Katie had a fancy design in her daily breakfast cappuccino.
Our first destination of the day was the Uffizi Gallery.
It was a short walk from our hotel. Most things were in Florence.
This is a great video that gives you a feel for how big the Duomo actually is.
As we walk down the street, the baptistry building (with the replica Gate of Paradise doors) is to our right.
The cathedral with its dome and the bell tower is on the left.
And the best part is, you can actually see the colors on the facade.
The Uffizi is located off of the Piazza della Signoria.
The piazza is home to the Palazzo Vecchio, the current town hall of Florence.
Back in the day, it was a well fortified palace and was home to some Medici's.
Who were the Medici's?
The House of Medici was a very powerful and influential banking family that ruled Florence. They had gobs of cash and spent it on art, architecture and the humanities. Many of the great Renaissance artists were able to do what they did because they were commissioned by Medicis.
Before one arrives at the Uffizi, one has to walk by an open-air sculpture gallery called the Loggia dei Lanzi. Believe it or not, this was built back in the late 1300's.
Say hello the magnificent yet serious Perseus. He is fresh off of his victory against Medusa, whose blood gushing head he holds aloft as he stands over her headless corpse.
Medusa represents the Republic; in case you couldn't guess.
For some reason, I didn't get a picture of the entrance courtyard of the Uffizi in the daylight.
I'm guessing because we were too busy trying to find the office where we had to exchange our vouchers for actual tickets and had to find the actual entrance. Tourist sites in Italy are a bit, uh, chaotic.
The Uffizi is huge.
The layout is a giant U-shaped rectangle.
I also didn't get pictures of us going through security, getting sidetracked in a really cramped and hot exhibit full of old Roman stuff, having Huzbend get stopped by security because his backpack was too big to wear on his back, Huzbend turning said backpack around to wear on his front.
After all that, we finally found the stairs and made it up to the second floor where the majority of the art I wanted to see lived.
Off of the main corridor, there are many rooms that hold MANY pieces of art.
Like. A LOT.
Aww.
I guess dogs have been doing the "lazy sit" for just about ever.
What a good boy.
So, SO much art.
I didn't take pictures of most of it because it was all over.
Every space had something in it.
Welcome to the Botticelli Rooms.
Botticelli is not a favorite of mine and so, he gets a-no pictures 'cept dis one.
You'll see his most famous painting to the left.
The Birth of Venus.
AKA Venus on the Half Shell.
The most crowded rooms were the ones that had the most famous pieces in them.
I'm gonna name drop on you.
You can look these up and most of them will make you go, "Yeah. I think I've heard of that before."
Botticelli - Birth of Venus & La Primavera (I like this one better than Venus)
Michelangelo - Doni Todo (The Holy Family)
Da Vinci (with an assist from Verrocchio, his teacher) - Annunciation
Caravaggio - Medusa
Raphael - John the Baptist as a Boy
Titian - Venus of Urbino
One thing was apparent.
"There is A LOT of Jesus art in these here halls."
Let me tell you a bit about the Uffizi.
The building was constructed waaaaay back in 1560 at the behest of Cosimo I de'Medici, otherwise known as Cosimo the Great (who was not known for being humble). It was originally constructed as a location where he could have all of the administrative and judicial offices, committees, agencies and guilds of Florence under one roof.
Uffizi literally means "offices".
After Cosimo's death, his son converted a wing on the top floor as a display of the Medici collection of art. Slowly, art replaced more and more of the administrative aspects of the building. And, the rest, they say, is history.
There are windows everywhere that look out over Florence.
One end of the building overlooks the Arno river.
That bridge you see there is the Ponte Vecchio.
The Ponte Vecchio is a medieval stone bridge and the oldest bridge in Florence.
The incarnation you see was built in 1345.
On it are a bunch of shops selling jewelry, leather and other souvenir type things.
We'll walk over it later.
Cosimo the Great had a secret corridor built so he could access the Palazzo Vecchio (the town hall/seat of government) from his residence, The Palazzo Pitti, which was located a half mile away. The passageway went through the Uffizi and over the Ponte Vecchio.
They were able to freely travel between all of these locations without having to mix in with the rabble.
It was fun to look at them and guess what kind of person they were.
