Florence At Dawn: The Joys of Early Rising

So true in every city we've visited in Europe. Dawn is a special time and so few people embrace it!

Hey wait a minute.
In June dawn is much earlier than 7am in Florence.
5am is dawn
5:30 is sunrise
7am the sun has been up for 1 and a half hour already.

We travel in the fall when dawn is later. 😁

Roberto, you are correct...I just meant getting up earlier than you might usually do.

I was in Prague this past September.

Of course, the city was filled with tourists, as I expected. I really wanted to get some nice photos of the Charles Bridge without crowds.

So one day I got up at oh-dark-thirty, planning to be there before the sun came up, and beat the throngs of humanity that were cramming the bridge the previous afternoon. The internets told me the sunrise was a few minutes before 7 am. I rose at 5:30 and left my wife snoring loudly - she wanted no part of this pre-dawn excursion.

I made my way through the city's dark, mostly-deserted streets around 6 am. Arrived at the bridge around 6:20, as the eastern sky was just starting to lighten and show some color.

It was still fairly dark as I crossed the street to the east end of the bridge. It was mobbed.

There must have been a few hundred people there, mostly photographers, mostly clustered around the west end. More than a few Chinese (I think) couples done up in formal wedding attire, posing and being photoed and videoed. Many, many big tripods set up with cameras pointed east at the brightening sky where the sun would rise in about 30 minutes. People continued to flood in as the sky brightened. By the time the sun rose, it was nearly shoulder-to-shoulder on the bridge. I struggled to get a single photo without a half-dozen guys straddling a tripod with a DSLR with a huge lens on it.

Next trip I'm going someplace that isn't quite as touristy famous.

hey david
while your wife was snoring loudly, bet she a a big smirky grin on her face! :0)
aloha

Florence and Rome both...

In Florence, the very early morning sounds of the retreating street sweepers and almost like a halted breath, of the Renaissance city about to come to life. A couple of caffe joints open around 7AM, not early enough for me. Shoes against cobblestone in the quiet make a wonderful sound.

Rome--at about 5:30AM the Campo de' Fiori market vendors arrive for the day with their rickety carts of goods, again against the cobblestone. They call out to each other, the catcalls reverberating against the buildings. It being March, I put a stocking cap and down jacket on for my morning walk along the Tiber. Except for the increasing auto traffic on the perimeter street to the river, it is silent, and I revel in it. Back to Campo, I nip into a caffe shop for a quick espresso, then to the market as they open to shop for fruits for the day.

I did this in Florence last October. While everyone slept, I would get up, grab coffee and walk around the city between 7-7:30am. The city was empty except for local businesses setting up for the day. It was by far my favorite part of the vacation.

Do this everywhere...in Vernazza...you'll see how the town really functions..who lives there, what they do without the intense pressure of the crowds. Walk the trails early and miss the crowds.
Imagine being able to take a picture of David without the posers standing in front for a selfy.

In Beijing, walk Tienanmen Square without the hawkers, beggars and hookers.
If you want pictures of the Forbidden City without any crowds....get there early...it's a different experience...no posers taking gratuitous pictures in front of everything.
Early is the ticket when you travel...

And Venice...
Walking thru the quiet passages and onto the Rialto Bridge to watch the dawn is an incredible experience. The sun first kisses the top of the buildings and you watch as the light descends toward the canal without a soul in sight. We were celebrating our 43rd Anniversary and thought it would be a nice way to start the day. We were all by ourselves on the bridge for about 10 minutes, and then another couple strolled up. We chatted with them about what a beautiful morning it was and what a perfect way it was to celebrate our Anniversary. A few minutes after they left, they came back and handed me a beautiful red rose and wished us a Happy Anniversary. That is an Anniversary we'll never forget and the kindness of those strangers to help to make it so perfect!

I get to experience the "joys of early rising" every day. I have to get up at 5:30 for work. When my wife managed labor and delivery for a hospital, she had to be there at 6:30 to take report from the night shift.

The good news is that we are habitual early risers and love to wander the streets as our destinations awaken. Of course, the best time to photograph is early in the morning and during the "golden hour" right before sunset. I was reading about a photo workshop held in Tuscany. When reading the itinerary, there are a couple of days that start at 4:00 am to get to the photo site in time for sunrise!

I found that (for Rome and Florence) you don't even have to get up insanely early (you 5am folks). If you're out before 9, the main squares are still pretty quiet and not very populated. I'm not usually a morning person at home but found I really enjoyed them on vacation.

Experienced the same feeling in Florence and Rome ; but none more so than in Venice!
Truly amazing to be in these historic sites alone and even in the busiest seasons there is virtually no one about at those 5 - 8 AM hours.

@Jay well written!

Yes, Jay, very well written. You're raising the literary quality of these posts above what most of us can attain!

David, my wife and I got up early to visit the Charles Bridge in Prague and found only a few people there, seemingly very late party-goers staggering home. This was in June 2012, so things may have gotten worse or your season was different or you were just unlucky. Too bad.

But to the larger point, it's great to be out early in big cities when the light is right and the crowds are still asleep. Early rising is one of the consolations of old age. (So is reduced seasickness, but that's another story....) It helps to have a convenient source of caffeine though.

David,

I was in Prague last June and got up a little before 7 every day to do my morning rounds. Charles bridge was fairly empty except a few Chinese couples doing their wedding photos (I heard that Charles bridge became a hot destination for wedding photos after it was featured in a popular Chinese film). As to the mob-like scene of photographers that you encountered, my guess is that it happened to be the day for a rare alignment of some sort (ever seen pictures of the crowd for the once a year fiery horsetail fall in Yosemite?). So the irony is that you like photography, but perhaps not enough to be "in the loop". Don't lose heart though, the joy of walking in the early mornings and seeing a side of the beautiful city unseen by most tourists is real and well worth the effort.

