Famous Sites Around Florence

We started the walking tour in San Lorenzo right outside our apartment.



First we learned about the Medici family who were the rulers of Florence. We saw their coat of arms all around, at least 15 times.



We walked to the Church of Baptism and the guide explained that on the building there was a stone carving of Jesus being baptised by Jon the Baptist.



She told us about two gold artworks which was a competition for the best goldsmith to design the door. She said one was gothic and one was more modern which was at the start of the Renaissance. She had us decide which one was our favourite. I voted the more modern one and it was funny because half the people at the start said the modern one, and then when my dad said the gothic one then the other half said the gothic one. We thought the modern one was going to win but it was a tie. The goldsmith who won the competition was named Lorenzo Gihberto.



The goldsmith who lost was Brunalesca. He left Florence for 10 years to go to Rome and he studied to be an architect. Then he came back to Florence and won another competition to build the really big church that’s really nice called the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.  I think it’s my favourite church so far because it’s so big and it has the pink stone which is really rare. It has loads of decorations and is really detailed.



Then we walked down the street to see a tower. A long time ago, people lived in the towers but wouldn’t go through the front door because it wasn’t safe. So they climbed up to the window with a ladder. During that time, the women wore smaller dresses. When it became safe enough to go through the door, the dresses became really big.



After that, we walked to a really big nice square with a big arch that looks like Grian’s megabuild in Hermitcraft Season 8. That was one of my favourite bits of the tour because I really like Minecraft and it reminded me of some of the buildings I’ve seen other people build in Minecraft.



While we were walking, it started to rain so we hid under a overhang. When it was only sprinkling we walked over to a statue which was a replica of Donatello’s statue. I think this is my favourite statue because of the story behind it. One day there was a Dragon and it was killing all the sheep in the village. It then started killing real kids and people. Then the dragon was about to kill the daughter of the king and a knight came and killed the dragon. Then he was a hero and that’s the story behind the statue of the knight. It was really detailed and you can even see the tiles of the floor inside of the archways on the bottom of the statue.



We also saw a statue of one of the stories I know from Percy Jackson about Perseus killing Medusa and holding her head. How they know who made it was because he left his mark on the statue. You’d think he would just write his name on the bottom of the statue but he carved his own head into the back of Perseus. We forgot to get a picture of that.

Because we hadn’t seen any other kids for a while, dad started talking to another family on the tour. We decided to go to lunch together and get pizza. Yum.



And then gelato, since it was invented in Florence!