Here's that Michelangelo painting - The Holy Family.
It's the only free-standing Michelangelo painting that survives and it's in its original frame.
In this painting there are five rando nude guys in the background.
Experts agree to disagree why they are there and why they are nude.
This is Raphael's Kid John the Baptist striking his best disco pose.
Even though the museum was pretty busy, most people stayed in the rooms that had the well-known artists in them.
We frequently found ourselves alone in giant rooms with huge paintings.
After finishing our wandering of the expansive second floor, we headed downstairs to look at some more portraiture.
The layout was interesting. They segmented the long hallway into rooms.
So, there was door, after door, after door making a sort of optical illusion of a never-ending hallway.
I bet it felt that way to Huzbend who, I think, might have reached his art museum limit on this trip.
"HEY! It's Renaissance Keanu Reeves!"
There was some modern art mixed in at the end.
I identified with this piece.
I guess this is what happens in super old buildings that are turned into museums.
Steps that lead nowhere.
After hoofing our way through the Uffizi, it was time to find some lunch.
We ended up at Sgrano.
Sgrano serves up gluten free schiacciata (Tuscan flat bread) sandwiches.
Hmmm. What to get? What to get?
The pre-lunch funk.
Hot, tired and hungry.
I can't remember what I got, but it had too much rocket.
I hate rocket almost as much as arugula.
(That's a joke. They're the same thing. Ha.)
Risking disapproval from Italian around us, I took the rocket off.
Then, the sandwich was delicious.
Katie, not a big fan of bread, enjoyed hers as well.
Pre-lunch funk - OVAH.
Side note: I miss Italian Fanta. Seriously.
I want some right now.
Katie had this Nutella cheesecake for dessert.
I know that it looks like New York style cheesecake, but it was not.
It was light and airy.
Katie has since declared that ALL cheesecake needs to be like Italian cheesecake.
Our after-lunch stop was the Museo Galileo.
I thought it would be a nice break from endless art museums.
The museum was dedicated to the history of science and the historical preservation of it.
There were original instruments used by Galileo himself, including telescopes, globes, and scientific equipment of all sorts.
The older equipment was part of a Medici collection. Of course.
There were some interesting optical illusions too.
There were old sciencey machines too.
Giant marble runs and such.
Katie took her time and wandered reading every bit of information she could.
Huzbend and Mikey flitted through the museum in about 15 minutes.
The old equipment was cool, but the best part about the museum was that it had AIR CONDITIONING!
One thing that every museum should have,
the mummified finger of the person the museum was named for.
We still had quite a bit of afternoon to go, so we decided to walk across the Ponte Vecchio to visit the Palazzo Pitti.
Join us as we walk through the crowds on the bridge.
As in Renaissance times, the bridge is full of jewelry shops.
Katie spotted this cute cow graffiti on the bridge.
Say CHEEEE-MEDIEVAL STONE BRIDGE.
See that yellow part with the tiny porthole windows?
That's the secret Vasari Passage the Medici used to cross the bridge without mingling with peasants.
Across the bridge and little ways on, we came upon the Palazzo Pitti.
Medicis used to live here.
Now it's a series of museums and a fancy garden.
We decided to bypass the museums and head directly to the gardens.
We'd seen A LOT of art already.
Have a look around the courtyard.
The original palace was commissioned in 1458 for a banker named Pitti.
He ran out of money, construction stalled in 1472 and then he died.
In 1540's, the palace was bought by the Medicis and expanded.
It became their primary residence.
Before this time, the Medicis were living in the Palazzo Vecchio, which was known as the Palazzo della Signoria.
When they moved to the Pitti, they changed the Palazzo della Signoria's name to Palazzo Vecchio, which literally means "Old Palace".
We stopped in the cool shade of this undercover fountain grotto.
We began to explore the Boboli Gardens.
In the center axis of the garden stands an obelisk.
Moved here from a Medici residence in Rome, it originally is from Egypt where it was carved for Ramesses II.
The obelisk stands on a pedestal and is held aloft by four bronze turtles.
It's good to be the Grand Duke.
The garden was beautiful.
It had one problem.
It was built on a hill and it was HOT.
Probably about 95 degrees plus.
