Firenze Day 2

After our early night the last night, Colby and I had a hard time sleeping in. Since we went to sleep around 7 or 8, Colby woke up around 3 and I woke up around 4. So we hung out in our rooms for awhile. Around 5:30-6:00am, we decided to knock on Mom and Dad's door, because Colby swore that Dad, at least, would be up. He wasn't. So we went out on walk/jog by ourselves. It was a quite a contrast to the crowded Florence streets we had encountered the day before. We got to enjoy sights like the Ponte Vecchio, Pitti Palace, Plaza della Republica, and Piazza Della Signoria without having to dodge people everywhere. It was also nice to see the city start to wake up with trash collectors and street cleaners. We made it back to the hotel around 7 and got ready for the day and had breakfast with Mom and Dad around 8:30am.

Our first stop in the morning was the Uffizi. The Uffizi is home to many famous works of art by Giotto, Botticelli, Leonardo daVinci, Raphael, Titian among other famous Renaissance artists. We walked through the museum using Rick Steve's audio guide who led us through the highlights. It was quite a collection. However, after our early morning, I was a little tired. I took a quick nap on Colby's lap while Mom and Dad walked through the museum in a little more detail. It was a perfect power nap. After the Uffizi, we went to the Bargello, which used to be a prison. It is now home to many famous sculptures.

After the museums, we had a lunch at a great little place called Trattoria Pallottino. We all had great pasta, especially Dad, who ordered fresh pasta with a pomodoro sauce, and I had some really great Gnocchi. We had some gelato at a place next door, Il Gelato.

Next we headed inside of the Duomo and the Baptistry. The Duomo was just as incredible inside as it was outside. For 1600 years the Duomo has been the center of the religious life in Florence. I have been reading The Passion of Artemisia, about Artemisia Gentileschi, the first female painter to be a member of the Academy. She crosses the Ponte Vecchio, frequently visits the Pitti Palace, and receives inspiration from the Mary Magdalen by Donatello in the Baptistry. I have loved seeing the sights while reading about them and their actual place in history.

We took a quick rest at the hotel before we headed to the Pitti Palace. The outside appeared fortress-like, but inside we were blown away by the incredible opulence of the Medici family. The resided at Palazzo Vecchio before moving into the much grander Palazzo Pitti. Mom and I compared it to Versailles in France. It was room after room full of fabulous decoration and art covering nearly every inch of the walls. It was clear how much the Medici family truly valued art. We also wanted to visit the Boboli Gardens, which weren't supposed to close until 730, however, we didn't realize that the last entrance was at 630, right when the palazzo rooms closed, so we missed it by 5 minutes. We were really disappointed

 

We had dinner in a piazza near the Santo Spiritu church. We were enjoying our dinner at a place called Borgo Antico, when a crowd chanting and cheering came walking up. Today was St John the Baptist Day so the town celebrates by playing a game - a team sport played by men, described to as a mixture between football and soccer. It has been played since medieval times. Apparently the team from the Santo Spiritu area won and they had returned to the steps of the local church to celebrate. We enjoyed watching their celebrations and capturing some of it.

We knew there would be fireworks later as well because of the holiday. However, these had been slightly delayed because of the Italy/England Eurocup soccer game. So we headed over to the gelato place we enjoyed earlier and played Phase 10 while we waited. We headed and caught some of the soccer game as well before watching the fireworks. We started watching near a bridge, but we moved to the piazza in front of Santa Croce church, where the medieval game had been played, and were able to enjoy the fireworks right next to the church on the bleachers. The Italians did a first class job on the fireworks . . it would rival most fireworks displays in the U.S.. Afterwards, we heard celebrations from the Italy/England game as Italy won the game 4-2 in overtime.

Lauren

 

 

Firenze: Day 1

We left! We finally left! I have been waiting to go to Italy since I read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown when I was in high school. The descriptions of all the churches and religious history fascinated me and enticed me to come to explore the sites from the book, among other things. It also helped my desire to visit even more because I just took a history class last semester. We took off on Friday afternoon after seeing patients for half of the day for the airport. I actually can say, I didn't mind the flight. Usually, I have to struggle with the lack of leg room and it is a terrible experiece. However, this time i was on the front row of economy and I got as much leg room as I wanted. It made the 8 hour flight manageable and I didn't want to kill myself the whole time. We landed in Amsterdam and then caught a 2 hour flight to Florence (or as the Italians call it Firenze) which didn't have leg room. We all survived and landed in Florence. It was a very small airport with only 3 baggage claims. We grabbed our bags and took off down the street in a cab headed for the Hotel Morandi. It is a quaint, converted convent that definitly had some character. It was a great place of refuge especially because it wan't near all the touristy sites, which gave us peace, solitude and the ability to sleep at night. After dropping our bags off in the hotel room at 1 pm, we assesed what activities we could squeeze in before we fell asleep due to a severe lack of sleep. We chose a visit to the Academia musem (where the famous statue of David is housed) and walked in. I was in awe of the majesty of the sculptures in the room. It starts with "The Prisoners", which were early works of Michelangelo. They are deemed as such because these men are stuck in the stone, unable to be fully uncovered. These sculptures line the corridor on both sides and the end of the corridor is where David is standing.

We were all eager to see the statue of David. Ron had taken a sculpting class in college and had done a report on the statue. He recollected his experience in the class and we were able to discuss his experience in working with clay and marble. Kristy had just read "The Agony and the Ecstasy" by Irving Stone. This was a biographical novel, close to 800 pages in length and gave her a more intimate view of the artist Michaelangelo. Lauren was eager to see it because it was famous. The picture shown here was captured by her camera before she learned tht photography was prohibited. We visited the market to look for fresh produce, and also stopped in at Santa Maria Novella. While there we took the crucifixes of Brunelleschi and Giotto, Massaccio's "Trinity" and Ghirlandaio's frescoes. We could not find a place to eat dinner . .. so we settled for Gelatto. We retired to our rooms at Hotel Morandi Alla Crocetta about 7pm...exhausted and in need of sleep! Our hotel used to be a Dominican convent.