Finally a photo update from Florence!! Christie and I had a great time :) And even saw some sun! Well, here is the proof in many many pictures.
Day 1, January 2nd: We spent the morning and some of the afternoon walking around the city. Seeing all the sights and getting ourselves oriented. After we went into the Duomo and then the Duomo museum.
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| Me in the Piazza della Signoria, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio |
Right above my head you can see the copy of Michelangelo's David. The original David used to stand there, until it was moved to the Accademia museum. I am carrying the guide book my dad gave us. It was a historical guide to Florence given to him in 1978. We read so much from it, about the history of each place and trying to keep the Medici history straight!
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| A warning sign on the Ponte Vecchio. I love the part about indelible pens! |
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| View of the Ponte Santa Trinita |
The Ponte Santa Trinita was blown up by the Nazis during WWII. Since it was considered one of the most beautiful bridges it was eventually rebuilt. The new bridge is not only an exact copy of the original, but includes original stone that was recovered.
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| The paper store I fell in love with. Everything was handmade in Florence, most of it using hand painted marbled paper. I spent a long time looking around, wanting to buy everything! |
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| Christie posing in front of the Palazzo Pitti. |
We had just watched the man in the background posing for a photo, and so I made Christie copy him. I thought the front side of the palace was a bit boring looking. The huge paved area in the front was rather distracting from the actual palazzo.
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| Chiesa S. Salvatore in Ognissanti |
We happened upon this church as we were wandering around, and so decided to have a look inside. It was very beautiful, with ornate chapels and altars, and many frescos and paintings. And since this is Florence, it also happens to be where Botticelli is buried. We saw a fresco painted by him on the wall as well.
After all this walking around the whole centre of the city we stopped for lunch. We had some delicious panini at a little cafe. There were many little places like this for lunch. Most of them had little places to sit, where you often ended up a little crowded. But the food was delicious! I loved the warm sandwiches on focaccia bread. Next we went inside the Duomo, since there was almost no line up. Inside it was very large and empty. I guess it needs to have room for lots of tourists!
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| Michelangelo's Florentine Pieta |
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| An original from the bell tower: Euclid and Pythagorus by Luca della Robbia |
This museum had a lot of works of art that were either once in the Duomo, or which were the originals of copies still in the Duomo.
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| Piazza SS Annunziata |
Our evening walk through the city. I believe it is one of the places that was used in the film A Room with a View. It was very picturesque with the lights in the evening. We revisited the piazza on the last day we were in Florence, to sit on the steps in the sunshine.
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| Of course we had to take some photos of the Duomo! |
I am still so amazed by the detail on the façade of the Duomo. At first I was a little overwhelmed by it and wasn't too keen. Now, though, I really like it. There is so much to look at and it is so unique. I like the look of it with the dark night sky as a backdrop.
Day 2, January 3rd: First day of Museums. We bought our 3 day museum pass and headed to the Palazzo Pitti. Now, this is not one museum, but actually 6! We managed to do 5 of the museums - and it definitely felt like an accomplishment!!
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| Sunshine!!!!!!! |
I had to stop as we were walking over the Ponte Vecchio and take a photo of how gorgeous it was. Thanks to some random people for being in my photo :)
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| Palazzo Pitti, in the Boboli Gardens |
Our first stop on our crazy museum tour of Florence was the Palazzo Pitti. We bought a 3 day pass that was good for 50 museums in 3 days. I don't know how anyone would ever be able to do all those museums in only 3 days... The Palazzo Pitti is actually 6 museums all in the same palazzo. The building was bought and expanded by the Medici after they moved from Palazzo Vecchio and so the museums mostly hold their collections. The first museum we visited was the Galleria Palatina. This was housed in the grand duke and his wife's apartments. It included seeing where they lived, the frescoes and architecture of the rooms, as well as their sculpture collection. It also started out with an exhibit that was part of the "Bella Italia" celebrating the unification of Italy.