Mei

Thanks, njsurf & Dick--

The early rising thing I've always done--my business necessitated it. Wife likes to sleep in, which has put me in a pickle more than once, most recently in Florence when I couldn't figure out the Tolkien-like triple key entrance back into our apartment after a morning stroll and a double caffe. She wasn't answering texts, and uh, being of a certain age, I really had to 'go'. Note to self--don't space off when learning about the keys, unless you want to crab-walk back across the piazza to the caffe joint with a pleading 'Bagno!'

And I think it does have to do with age. I didn't travel across the pond for the first time until I was 53 years old, long past the heavy partying days. Don't get me wrong--I still like my cocktails and vino (pretty much the default...try finding an Absolut/tonic anywhere!) but I can think of nothing worse than waking up with a squash-head hangover in a foreign country, where time literally is money. And I heard...that something in the oxidants (or lack thereof) in Italian red wine allows one to have that extra glass and not feel it as bad in the morning.

But I'm just a guy that likes to pretend I've got the village, the city, the country all to myself. This is my time. Thus my off-season travel and early morning experiences. We hear endlessly about trying to find 'the real Italy'. To my way of thinking, traveling when others aren't is a good start. The locals are decidedly less affected, more natural and much more apt to strike up a meaningful conversation with you. As RS himself says, that's the stuff you remember after you've returned home.

The Husband and I are oh-dark-thirty risers by nature so those dawn walkabout are pretty much routine and pay in spades! There's nothing like seeing the sun lift over the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands, etc. and being all alone to commune in silence with the majesty of fiery reds, deep oranges and purple shadows.

I remember a morning on Capri that we took ourselves up to Anacapri on the first bus to watch the village wake up. There was a lovely little cemetery down the street from the piazza, awash in masses of flowers adorning the plots, and all sorts of people dropped by with fresh replacements on their walk to work or school. Young and old, they came to say "buongiorno" to loved ones, water greenery, clear away drooping flora and arrange fragrant, new blooms.

Especially memorable was the elderly woman who greeted the monument of (probably) her husband with lusty kiss and, with a smile, enthusiastically filled him in on all the latest news while she tidied up his adornments.

You see, Kath, all's I had ever heard about Capri were negative things, how the Blue Grotto is overrated, the hordes of tourists, you can't get a ferry, etc. Then I hear your story, and now I have to go next time in the area.

Yup - I discovered that on our 3rd trip to Venice in 2012 - hubby and I went out at 6:30am (much to his chagrin - he's NOT a morning person) and loved it. In 2014, my mom - an early riser like I am - came to Italy with us and she was my early morning companion in Amalfi, Rome and Venice. Love seeing the city wake up. Last year in Amsterdam, I got up one morning at 6:30 and took the short tram ride to the Rijks and got some lovely photos of the IAmsterdam sign without people hanging all over it. There were maybe 4-5 other people there - I actually had 2 people pass me their camera/phone so I could take their photos for them. Another good reason to stay in city centers if possible.

And another posted mentioned about not having to get up super early - in Venice, we were there in Sept, so it wasn't dawn super early - but even at 8am, there aren't many people around (we were on the vaporetto with the school kids going off to school!). But as I told my mom the first morning we went out at 6:30 - this place (SMS and Rialto) will be mobbed by 10am - and of course it was.

If we are in a city center, I'll be out and about at 6:30! We have an upcoming stay in Manosque and the airbnb is only a 10 min walk to the town center, so I'm probably gonna head out early for some walks.

You see, Kath, all's I had ever heard about Capri were negative
things, how the Blue Grotto is overrated, the hordes of tourists, you
can't get a ferry, etc.

Jay, just as with the Cinque Terre, the trick is to stay on the island and not daytrip it, if possible. The golden hours are before those trippers arrive and after they leave. We were also there in October when the summer hordes had eased a bit. During midday, when crowds in the town centers are thickest, escape to the further reaches where most of them don't go: there are some nice hikes on Capri. No need to go anywhere near the Blue Grotto (we didn't) to have fun. You are a resourceful traveler so I'm SURE you'd find something redeeming about the place. :O)

Or find a bar and just observe: did that for couple hours one afternoon on a bar/restaurant's tiny balcony that only held two. You can see it in this shot, just to the left of the clocktower.

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-clock-tower-on-piazza-umberto-i-in-the-evening-light-capri-bay-of-100772233.html

Yeah, that coffee thing... We travel Europe with a small kettle and instant just to get going before places open up for the REAL deal.

There's no doubt, getting up early - sometimes very early - is a great way to experience great places without the great crowds that are loving them to death. I think I was just unlucky in Prague, but the timing trick does generally work in most places.

Nowadays, my trips now are increasingly focused on getting away from major tourist crowds. Next trip we're headed for northeast Europe this July. The only major city we're visiting that's very popular is Tallinn (and that seems to be primarily blighted by cruise ships, so beating the crowds there should mostly be a simple matter of timing).

I just checked what time the sunrise will be when we're there: 4:22 am. Ouch! My wife is gonna kill me...

Many years ago in Bath we were out and about around 6:30 a.m. enjoying having the place all to ourselves. Rounded a corner and encountered a big name big bus tour loading up -- at 6:30 in the morning! Sorry, just not our cup of tea. Headed down a side street and in half a block all was peace, quiet, and beautiful again.