San Giovanni Valdarno

After Rome, we finally found someone where we can do couchsurfing and stayed with a great couple in a town close to Florence. They brought us to hiking and chestnut festival and we got a lot of input on Italian literature. It was definitely a great first couchsurfing experience for Louis!

Hike in the countryside

San Giovanni Valdarno is in the middle of Tuscany and Chianti, and therefore very close to lots of panoramic hiking routes. We chose to go to the closest one “Le Balze in Valderno”. It is actually a canyon resulted of the drying up of the lake that covered the entire area millions of years ago. With the influence of erosion, the lake sediments slowly formed oddly shaped rock formations circling the now forest area. These rocks consisting of layers of sand, clay and gravel can reach up to hundred meters.

Chesnut festival in Loro Ciuffenna!

Lesser-known elsewhere, November in Tuscany means chestnut! They do all kinds of things food using chestnut (including cakes and crepes using chestnut flour), and in November each week one village in the area held the chestnut festival. Luckily there was one close by in Loro the weekend we were there. Loro itself was a pretty village, and had a spooky vibe at night during the festival, there was also local live music playing, local products sold and vin chaud (Glühwein, in Italy they interestingly use the French word for it) and of course chestnuts!

Florence

Our next stop was in Florence, city of arts! Florence was an important centre of trade and commerce during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, which contributed to its wealth. It was also home to many wealthy merchants and bankers, who helped to support the city’s growing economy.

Among these bankers and merchant was a particular family, the Medici. They used their wealth and influence to support the arts and sciences, and to promote political stability in the city. Many members of the Medici family were also patrons of the arts, and they supported the work of some of the most famous artists and intellectuals of the time, including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Galileo. Through their support of the arts, the Medici family helped to make Florence a cultural centre of Europe.

Museums

There are 72 museums in city centre. Most of these are the result of the influence of the Medici family. This family, not known at the beginning, became so rich that they could put their family members as pope during some time.

Uffizi

This building was initially built for Cosimo I de' Medici to accommodate the offices of the Florentine magistrates, hence the name Uffizi, “offices”. It became later one of the most important Italian museums and the most visited. This museum contains art pieces particularly from the period of the Italian Renaissance. We could see the busts of Caesar and other famous names of the Roman history, paintings from Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Caravage…

The streets

Near Uffizi is also the Piazza della Signoria, where is located numerous sculptures and are pieces, making it an open-air museum! There is of course the famous David by Michelangelo, but the statue was in renovation, making it not that interesting to have a picture of it. On the other hand, interesting statues representing scenes of Roman/Greek mythology could be found near, most of them were actually renovation from art pieces from these antic times!

A big thanks to Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, who inherited the family’s art collection and palaces when she became the last Medici to rule in Florence. She worked to protect the Medici family’s art collection and cultural legacy by making agreements with the city of Florence that ensured the collection would remain in the city and be available for public viewing

Escher exposition

We also found out that there was an exposition about Escher. If you don’t know Escher, he has been a visionary artist creating impossible constructions, exploring the infinite, paving, and combining of patterns that gradually transform into completely different shapes.