Florence Day 6

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We were determined to go to the museums so up at 7.30, down to the local bar for coffee and today lovely fresh cornetti’s. (Probably where the extra kgs are coming from!) We must be considered as locals now as we are able to sit outside without being charged the sit down price. In bars and café’s there is a difference in price between standing 1E (at this particular one) to 2.50E to drink a coffee sitting down.

That done and our video diary update done we headed for the Academia and Uffizi to buy tickets for the following day. We took a different street for a change, one that was adjacent to our apartment and after only a few steps into the street went into a shop where I picked up a pair of shorts and a pair of white pants for under $25. R picked up a skirt and top for around the same. Rather than carry the stuff around we took them back to our apartment. We started off again and at the other end of that same street was a shoe shop with a “saldi” (a sale). The window looked interesting crammed with all sorts of shoes all on sale. About half an hour and 5 pairs of shoes later between us (3 for me and 2 for R) we again headed back to the apartment to leave the bags rather than carrying them. As we wandered back through the leather markets R picked up a lovely bag to match one of her new pairs of shoes.

By this time it was lunch time so we had some Tuscan bread soup, a large salad, bread, water and wine at a local Trattoria. So…back to the museums. The Academia where Michelangelo’s David is housed is in kind of a side street and is a plain unobtrusive building. You could walk past it and not really know it is there. I had read quite a bit on where to go to buy tickets, the crowds, the hours of queuing, etc, etc. There were 2 doors one with around 20 people queuing and another door, so we took the other door, waltzed straight in placed our bags on the security belt and walked straight up to the ticket window. I asked could we buy a ticket for today, “Yes” I was told so we did and we were in!…wow…unheard of apparently! We walked through the entrance turned right and although David is right at the other end of a wide corridor under a dome, his presence and enormity reaches you as you turn the corner. The impact is quite amazing…or it was for me. Words can’t really describe Michelangelo’s magnificent David so I won’t even begin to try as I feel I could not do it justice only that the energy within the dome was incredible. On either side of the corridor leading up to the dome there are several pieces of Michelangelo’s unfinished works where it looks like the people in the work are emerging out of the marble, like they were trying to break free of the constraints of the stones. When Michelangelo’s first started sculpting apparently his family weren’t that happy with him being (how they thought of him) a lowly stonemason! There are a few paintings and another floor of other bits and pieces in this museum but we weren’t interested really after seeing David.

We then headed for the Uffizi museum to buy tickets for the following day, we could have also waltzed into this museum too, but as it was around 4.30pm decided we’d need more time so bought the tickets for the following day.

From the Uffizi a short walk to the famous Ponte Vecchio Bridge where all the gold and jewellery traders are and no we didn’t make a purchase there, although there were quite a few items that I would have liked to have bought.

We headed back through the city taking yet another different road and heard what sounded like drums. As we rounded a corner, there were drummers approaching us in the middle of the street, followed by men with flags throwing them high into the air and catching them. They were dressed in traditional old medieval costumes including coloured tights (they must have been sooo hot!). With this, the beat of the drums, in the middle of Florence, the crowd clapping and cheering, made for a great atmosphere.

On our way back to the apartment I managed to pick up a purple bag to match one of my pair of shoes that I’d bought earlier in the day.

As it was Saturday we decided to dress for dinner and eat at a restaurant rather than a pizzeria or Trattoria. We were seated next to a Canadian couple and as they had been to Rome and had just arrived in Florence that day we swapped information that could help each other. Another great meal of home made pasta, salad and a bottle of Pinot Grigio from Northern Italy. We asked the waiter where a good bar in Florence would be as we weren’t ready to return to the apartment. With directions and a map we walked to a couple of bars. One was pretty upmarket, full of “beautiful people”. We ordered a bottle of wine (twice) and as it didn’t appear after 15 minutes of waiting we left. We ended up at another bar and had a few drinks there where we met another few guys. This was to be our last night until our flat-mate turned up.

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