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Published: September 14th 2007
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Queue for the Ufuzzi
Took us 2 hours to get into the museum, but it was great, maybe if you get there a bit earlier it would be better? Hello everybody.
I'm very cranky because I typed up a massive blog and then it deleted everything except for "Hello everybody"...the only bit I hadn't had to think about.
So I'm going to do it all again. With reduced enthusiasm.
Sorry it's been so long between posts, it's quite difficult to find internet cafes where we've been. Hopefully I won't get too confused with what day we did what.
Today, we went to the Uffizi gallery, which was great, except for the queues. It literally took us two hours to get into the museum, but I think that's probably because we got there late. When you get in there, it's quite good, because unlike most of the other galleries in Europe, you can get quite close to some super-famous paintings. At the Louvre it was a bit difficult to get excited by the Mona Lisa, because the closest you can get is 20 metres away, so really, they could just put up a print and there's no way you could tell the difference! But at the Uffizi, you can get withing a few inches of the paitings. Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, just to name a few
Susie Torn Asunder
Cool little statue near the uffuzi museum in Florence of the Ninja Turtles, plus Botticelli and Rembrandt and a few other famous renaissance painters. It's almost entirely religious art, and from what I could gather is predominantly the collection of the Medici family, who virtually ruled Florence for a long time.
After the Uffizi, it was quite late in the day, so we had a late lunch and then walked to the bridge whose name I can't remember, although I think the name translated is just "old bridge" or something silly like that. It's a super-cool bridge though, one of the ones that are lined with shops. On this one, the shops are all proper jewelry shops, the other bridge similar to this one, in Venice, was just selling dodgy souvenirs, whereas the one in Florence was where all the gold- and silver-smiths had their shops. The jewelry is stunning, but beyond the reach of any normal person. They had one bangle there that was really thick, gold, and in the shape of a serpent wrapped a few inches up your arm. Then the entire thing was encrusted with rubies. It wasn't over-the-top, it was just really impressive...the price was pretty impressive too. Many, many zeros after it!
Busy Street
One of the streets around the Duomo - there's a crazy number of people there! We went for a bit of a walk on the other side of the river but didn't see anything spectacular, so we headed back, and we had to do our laundry anyway. Which was a stupid story too. Susie was tired, so I went to do the laundry. I carried the laundry to the laundromat in a big red plastic bag, so I looked quite similar to Santa Claus. I did the laundry, dried it, and folded it, put it all in the bag, and didn't feel like carrying the brochure back with me, so I just remembered to take the second left and the third right and I'd be home. So I stepped out the door and immediately started daydreaming, and couldn't remember how many streets I'd passed, and though maybe I should go back, and as it turned out, a 5 minute walk because a 1 hour journey.
But the good side of the story was that because of getting so inexorably lost, I managed to stumble on a fantastic festival they were holding that night, all these kids had little candle lanterns inside paper fish and paper boats on the end of sticks. I eventually
View of the river (& Sue)
The river that runs through Florence - very pretty found home and Susie and I went to have a look. Of course, I forgot my camera, but it was really great, one of those things you really hope you stumble on in your holidays.
Anyway, off to Rome tomorrow, so that should be good. We only have one full day there for some ridiculous reason, so we have to make the most of it.
Hope everybody is well.
Bye bye
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