The next stop was one of the reasons we began our trip in the Pitti - Christie had been told of the costume gallery. This was a really neat museum. The clothing they had on display was interesting, but I really liked how they had displayed everything. Rather than have it chronological, it was done in themes. Each room would have one or two sets of clothing, mostly dresses. They ranged from about the 18th C to the 21st. The sets then had a common style element that linked the pieces through the centuries. It was a lot of fun to look at. They also had an exhibit on the clothing of Cosimo I, his wife Eleonora di Toledo and one of their sons. This was clothing that they had been buried in. Scientists have preserved it and although some of the clothing was almost ruined, most they were able to recreate. It was cool to see, but also kind of weird.
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| View from the Boboli Gardens |
Our next stop was after lunch: we wandered through the Boboli gardens. My goal was to find a view of Florence. We did, though it was not amazing. You can easily see the Duomo on the right though. We did, however, meet this cat. It was so cute, and very demanding. We were the only ones around at this viewpoint and he came up to us meowing for pets. I think this might have been the highlight of my trip :)
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| Christie being adored |
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| Petting the kitty |
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| Back into the Palazzo |
We next went through the modern art gallery and then through the Museum degli Argenti, which housed all of the Medici treasures. The modern art gallery was very modern, ie. late 18th C to WWI, including some very nice works of art. We then got to come down the above staircase back into the courtyard. My favourite part of the treasures museum were the 3 or 4 rooms covered in floor to ceiling frescoes. They were done in the "trompe l'oeil" effect. This is when the ceiling is painted to look as if there are a few more balconies and extra levels. It was very convincing and was fascinating to look at. The treasures themselves were kind of random. They included things like gold carved cake trays and shall flasks... The jewels they had were very nice though!
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| Back to the Palazzo Vecchio |
After a short break we went to the Palazzo Vecchio. This was built as the seat of Florentine government and also became the Medici palace, before they moved to Palazzo Pitti. The courtyard above was beautiful!
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| Salone di Cinquecento |
This is the Salone di Cinquecento. I think it is still a symbolic seat of government in Florence. On the right you can see part of the wall is hidden by some scaffolding. There was a small exhibit and movie about this, that really interested me. The frescoes on the wall were done by Vasari at the end of the 15th C, covering up earlier ones by Michelangelo and da Vinci. However, behind this scaffolding they have reason to believe the da Vinci's Battle of Anghiari has been preserved behind the wall. They are using all sorts of new techniques and science to try to find the answer. If I wasn't going to be a teacher, being an art conservator would definitely be on my list! I love the scientific techniques they use.
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| A Medici map in the map room - of Frankfurt! |
Day 3, January 4th: More museums, though this time not quite so many. We started at the Bargello sculpture museum.
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| Partial view of the courtyard and staircase |
I loved this place!! Housed in an old prison, this is a sculpture museum with works by Michelangelo, da Vinci, Donatello, Giambologna, etc.... Some of my favourite sculptures:
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| Gelato, of course! |
After some lunch, we had to get gelato. Here we are standing outside Orsanmichele pretending it was warm enough to be eating gelato! Though, here everyone seems to eat icecream outside even in the winter.
We then spent the afternoon in the Uffizi. This was an amazing afternoon, but we saw soooooooooo much!!! We spent most of our time looking at art up to about the 16th C. One of the main things that sticks in my mind is seeing the Botticelli paintings. Having studied Spring and The Birth of Venus I had a very clear idea of what Botticelli paintings look like. And I was not that keen on them. However, I really like them in real life. My favourites were the ones I didn't know that had really deep rich colours. Here was my top one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Botticelli,_fortezza.jpg. The picture really doesn't do justice to the intense colours in the real work of art.
Along the hallway of the Uffizi are two Medici collections. The first is sculptures from antiquity, standing against the wall on either side. They are still arranged in the pattern two busts and then a full person, just as they were during Medici times. The second collection is portraits of famous people. These are displayed along a small ledge near the top of the ceiling. It was a neat combination.
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| Evening walk along the Arno |
After a pasta dinner we took an evening walk around town. For dinner I had eaten some delicious cannelloni and bruschetta, yum! This is the Ponti Vecchio all lit up. The colours changed, but of course I took a photo of it purple :)
Day 4, January 5th: Last day of museums. And I think we crossed everything off our list. At a final count we went to 13 museums and 3 more churches!
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| Capelle Medici |
This is the Medici family chapel. You enter into the crypt and then go up into the actual chapel. The chapel is quite magnificent, with four large tombs and everything made out of coloured marble. It was partly under restoration because some pieces of marble had started falling down!
