Florence

Today we opted for a morning tour of the Galleria dell’Academia, one of two large art galleries in Florence.  The tour was led by a guide, who showed us a number of famous artworks by Caravaggio and some lovely Byzantine art. 

The Galleria houses the largest collection of work by Michelangelo.  Here we saw his unfinished sculpture work, as well as the Statue of David.  There is a copy of the original statue outside the museum, but he original is in the Galleria to protect it from the elements.  The “David” is really impressive.  First, it’s huge.  Second, it is carved out of a single block of marble.  Third, they have never discovered any drawings or plans for this statue, so it appears that Michelangelo did it without a dry run, which is incredible.  It’s anatomically quite correct – our guide told us that Michelangelo secretly dissected cadavers at night to master bone structure and musculature – except that David’s right hand is slightly larger than it should be in proportion to his body.  No one knows why this is, but our guide said it was definitely not a mistake, since the rest of the body is not only perfectly proportioned, but also perfectly balanced so that it can stand on its very small pedestal without falling over.  The expression on David’s face when you look at it straight on is quite intense, but when you look at it from the side, he looks quite peaceful.  It was fantastic to see.

Somewhere along the way we lost Eric, who was sidetracked by an art exhibit that was placed off of the beaten path in a small grotto- type area.  It was an exhibit of triptychs depicting  stories from the Bible.  The interesting thing about this particular exhibit was that it seemed to be painted during the point in time where artists were moving away from Byzantine style art and moving into three dimensionality and the Renaissance.

In the afternoon, we decided to explore Florence by ourselves.  Our hotel had provided us with a map to the “Top 10” places to see in Florence, and we hit 9 out of 10 that afternoon.  Of course, Florence is known for its art collections, but if you have only 1 day your options are either to go to museum after museum, or to explore the town on foot.  We chose the latter.

From the Galleria, we made our way to the Duomo, the Cathedral.  All of the churches were closed that day, so we couldn’t go into any of them.  We did look at the Giotto Bell-Tower and the Baptistery of San Giovanni with its beautiful golden doors.  (The original Golden Doors are in a museum and took the artist 7 years to make.  We asked how long it took to make the copies and the guide shrugged and said, “It’s Italy – six months.”)  We then visited the Piazza della Signoria and walked past the Galleria degli Uffizi, which has a fantastic art collection we did not have time to view. 

We then crossed over the famous Ponte Vecchio, or covered bridge, that spans the Arno river.  The bridge itself is not actually covered, but instead has shops lining the bridge on both sides that are enclosed, giving the allusion that the entire bridge has a roof.  Most of Florence’s jewelry merchants have stores along this bridge.  (We didn’t buy any jewelry, though I did buy a handbag earlier in the day.)

Once across the bridge, we passed the Palazzo Ponti, the local palace-cum-Museum, but eschewed walking through the Boboli Gardens (the only thing on our top 10 list we skipped) to walk along the Arno to the Piazzale Michelangelo, the highest view of the city.  We finally made it up what seemed like two thousand stairs, and rewarded ourselves with a gelato and the view.  (We suspect that all of our petty cash has gone to gelato, bottled water, and restrooms, which you have to pay to enter everywhere.)

After our photo session, we went back across the bridge, passing the Church of Santa Croce on the way back to the hotel.  (Fans of the book or movie “A Room With a View” will be familiar with this church.)

¾ of the way back to our hotel, we stopped for a coffee and eavesdropped on two British tour guides, who were gossiping about their fellow co-workers (one was having an affair with another) as well as some of the people on their tours.  They told a great story an American woman who had gotten gallstones while in Rome, ended up in the hospital for five days (her husband was very attentive, going to sit with her every day), but who still wanted to rejoin the tour in Naples when she got out, much to the guides’ amazement.  Given that we were on a tour ourselves, it was fun to hear the other side of it.  I was dying to ask who the most problematic people were on the tour, what it  was like taking Spanish speakers and English speakers on the same tour, cultural differences, etc. , but refrained.

Back at the hotel, we had a lovely dinner with Barry and Sue from Australia.  We learned the differences between the UK and Australia, how the two of them met, then Eric and Barry discussed “Top Gear” while Sue and I talked about working in Hollywood.