March 1: Florence Day 2

My view while I ate breakfast

The Captives and The David

Not the greatest night. Everything was ok till 1am, when apparently a bunch of Italians decided to throw a party right outside the door. Not ok. I got very little real sleep. Then my alarm was set for 6:40 and I woke up at what I thought was 6, got up, started getting ready, then realized it was actually 5. Anyway, I was out the door on my way to the Galleria dell' Accademia and the David just after 7. I got going early because I'd been warned of the long lines by my guidebook (It doesn't open till 8:15). It was very cold out even though I'd worn my warmest clothes. I went too far and got just a little lost before I'd realized I had passed the building. I had expected a line already formed, but the (nondescript) entrance was deserted. So, I went to the very nearby San Marco Piazza and sat on a bench to eat my nutella sandwich and oreos (breakfast of champions). I watched the pigeons till I got too cold to sit, then walked to the Duomo and back to warm up. Finally the door opened. I don't know why I'd been so worried about a line-I was the 7th person inside. They charged 6.50 Euro in cash, which was annoying. Walking up to the David surrounded by the Captives was amazing. I really, really love the sculpted men struggling out of the marble. My favorite is the on in the front on the left, the one without a head, seeming to push skyward out of his rock prison. There are no pictures allowed, but I managed to snap one while the guard was yelling at a clueless Japanese tourist. "Oops." Since I had to pay about 10 US Dollars to get in, I don't feel bad. The David is, of course amazing. He really is a marvel. Michelangelo deserves his status as the greatest of artists. I do think that the tree stump by his right foot is pretty ugly, though.

Looking at the relatively few paintings in the Gallery, I was really struck by one artist, Alessandro Allori, who lived in the late 1500s. He was fascinated by plants and flowers so his works contain lots of botanical references that I just loved. The hall of plaster models of famous and student works was interesting. I stretched my time there to the absolute max, but I was thoroughly done by 9.

My plan was to walk to the Uffizi Gallery nest. I knew there'd be a line, but I figured it would probably move along pretty quickly, being such a large institution. Boy was I WRONG. The line was huge. I waited for 2 hours and 40 minutes to get in. It was beyond freezing. I was miserable, to say the least, and still sick. To top it off, there was a huge school group of particularly obnoxious pierced Italian "cool" teens right in front of me, trying to impress each other by smoking cigarettes, with anxious teachers running about trying to stop them. It really, really wasn't fun. At all.

View of Florence from the top of the Uffizi.
This was the only picture I could get
away with taking.

Inside, it was incredible, of course. I had planned ahead and made a list of all the must-see works from my guide book, and I am SO glad I did. I was able to see everything on my list, and I even did it in an organized, orderly manner. Here's a list of some of my favorites and the most famous: Martini's 1333 "Annunciation," da Fabriano's 1427 "Adoration of the Magi," Fra Filipo Lippi's "Madonna and Child With 2 Angels" from 1455, "Pallas and the Centaur" 1482, Filipepi, Boticelli's "Birth of Venus" and "Primavera," da Vinci and Verrocchio's "Adoration of the Magi," Bronzio's 1548 "Eleonora of Toledo," Piero di Cosimo's "Perseus Frees Andromeda," Melzi's 1505 "Leda and the Swan," Raphael's "Madonna of the Goldfinch," and Abraham Mignon's "Still Life" with grapes and a half-peeled lemon that look literally real.

I really made the most of the Uffizi. I stayed there till 2:30, when I finally decided to make my way back to the hostel after stopping at the Duomo to warm up (the Uffizi's inside had been little warmer than outside). I ate my second nutella sandwich and an absolutely incredible, amazing, scrumptious blood orange. I'm glad I got back when I did, because it started raining by 2:50, when Amanda got back from her time shopping at the market. We warmed up for awhile, though I still don't think my poor fingers are completely thawed even now, then set out to buy our train tickets back to Rome, Amanda's for tomorrow and mine for the 3rd. Unfortunately, my options were a 9 am train or a 12 pm train and since the ride is 4 hrs long I had to go with the 9am, which doesn't give me any time to explore the Florentine markets that morning, but oh well, I'll have most of the day in Rome at least. We stopped at a nearby shop for paninis on the way home. Mine was soft cheese and lettuce and basil and spices, a little bland but very good and nice and warm. Tomorrow is Siena and I really can't wait! Hopefully I'll be able to get some sleep tonight so I can really enjoy it.

The lovely view from our broken window

One of my incredible blood oranges