There was also this random post it. I know what it's implying, but thought it was really stupid because if you jumped there you wouldn't learn how to fly - you'd learn how to swim.
This was on the way to one of the most famous art museums in the world: The Uffizi Gallery. We got there early enough that there wasn't really a line, which was good. But not as satisfying because we didn't get to cut in front of anyone with our Firenze passes.
See this hallway? This is like 1/10th of the Uffizi. That place is HUGE. And there's just so much art! It'd take days to see everything. Fortunately, we had another Rick Steve's audioguide, and with that we saw everything we really wanted to see, plus a bunch of other great stuff.
I really liked this one.
It was heavenly to see these next two in person.
I've decided that seeing original art in person is like going to a live concert of your favorite band. Sure, the recordings (or in this case, pictures of the art) are really great, but there's something extra special about being there in person. It's just... different. Worth all the effort and expense of traveling different.
So the Uffizi used to be the offices of the Medicis. (Of course is the was Medicis! They owned all of Florence!) Uffici actually means office. Anyways, they had this special room built just to show off their favorite stuff. It was really quite impressive. And you could't walk into it, so all the pictures are from the roped off doors on the sides. See those dots on the domed ceiling? Those are mother of pearl circles, and it was beautiful!
Famous Venus statue. Those ancient Italians really liked Venus.
The floors are reminiscent of the Medici chapel. They really liked all sorts of marble in one place.
The view from one of the upper floors of the Uffizi. See the red tile roof along the buildings and the Ponte Vecchio? That covers the private passageway the Medicis used to get from the Pitti Palace to the Uffizi and back. Because who wants to walk among the peasants when you don't have to?
The Adonis. (Pretty much how exhausted I felt and the end of each day. Minus the nakedness, much to Lance's dismay.)
A very rare Michelangelo painting.
I just really, really liked this one.
More hallways full of sculptures and paintings.
On the roof.
There's the Palazzo Vecchio as seen from the Uffizi roof. Florence is just so scenic pretty much anywhere you go! (Well, okay maybe not further out from the city center, but still.)
After a quick snack we decided to go check out the Galileo Museum since we could get in for free. It was... okay. Not the fantastic, but worth the 45 minutes or so we spent there. I wish I had taken this picture with Lance in front for a frame of reference - it was huge!
The museum was mostly a collection of interesting gadgets the Medicis had collected over the centuries. But there were a few things that belonged to Galileo. We saw his personal telescopes and this book, which has his handwriting.
And... his middle finger! The junior high kid in me got a big kick out this.
After that we headed over to the Palazzo Vecchio, stopping at the Loggia first (which is right in front of the palace). We had been there the other night and kept trying to figure out if the sculptures there were the originals, since the English signage was not that great. Turns out all the sculptures there ARE the originals, which I think is really cool. They're outside where anyone can see them for free, just like the artists had envisioned.
Rape of the Sabine Woman is really famous, and we spent a lot of time just staring up at it. I'm still amazed that people can actually carve things like that out of a rock. A ROCK. Amazing.
Inside the Palazzo Vecchio. At different times it was basically Florence's medieval city hall, a fortress, and a Pope or two lived there as well. (English signage not as great as it could have been!) Now it's a pretty great museum.
You first go into the Salone dei Cinquecento (Hall of the Five Hundred). Calling that room impressive is a severe understatement. It's just so big! And covered in paintings and sculptures. The hall is 24 meters long, 23 meters wide, 18 meters high. Just. Big. Dukes and leaders used to hold meetings in here to show how important and powerful they were. I'm sure it worked.
Lance in front of one of his (and my dad's) favorite sculptures. Naked dudes Greco-Roman wrestling must be a guy thing.
We of course saw lots of apartments just dripping with gold and paintings and whatnot. It's hard to read here, but the painting says Florentia.
The ceilings were pretty jaw-dropping.
And look what the Medicis had - a MAP ROOM! Just like in my basement. I must be part Medici. There was also a ginormous globe in the middle of the room, but I forgot to take a picture because I was too busy being amused by the dozing 'security' guard in the corner of the room.
So then we realized that you could climb the big tower. I wasn't sure I really wanted to climb ANOTHER tower - I wasn't mentally prepared for it. But we did it anyways, because we were there and the tower was there and the Firenze Pass meant we didn't have to pay extra.
