WEEK 13

Monday morning I was up at the crack of dawn to listen to the Melbourne v Collingwood Queen's B'Day clash.  I really need to stop having so much hope in my football team as I could really have done with a few extra hours sleep!

I went to the gym for the second half and sat on the exercise bike listening to another insipid performance by a pack of heartless girls and then went home to do some planning for our weeks ahead.

That afternoon we went to the Chiesa e Museo di Orsanmichele.  This unusual church was created in 1290 when the arcades of an old grain market were walled in and then two storeys were added during the 14th century.  

Its exterior is exquisitely decorated with tabernacles bearing statues representing the work of some of the greatest Renaissance artists. Each statue represents one of Florence's many guilds which were  secular corporations that controlled the arts and trades in Florence from the 12th-16th centuries.

The next day Anna was back at school and I took the chance to go and visit one of the three Last Supper paintings that are in Florence.

Not that I give two hoots about the religious meaning of that painting, but its still pretty cool.  I'd love to have a painting done with all of us boys like this, but we'd have to flip a coin to see who was Jesus haha.

That afternoon we went to Piazza Santa Maria Novella to visit the church of the same name.

Its interior is full of artistic masterpieces and includes Masaccio's frescoe "trinity" (1425) which is one of the first artworks to use the then newly discovered techniques of perspective and proportion.

I managed to take a few photo's inside, much to the anger of one of the attendants, but after being told off a few times, this photo of Anna below was the last straw and we were ejected from the building.  It was the first time I had been kicked out of a church since school days haha!

We didn't mind being booted as we were getting pretty over churches, having seen so many, and also because next on the agenda was the much talked about Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella - In business since 1612, this perfumery/pharmacy began its life when the Domincan friars of SMN began to concoct cures cultivated in the monastery garden.

This shop is an absolute treasure, having changed little over centuries, its palatial salesrooms stock a wide range of fragrances, remedies, teas and skin-care products.

they even had products for cats and dogs - hopefully the stuff for cats is poison

the shop was really expensive, so we resorted to trying the free samples

Anna during one of her daily afternoon nanna naps

The next day was the arrival of summer. 34 degrees felt like 40+ degrees in Florence, but we didn't care, it was exciting to feel the skin sizzle!

That afternoon we visited the Baptistry of San Giovanni, which we had been meaning to do for some time.  The earliest documentation in existence dates the building from 897, although it is thought to be much older than that!

The interior is encrusted in magnificent mosaics, the oldest of which was done in 1250.

However, the Baptistry is most famous for the doors that adorn the eastern entrance.  They were designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti, who in 1401, won a competition for the honour of undertaking the task. His co-winner was Filippo Brunelleschi (Dome), who was so annoyed at not winning outright, he withdrew from the project!

The finished product comprises 10 panels and took over 2 decades to complete.  It is so extraordinary, that many years later, Michelangelo stood before the doors in awe and declared them to be the "porta dell paradiso" (gates of paradise).

That evening it was Italy's second Euro Cup match against Croatia, which they really needed to win to keep their chances of progressing through to the finals alive.  A big group of us joined in with the locals at the old jail house to watch the match.  The atmosphere was awesome, especially when Italy scored the first goal.  However this was then completely deflated when Croatia scored the equalising goal.

It didn't feel right barracking for Italy after they knocked us out of the last World Cup, but then we didn't really have a choice!

Friday was another stifling hot day and I took the opportunity to walk 25mins out of town to the nearest public swimming pool to catch up on some much needed sun tanning.

Anna, Natalie and Carmen joined me after school and we managed to get in a solid session of sizzling before heading out on the town that night.

That night we all went to the Collards (Poms) for pizza's and plenty of drinks before hitting up Florence's best nightclub.

"Flo" was an awesome outdoor club up on the hill overlooking the entire city

We paid 25 euro each to get in which at the time seemed horrendous, but that allowed us to skip the huge line and also got us our own private booth and a bottle of vodka, so it wasn't so bad after all.

Not much more I can say about this night, but from looking at the photo's, I'm pretty sure we had a pretty good night!

The hangover the next morning was 100x worse because of the heat.  We all met up for breakfast at the nearby American diner, it was so good to finally find some eggs and bacon!

It was seriously that hot that we were all stuck to our chairs from the sweat, so there was only one thing to do but go back to the pool for the rest of the day.