We were quickly running out of water.
I had a hard time getting as far as I did.
Walking uphill was a struggle.
I didn't want to push my achilles too hard.
Katie wanted to explore, but the rest of us were exhausted.
We found a shady bench and took a seat.
Our view was of this statue of Neptune in the middle of a pond.
I gave Katie my phone and let her loose.
The following are pictures and videos of her adventure.
Here's the same pond we were sitting across from.
She finally found herself at the top of the hill.....
(This picture was taken from atop a gate with stairs leading up to this garden area, which looked out over the houses and green space behind the palace.) - Katie
....Where, there was a small garden area....
(This is that garden area.) - Katie
....that held a fishing cherub and monkey fountain.
Here. Take a look around courtesy of Katie.
A weird bird. Staring menacingly.
As she wandered the pathways, she came upon unexpected things.
Like statues.
And lizards.
Hey!
Someone is spying on us.
I told ya. We sat on a bench.
There's really nothing like exploring a place on your own.
I mean look at this.
NO ONE.
(They may have been passed out in the bushes suffering from heat stroke. It was that hot.)
Seems like some sort of fruit trees here.
(No clue what these were, but they were interesting.) - Katie
Ooops.
She made it to the edge of the property.
Time to back track.
(This was actually an entrance to the fort connected to the palace, which you could go into using another set of tickets. On this side of the gardens, you could see the wall and windows of the fort. I wanted to go in, but I had to go back to everyone sitting on the bench so we could leave.) - Katie
A very spectacular view of Florence.
She found a cool little grotto.
(Under an odd little blue house/building. I thought it looked interesting.) - Katie
It must've been hard to resist jumping in.
A quick stop for selfies.
(I had to prove I was there!) - Katie
Let's explore with Katie.
Take a look at the sky to see some ominous dark clouds forming overhead.
She was almost back to civilization.
(This is the back of the Palazzo Pitti building, where we were earlier!) - Katie
"Ooooo, where do these go?"
As the dark clouds began to gather in the distance, we texted Katie to let her know that she should meet us at the obelisk.
We headed down to meet her.
I couldn't NOT take this picture.
Hmmm.
Being spied on again.
Katie eventually made her way back to us and we headed out.
Florence doesn't have the nifty and darn convenient public fountain system that Rome does.
So, we had to ration our water for the walk back to our hotel.
As we headed out, I snapped this picture of the Duomo, Giotto's Bell Tower to the left and the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio to the left.
Sometimes it pays to look behind you.
On the way out, we walked past this man-made grotto.
It was set back down a path and was easy to miss.
Talk about super creepy.
Above the archway is the crest of the Medici family.
Those aren't real stalactites, they're concrete reproductions.
The white pieces are inlaid shells.
You can explore inside via the Uffizi website.
And the last thing we encountered upon exiting the Palazzo Pitti was this guy riding a turtle.
I'm sorry, but there had to be story behind this dude.
Research needed to be done.
More on him in the next post.....
Time to go.
The thunder was rumbling, but no rain fell.
It was nice of the clouds to obscure the sun for a bit.
We headed back across the bridge towards our hotel.
We walked by this open-air market that seemed to be selling all leather goods.
RELIEF!
Always a good goal to have.
I took a nap.
Huzbend and Mikey read books and Katie watched Scooby Doo.
Scooby. Doo.
That night, we ate at a fancy restaurant called Hostaria il Desco.
The food was FANTASTIC.
This is what I had.
It looks pretty simple, but it was delicious.
I think all pasta should have a big blob of burrata on top of it.
Mikey enjoyed a spicy pasta.
Katie tried a pasta with truffle slices on it.
The food was so good that Huzbend had TWO courses.
All of the restaurants we ate at had multiple courses.
You've got....
Antipasti - These are your appetizers. Cured meats, cheese, bruschetta, caprese
Primi - pasta and soup
Secondo - Main dishes like meat and fish
Contorni - Sides like veggies, potatoes or a salad
Dolci - Dessert
Bevande - Bevvies like FANTA. Yum.
I really, really don't know how you could possibly eat all those courses.
Most of the time we ordered one course, maybe an appetizer and definitely dessert.
Huzbend had a pasta course and then he ordered steak.