It was only 200+ steps, so hardly a climb at all! (Hah.) And the views were great. There's the Loggia on the left, and the restaurant we had eaten at the night before, there in the upper center with all the white seats.
It's hard to see in this picture, but you could see all the way down.
My favorite duomo!
I don't remember where this statue is, but pigeons on heads is always funny.
After the palace we were STARVING because it was well past lunch. Lance found a pizza place across the river that he wanted to try. But we walked all the way there and it was closed. (Sob.) So we found a different place off the beaten path, kind of over by the Pitti Palace. It was called Gusta Pizza and guess what? It was DELICIOUS.
It was really crowded with Italians and just a few tourists, so we figured it would be pretty good. And the prices were really reasonable, which is always a plus. That wood burning oven was cooking a couple of pizzas every 3-4 minutes, it was so hot! And the guys behind the counter all seemed super friendly and fun as they razzed each other - loudly - in Italian and flirted with the local girls who came in.
We went to sit in front of the Pitti Palace and Oh. My. Goodness. This pizza was undoubtedly the best we had in Italy. Mine was the house special, with tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, some kind of bitter green, and fresh Parmesan. And the crust. Oh my gosh, the crust! Chewy and delicious and heavenly. Part of this may have been because I was so hungry. But I suspect most of it was just because it was so dang good. Best lunch on the trip for sure.
Here's the stupid pigeons that kept circling us. As if I'd share my pizza with those sky rats!! Also, Italians don't much believe in lawns. You'd think a palace would have a lawn in front, but no. Just lots of concrete.
After that we thought we'd check out the Bargello Art museum. But NOPE. Another dang Italian Union strike! It made me so mad!
So we wandered a bit and saw some churches and Dante's house (of Dante's Inferno fame). It was kind of interesting, but apparently not enough to take any pictures.
At dusk we found ourselves back at the Piazza della Signoria, where a lot was going on. The merry-go-round was in full swing, there was some lady singing opera, and there was a guy blowing giant bubbles for all the kids.
Other kids got on the merry-go-round as well, but they were more "real", in that they were in street clothes and often had messy gelato faces and sticky hands. And more than half threw tantrums when it was time to get off the ride - another universal kid thing! I couldn't help but think that my kids would have loved being there, but I was super happy to be there with just Lance!
After that we wandered the street vendors for a bit, and I got to rub the nose of the famous Florence Boar. I'm still not quite sure what makes him famous, other than that everyone rubs his nose. There were all sorts of things for sale there, especially lots of leather goods, but we didn't really end up buying much on this trip. That's because everything was either super expensive or super cheap stuff that we didn't want or need.
That night we decided to just have gelato for dinner, which made Lance extremely happy! We googled "Best Gelato in Florence", which led us off the beaten path to this little shop called Perche No, and it was super delicious! And very reasonably priced - in touristy areas the gelato cost around 5-6 euro for a cone, but there it was only 3.
We fully intended to try another place for our second cones, but couldn't find anywhere as reasonable. So we went back because we knew it was delicious. The girl who served us exclaimed (in heavily-accented English) "You came back!" when we walked in the second time.
I have fallen in love with pistachio gelato.
We walked along the Arno and the Ponte Vecchio again because it's pretty. Earlier in the day we had seen some Elders on their P-day on the bridge. It was fun to chat with them for a few minutes. (Well, one of them - he was from California. His companion was from Spain and didn't speak English.) Seeing missionaries while we're traveling always makes me happy.
Florence really is a beautiful city.
I took pictures of some of the gold shops on the bridge because I knew Tess would be impressed.
She was. (And also a little sad I didn't buy her something there!)
Here's a happy Lance, enjoying his second course of gelato for dinner. The gelatories in Florence like to mound and decorate their gelato with fruit and such, which is fun to see.
Oh, a few more pictures before we leave Florence - here's the "view" from our apartment. (You can't see the trash piled against the wall, but it's there!) Every morning at about 6 some guy would drag his garment carts through the streets and with all the stone and rough streets it was SO VERY FREAKING LOUD. It sounded like he was pulling a tin cart with uneven wheels that was full of tin spoons and microphones that were turned up to 11. One afternoon we randomly found him coming through the streets and recognized the noise, which is how we learned what it really was.
Me, looking out the window.
And these are actually of the next morning as we got ready to leave. I really liked this apartment.
Lance and I really liked Florence - in fact, we both liked it the best of all the places we visited. I would definitely go back.
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