Firenze pt. 1

After our brief stop in Pisa, we made a brief stop in Florence and got there midday. It was very hot in the city that was pretty far inland. At the city's center is The Duomo, a very large and very elaborate cathedral. It was too hard to get a good shot with one picture, the second one is of a separate building, the baptistry, that is directly in front of the main entrance.  

Nearby was the Piazza della Signoria, which featured a lot of nice statues. It used to be the place where Michelangelo's sculpture of David was displayed, but it was moved to the Galleria dell'Academia, a museum where they charge you to see it. Now there is a replica in the square, which left me unsure of the originality of the other statues, but they were impressive nonetheless.

Next we walked across the river over Ponte Vecchio. You can see it in this picture but it is full of shops that all half-hang off the bridge. Our friend told us that it used to be a marketplace and meat was thrown off into the river. However, the government outlawed this back in the day since it was so unsanitary and now it is full jewelry shops.

Finally, we climbed up to Piazzale Michelangelo, where you got a great view of the whole city. I am red-faced in this picture since there were many steps and it was super hot. I was carrying around a 1.5L bottle of mineral water all day, that is probably meant to serve a family at dinner. (There aren't any drinking fountains and people usually don't drink from the tap. However, a 1.5 bottle of water costs about 30 cents. Carbonated water is also just as cheap and common but I haven't gotten into it yet.) We sat on some steps and watched the sunset, there was a nice crowd there and a performer playing the guitar.

You can see the Duomo in the background, which is the huge dome.

 

The next day, we stood in line for two hours to get into the Uffizi, an art gallery with many notable Renaissance pieces. Unfortunately, it seemed that many of the galleries were closed, but there was still a decent amount to see. It was mid-sized with the majority of the notable work on one or two floors, (so definitely not like the American Museum of Natural History), and there were a ridiculous amount of paintings of Madonna and the Child (again, very different from the American Museum of Natural History). They didn't allow photography so I don't have pictures.

My favorite paintings in the museum were Botticelli's famous paintings of The Birth of Venus, and Spring, probably in large part to their size and the break from the Catholic subject matter that dominated the museum. They were each about 5 or 6 feet tall, so the amount of detail looked much more impressive than you see on a computer screen. I think the 11 euro entrance fee was worth just that. On the flip side, there was a room dedicated to Leonardo Da Vinci, so I thought I would see his sketches but instead they only had his paintings :(

Also, at one point there were drums, trumpets, and marching into Piazza della Signoria, which I think was part of some saint's day, though I am not sure. Jenna (who is part of Amanda's program) was with me at the time and said she loved Italy "because everyday is like a Renaissance fare".

 Before leaving Florence I went with Amanda into the Duomo. It had an interesting color scheme and was very spacious. You couldn't go directly under the dome, where there was a painting (not sure if it is technically a fresco?), but you could go up to a certain point and steal some pictures.

I took a different route back, which took a little longer but went along the sea (and was cheaper). It ended up being nice. I think I passed a section of coast called Cinque Terre, which I mean to come back to. It is supposed to be a scenic spot that draws tourism.