After the Capelle Medici we headed over the the Accademia. This is where Michelangelo's David is. I wanted to go see David, but I wasn't expecting much. First, I didn't think there was much else of note in the museum, and second I thought that David was so famous there wouldn't be any excitement in seeing it. Well, there was a lot in the gallery that I loved - namely the two Bartolini exhibits. And David, while being famous, is definitely worthy of that fame. I enjoyed being able to see it in person and appreciate it.
The first thing we actually saw in the Accademia was a musical instrument exhibit. They had a Stradivarius cello, a bass viola and a violin.
Then we went through the first Lorenzo Bartolini exhibit. This was a whole collection of his sculptures. Many were busts and many were commissioned portraits. One of his major patron was Napoleon and family. The sculptures were so beautiful and amazing, I can't say what it was like to look at them. I loved the way he could make stone look like the folds of a dress or the curls of hair. Google him, have a look at some of his work. It is awesome.
Next we walked through Michelangelo's Prisoners to David. It is incredible how large he is. It is also impressive that Michelangelo carved him out of a rejected piece of marble.
And finally we visited the second Bartolini exhibit. This was set up as his workshop, full of plaster casts left over from the marble sculptures. The walls were lined with shelves of casts from busts. We saw a picture of his workshop, and this was really how it looked. Then they had casts from larger works on the ground. I enjoyed watching the video they had showing the process of making a plaster cast, and going from plaster cast to sculpture. It is amazing how many works these artists created, given how much work it took!
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| Next stop: Palazzo Medici Ricardi |
I was a bit disappointed by this palazzo. I had been expecting a grand palace with lots of rooms to visit, but instead there were only a few. The first one, a chapel was beautifully frescoed. And the others were furnished. The picture above shows a bedroom, and also something we saw a few times: steps up to the windows. Then we went through another "Bella Italia" exhibit. This time is focused on Garibaldi. All in Italian, I really had no clue what was going on, so instead took photos of letters with pretty handwriting. Wish I would write like that!
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| Some of the beautiful handwriting |
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| Santa Croce - tomb of Galileo |
Since we didn't spend long in Palazzo Medici Ricardi we managed to also visit Santa Croce. Here we got to visit the church, walk through the cloister and also visit a little museum. There were tombs of various famous people, including the one above to Galileo.
Day 5, January 6th: Last day in Florence, and finally the sun came out for real!
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| Giambologna's Rape of the Sabine Women |
This is in the Loggia dei Lanzi, on the Piazza della Signoria and right beside the Palazzo Vecchio. We saw a lot of works by Giambologna during the trip, and I was impressed by them. This one is particularly spectacular because of the movement of the figures.
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| Panorama of the Piazza della Signoria (Palazzo Vecchio is the building on the far right). Christie took this to prove that the sun did actually come out and give us some pretty blue sky. |
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| Last day views down the Arno |
In the morning of our last day, Christie and I went for a long walk in the brilliant sunshine along the Arno. It was so beautiful!! We stayed in the sun for most of the time, trying to soak it up :)
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| Italian police officers |
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| A Christie-sized bus |
Some neat things I saw in Florence: police men and women on patrol, wearing their slightly funny looking uniforms. They almost look dressed for a rainstorm, not brilliant sunshine. And mini buses! It`s hard to tell from the angle, but the buses in the centre of the city were half the length of a regular bus.
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| The Demidoff monument by Lorenzo Bartolini. On our way to walk up to San Miniato in the hills. |
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| San Miniato! |
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| View of the sun streaming in the church. You can see one of the monks at the altar. |
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| Our last view of the city |
The Duomo almost looks more impressive from above. When you are right there I don`t think you realize just how much it towers over the rest of the city. The weather was beautiful as well. We enjoyed sitting in the sun - and I even took off my coat at one point!
We then walked back into Florence to pick up our suitcases at the hotel. There were some large celebrations for epiphany. We heard a children`s choir singing, and saw parts of the parade. Most of what we saw were people dressed up in costumes from maybe the renaissance. Plus lots of groups twirling and throwing flags in the air. It was fun to watch. We then headed out to the airport and back to Frankfurt.
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