See that stuff that looks like cheese on the steak.
It's not cheese.
It's a thin layer of fat melted over top of it.
Don't overthink it.
I was frickin' delicious.
We all shared a bite (except Katie who was grossed out by the fat layer).
Dolci time!
Huzbend considered the steak his dessert.
Weirdo.
Katie had GF apple cake.
Mikey had almond cantuccini (we know them as almond biscotti) that came with "Tuscan vin santo".
You know what that is?
It's a Tuscan "holy" dessert wine. There's argument as to why it's "holy".
Traditional cantuccini are made with no fat, which means no milk.
You are supposed to take the cantuccini and dip them into the wine to make them softer.
He really liked the cookies. He did not like the wine.
I had a super yummy pistachio cheesecake, which was also served with vin santo.
At the end of our meal, our waiter brought us two shots of limoncello, a lemon liqueur.
Chilled limoncello is served on the house, as an after-dinner digestive.
As you can see, Katie did not approve.
It was vaguely lemony and very alcoholy.
It would have been better with a sugar covered rim.
After dinner, we decided to visit the Palazzo Vecchio before heading back to the hotel.
We were off the beaten path, and it was really nice to have the rustic street to ourselves.
We really enjoyed Florence's graffiti.
We decided to visit the Piazza della Signoria to take a closer look at the statues in the Loggia dei Lanzi.
We arrived to find that an orchestra was setting up in the statue garden.
Neato!
We decided to wait around until they began their set.
We took a break to check out the Fountain of Neptune.
The fountain was commissioned by Cosimo I de Medici (Cosimo the Great) to celebrate the marriage of his son Francesco to the Archduchess Joanna of Austria as well as to commemorate him bringing clean water to Florence.
It stands right next to the Palazzo Vecchio
In another part of the piazza lives an equestrian statue of Cosimo I that was under restoration.
There's Cosimo's head poking up.
Let's take a look around the Piazza della Signoria.
As the orchestra began their set, Huzbend realized that he'd had a little too much liquid and dinner.
In lieu of searching for a bathroom (that he would probably have to pay for - yes, Euros are charged to use public restrooms), he decided to head back to our hotel.
It was only a 10-minute walk away.
The kids and I decided to stay to listen to the orchestra a bit longer and to explore the entrance to the Uffizi without throngs of tourists.
Come along with us....
A view of the Ponte Vecchio at night.
Lining the entrance courtyard of the Uffizi are statues of famous artists, thinkers, statesmen and scientists.
This was Mikey's favorite - Nicola Pisano.
I will let you figure out why.
The kiddos posing with Lorenzo di Medici.
Also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent.
We realized that Lorenzo, and the original Cosimo de Medici (not to be confused with Cosimo I), were flanking what seemed to be an old entrance door.
The kids threw on their best David impression.
Speaking of David....
There is a replica of Michelangelo's David standing outside the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio.
Believe it or not, this is where the original once stood.
David was sculpted near the Duomo.
It was decided by committee that it should reside outside the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio and it was moved there over four days. It was surrounded by a wooden frame and pushed by 40 men on greased logs. Now you know why it took four days.
Back in the day, a guard was stationed next to it.
Many artists were pissed that Michelangelo won the commission. The Medicis were worried it would be vandalized. It still was. Rival artists threw rocks at it.
Eventually, in the 1800s it was discovered that the statue had cracks in it.
To preserve it, they moved it to its current residence, The Accademia.
We enjoyed a little more music and then headed back to the hotel.
The horse drawn carriages were still out hoping to snag a romantic couple looking to relieve themselves of some Euros.
Katie caught sight of this wall decoration that had a whimsical graffiti added to it.
Vehicle traffic isn't really allowed in the center of Florence.
There were these teeny tiny garbage trucks that serviced the restaurants in the walkers-only areas.
We spotted an antique carousel in a piazza down a side street.
We also learned that the super fancy chocolate place we bought candy at in Rome also had gelato places.
This place was packed with a line out the door.
We liked the faux chocolate wall behind the counter.
There is never a bad time for gelato.
We slowly made our way back to the hotel.
It was a looooong day.
I guess someone's arms were tired from all the walking?
Good night, Florence!
