Kate, Gin and I caught an early train from Rome to Florence, eager to make the most of our couple of days exploring the city.  I’d been to Florence twice before, once with my family and once on Contiki, and was looking forward to seeing some familiar landmarks.  We were delighted to discover that not only had Gin booked us awesome accommodation, right on the river across from the city, but we were actually arriving in Florence on the day it honoured its patron saint, St John the Baptist.  Our lovely host told us the day was a holiday, and that we could expect a great fireworks display later on.

We headed up the hills behind our B&B to get our bearings from the Piazza Michelangelo, but were thwarted by preparations for the fireworks, which looked like they meant business.

Instead, we climbed even higher to the Basilica di San Miniato del Monte, and were rewarded with panoramic views over the city.

The beautiful Basilica was founded in 1018, and many of its paintings date from the 12th and 13th centuries.  The difference in the iconography was quite noticeable, and overall it had a more ancient feel to the many Renaissance churches we had visited in Rome.

After all that hiking up hills, we were ravenous, and followed our host’s recommendation to the nearby restaurant Rifrullo.  I highly, highly recommend eating here if you’re ever in Florence – for €10 you get an all-you-can-eat buffet of delicious Florentine food, as well as water and coffee – bargain.  It was a perfect way of finding out which Florentine specialities we liked – we made sure to try them all!

Sated, we wandered into the city and headed for the central Piazza della Signoria.  We spotted some strangely dressed young women standing on the steps of the Palazzo Vecchio, now the Town Hall, and figured that they must be part of the saint’s day celebration.  Suddenly, police began splitting the crowd, and as we began to hear the beating of drums we realised that something big was going on.  Somehow, we ended up right at the front of the crush of people, and so had the perfect view of what turned out to be an absolutely epic parade.

There were men dressed up in the livery of all the original families of Florence, weapons of every type from swords to cannon, and even a huge white bull.  However, my highlight was the hugely talented flag bearers, who had to deal with a fairly aggressive wind when throwing their flags high into the air – in perfect formation!

After all that excitement, we headed to the Duomo, where the storm really started to roll in.  Having not seen rain since well before I left England, the thunder and downpour that followed was quite a shock!

 

After the storm, we headed out to the river to grab a spot for the fireworks display.  Our host had not been exaggerating – the fireworks seemed to go on forever, each bigger and more brightly coloured than the last.  It was phenomenal!

It was an amazing day, and I loved being back in Florence!