Florence Day 2

Our hotel had a great breakfast buffet included in our rate.  We ate croissants with salami and cheese and fresh orange juice, grabbed a pear and headed out the door for a full day of famous statues, old architecture, Renaissance artwork and Italian cuisine.

First stop: the BARGELLO MUSEUM– a sculpture museum in a former police-station-turned prison.  The building itself was quite something… The statue filled rooms lined a large courtyard with stairs, crests and ornate arches each wall.  Works by Donatello and Michelangelo and other Renaissance sculptors filled the indoor rooms.  We stayed just long enough to enjoy it and then were on our way again.

      

Our hotel had reserved us 10:00am tickets for the UFFIZI GALLERY… the greatest collection of Italian paintings anywhere.  We picked up our tickets and then waited in the ‘reserved ticket’ line for 20 minutes instead of the regular ticket line for 2 hours.   The Uffizi Gallery features works by Giotto, Leonardo, Raphael, Caravaggio, Rubens, Titian (our favorite from Venice), Michelangelo, and Botticelli.   

Chris read us the info of specific works of art in each room and we had fun talking about them.  In each room a museum worker stood in the corner to silently monitor the crowd.  But in one room, a short Italian woman yelled ‘SHHHHHHH!  SILENZIO!!!!!’ every 20 seconds.  Seriously, it was so distracting… but oh, so funny.  We laughed about it the rest of the week and said it whenever possible. 

The artwork was impressive… but the museum was large… and my feet were TIRED!  

No pictures allowed inside but I did take this one from a hallway window… the Ponte Vecchio bridge…

Once out of the Uffizi Gallery we spend some time in the attached square… THE PIAZZA DELLA SIGNORIA.  In it was a  whole slew of Statues including a fake DAVID outside the Palazzo Vecchio.  (The real one stood there until 1873.)

               

   

Don’t even think about sitting on this lion for a picture… the security guards with whistles were out in full force when a kid tried to climb aboard. 

The PALAZZO VECCHIO (the building behind us) is a Florentine landmark, and the Town Hall.  We stepped inside the free courtyard for a glance…

  

We ended up doing ‘The RENAISSANCE WALK’ in a couple of different sections.  It led basically from San Lorenzo area to the Ponte Vecchio bridge, with our hotel / the Duomo and the Uffizi Gallery along the way.  It felt like we were back and forth on this main route a couple time throughout the day.  Definitely a LOT of walking…. 

 

Our Renaissance walk led us to the SAN LORENZO MARKET… Florence’s vast open-air market sprawled around the Church of San Lorenzo full of leather purses, scarves, and clothing.  I picked up a brown scarf.    We wanted to find a market and eat crusty rolls on the steps of the church but we couldn’t find anything great and we were starving.  We ended up eating Fettuccini with Walnut cream sauce which was ok, but not fabulous.  It felt good to be sitting down at a shaded table and drinking Fanta though.  It was a nice break and the service was really very quick. 

Now this is some gelato.  Apparently Italy’s best ice cream is in Florence.  There were shops like this all over!  We ate gelato a couple times.  We just had to eat Chocolate and Egg Cream at GROM again (just like in Venice.)

At 2:00 we had reservations at the ACCADEMIA.  The museum that houses Michelangelo’s David.  We had seen several replica’s already throughout the city, not to mention all of the touristy mini-statues, magnets, calendars and boxer shorts, but seeing the real one in person was truly amazing.   Seriously.  

Michelangelo sculpted the David between 1501 and 1504 when he was 26 –29 years old.

It was originally commissioned as one of a series of statues of prophets to be positioned along the roofline of the Florence Cathedral, but instead was placed outside the Palazzo Della Signoria, the seat of civic government in Florence.  The eyes of David, with a warning glare, were turned towards Rome.

The David sits in the middle of a large Dome.  Upon entering the museum you walk into a long hallway and can see the David at the end all lit up.  It’s quite something.   

After examining the David for awhile and some of Michelangelo’s other statues, I decided to leave the group and head for home.  Three museums in one day and a ton of walking, and not much sleep the night before and I was exhausted.  I walked the couple blocks back to the Hotel Duomo, opened my windows and drifted off to sleep.

 

Chris and his sisters took their time walking home and let me sleep for an hour.  Then we relaxed in Nikole, Ashlyn and Lindsey’s room for another hour before heading back out for an evening walk and dinner.

 

Check out this truck… so small that it can park sideways!

Check out these real signs I found around town… The orangey ones are ‘no entry’ signs.  Pretty funny.

 

We honestly tried to pick a new restaurant for dinner but each time we approached the new place we just couldn’t do it.  We knew the perfect meal was waiting for us at Trattoria 4 Leoni.  So finally we decided to head back and beg for a table.  Chris explained to them that we had eaten here last night and wanted so badly to eat here again.  The lady smiled and told us to wait.  We waited for a half hour until we were seated at a big table.  This time our waiter was a man.  He expected to have to explain our Italian menu to us again and was surprised when we knew exactly what we wanted.  Another Bruchetta, another avocado and pine nut salad, a caprise salad, and two orders of fiochetti with sweet pear and goat cheese sauce.  It was the absolutely amazing.  Anyone want to come back to Florence with me?

Our waiter was also surprised when we all said ‘no wine’.     Then WE were surprised we he said, “Are you from UTAH?”  How on earth can our waiter in Florence, Italy guess that we are from Utah just because we don’t order wine.   Then he said, “My big boss is from Utah…. Bill Marriott.”  He used to work for Marriott International.     He was fun to talk with… he is the owner/manager of this restaurant and  told us his history.  We told him we LOVED the fiochetti dish and wanted so badly to know how to make it.  Then he said, “give me a piece of paper” and proceeded to write down the ingredients…fresh pasta with a piece of fresh pear, taleggio cheese and mascarpone cheese inside.   The sauce… cream, butter, taleggio cheese and asparagus.    Mmmmmmm!