. It would be good to see more locals out running as well.
Breakfast and checkout. All the fuss it took to contact Mastercard New Zealand has cost us E16.40 in Hotel phone charges.

Back on the road - Scary. At 130 kph +, often poor road surfaces, poor road marking. Cars and trucks just drifting between lanes! absolutely noone uses indicators for lane changing.
Into Florence - we find the right entry point for us without fuss. And drive straight to our camping ground. On top of the major hill next to the centre of Florence. A great outlook over the city. Good amenities. E40 for the night including safe parking.

We walk down the hill to the river and along to the famous bridge - called ??? - the only bridge left standing by the retreating German army in WW2.
We walk past shops with extreme high fashion and prices to match.
We find the Cezzane exhibition - the biggest single exhibition of his work. Entrance is E20 for 2, and the audio guide another E7. This is all well done with lots of context placed around Cezzanes worksand the works of significant contemporaries also displayed. This includes a Van Gogh and several Pissaro. I really enjoyed many of the works seen here. Rilke is said to have be so intoxicated by the work 'Madame Cezzane' when it was first exhibited that he insisted on returning day after day to see it repeatedly.
Cezzane is quoted as saying that inspiration comes from daily application. And nature was always his source.
We then did more walking. The big churchwith the famous capola that is a represetatitive feature of Florence was unbelievably dirty and spoilt by traffic pollution. In fact much of the inner city buildings were dull and poorly maintained. I had expected to be hugely impressed by the Church but rather, found its dirtyness sad, and it's grand style not to my taste.

We walked back to camp via other shopping alleys and had a great tasting Pizza with a HUGE mixed salad for dinner. Later we sat around doing our first clothes washing and reading about possibilities for the walk at Cinque Terre. Cezzane was enough and we have decided to move on tomorrow.