Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
(and Tuscany) the social and economic impact of their sugar daddy's dramatic fall from
grace is catastrophic.
A Chest of Treasures
As state coffers diminish, museums are increasingly unable to afford a full quota of staff;
hence the necessity to open certain floors or rooms to visitors for limited hours only, often
by 'guided tour'. Yet milestones have been reached in Tuscany's endless quest to safe-
guard its chest of treasures, unmatched in Europe. In Florence the €65 million 'New Uff-
izi' refurbishment project surges forward with the opening of dozens more rooms, while
the bronze doors Ghiberti sculpted for Florence's baptistery are again on show after 27
years of restoration.
Tuscany's portfolio of 14 palatial villas and gardens, built in the countryside around
Florence between the 15th and 18th centuries for the Medicis, became a Unesco World
Heritage site in 2013. Siena (
www.2019si.eu
)
meanwhile is competing with Venice,
Palermo, Amalfi and a handful of other Italian cities to become Italy's chosen European
Capital of Culture in 2019 (and thereby scoop a desperately-needed EU windfall of €1.5
million to invest in cultural events, infrastructure, on-going or scuppered museum projects
such as the Complesso Museale Santa Maria della Scala); the winning candidate will be
announced in 2015.
Going Green
In a region borne out of agriculture, ecofriendly travel is naturally of increasing import-
ance. In traffic-clogged Florence, smart young city mayor Matteo Renzi is considering a
London-style scheme limiting the number of cars entering downtown Florence. The obvi-
ous moment to introduce it would be 2016, when Florence's state-of-the-art tramlines will
be completed - the first line is already functional and, if Florentines are lucky, Line 2
could be complete by the end of 2014.
Ecological disaster was narrowly averted after the
Costa Concordia
cruise ship ran
aground on rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio in January 2012. The clean-up operation
to salvage all 114,500 tonnes of the shipwreck from the protected waters - part of the
Tuscan Archipelago National Park and Europe's largest protected marine park - continues
more than a year later.
