9/19 Fri – Florence
Today we are going to do the Accademia (Galleria dell’Accademia) where Michaelangelo’s David is located; also his unfinished “Prisoners”. We have to pack up first as we will be leaving for Rome today. We enjoy our delightful breakfast and the so accommodating staff – get guidance from our concierge and set off with our map in hand again. This place turns out to be quite difficult to find so we just take our time, cover some streets (not really streets more like lanes) and take in things we didn’t cover yesterday.
There is a slight drizzle today but it is no bother and it is plenty warm. We head back to the Duomo which again is incredibly huge and beautiful on the outside. We consider paying the 10 euro to go in – to a church yet – but decide we are already a little churched out. We encircle the church – which is a long way around (everything in Italy is in circles we come to find); and the maps don’t seem to match my sense of direction but we finally come to the museum.
It is a little crowded as this is a very small 1 story building. We just take our time following everyone else so we wait our turn to see. Michaelangelo’s “David” is at the end of the Gallery of Slaves (there are 4) including The Young Slave; and The Awakening Slave; The Bearded Slave and Atlas. We wind up having a good 20 25 minutes to just take in the David and Prisoners. It is so awsome and beautiful. I did not realize before that Michaelangelo made his right hand much larger than his left because it represents the hand of God or that he held the stone for the sling in his left. The carrera marble shows its superior qualities.
We then see the museum of musical instruments which was a surprise and very interesting, in english. It contains the first piano, Antonio Stradivari’s tenor viola, the earliest known upright piano and Bartolomeo Cristofori’s (inventor of the piano) Oval spinet. Large collection of instruments – you could even make some of them play.
We then went in to the “Hall of the Collossus” room filled with famous statues and artists; descriptions in english thank goodness so it good to know the theme. It contains the plaster model of “The Rape of the Sabine Women”; Lorenzo Bartolini’s Demidoff monument. Many paintings; “Botticelli’s Madonna & Child”; Sogliani, Lorenzo Di Credi, Bartolomeo, Perugino. This room took a long time to go thru as it had a myriad of items.
Again we stagger out of here exhuasted we head back toward the hotel as our train leaves for Rome at 3 pm. We arrive early enough to have a pizza at the train station. We really like Italian pizza as it is so much simpler than ours, just cheese and sauce with a light crust.
Again struggle, struggle with our 2 bags – a really nice young couple are sitting across from us and he just grabs them and runs them down to the storage section. Later we get talking to them, she was talking to their 3 children back home so that started where they were from – Newport Beach. They are over here because she went to school in Florence and wanted him to see it – celebrating their 10th anniversary. They also helped us off the train which was good because we were walking the four blocks to our Amalfi Hotel on Via Meraluna.
Oh boy kick back time. We then head down the street for a lovely Italian dinner at the Grotto – good food, nice atmosphere, serenaded by a piano and singer. Tomorrow the Vatican.
Tags: Travel
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