vie a la table

two big sites were on our plate this morning- the uffizi gallery (extensive renassaince paintings) and the accademia (the david). upon our arrival in florence i started reading the guidebook to get a feel for the area and our plans, only to find out that unless you want to stand in freakishly long and slow moving lines, you need to get reservations to these two places. and of course, sometimes you have to call a month in advance in order to get a time slot. one piece of advice to future travelers: read through your guidebooks before you travel!

i was able to get a time at the accademia (easier to get a time a few days in advance), but as the uffizi was booked through next week, our only option was to wait in line. you don’t necessarily have to have a reservation to get into the museums, they just confirm you can get in at a certain time without waiting in line- especially since most places only allow so many people in at once. knowing this we planned on heading to the uffizi first thing in the morning, right after it opened. good thing we did because the line was already decently long. once we grabbed our spots, it just continued to grow and grow behind us.

while standing in these lines, we’ve found a good percentage of the people around us are american. spoke to two girls who just graduated college and were on a month long trip throughout europe. we’ve met quite a few people at the train stations, laundromat, etc. with similar itineraries. i know we thought we wanted to do a month in europe at first, but i don’t know if i could have done it. it’s just too exhausting to never be on a regular schedule, room, diet, language, etc. maybe i am just a travel wimp.

back to the day…we got to the uffizi around 8:30 and stood in line for a while- definitely not as bad as if we tried to hit it in the middle of the day. we were ushered in and immediately surrounded by hundreds of italian paintings by michelangelo, da vinci, boticelli, giotto, and of course many more. it was interesting to see the subject matter of the time…i decided i don’t think i would want to live during the renassaince. yes it was the rebirth of humanity and art, but it seemed so dark. mostly all the paintings revolved around gruesome religious stories or martyrs or christ’s suffering.

our museum walkthrough ended around 11, and being the normal americans we are, we were ready for lunch. but nothing opened till at least 12! and to make it worse, everyone opens their cafe doors and displays before they even open… we walked to kill time and found a little corner cafe with great little pizzas. they were wonderfully simple. it makes me wonder why we feel like we need to slap all sorts of meat and veggies and sauces on our pizzas, when a combination of just good bread and one or two toppings and herbs make a great meal.

with a large chunk of time between lunch and our reservation for later in the day, we relaxed, later had some gelato (we can’t get enough of it- especially when it’s on every corner), and sat and watched a busy piazza. around the corner was our next stop, to see the david.

although we had reservations for 4:30, we got there a bit early, and waited in another long line. seeing that the line without reservations never moved at all, i was happy to have made the call, but we still stood outside forever. we watched a nearby street vendor desperately try to sell cheesy prints of italian paintings and scenes to passerby tourists…without luck. our time was called and we made our way, thankfully no later as the temperature was starting to increase!

in the first room we saw some awesome sculptures by michelangelo- probably my favorite sculptures thus far due to the fact that the entire series of 5 or 6 was unfinished. each sculpture was of a figure, only halfway emerging out of the rough stone, revealing every chink he made with his tools. the visualization of his process was more impactful than the perfect polished finished products we are so accustomed to seeing.

but of course, our sight was not long after distracted to the end of the hall where the david stood. a huge sculpture of 17 feet (plus the 4-5 foot pedestal he stood upon), he demanded everyone’s attention. unfortunately no pictures were allowed, so we couldn’t capture him, but it won’t be easy to forget the site.

we laughed as we left the museum, realizing that we stood in line longer than the time we spent inside the museum, at both places today. surprisingly, florence has felt more “touristy” than rome or even paris (paris was probably the least!). maybe because this city is the smallest of the three, and the visitors are so concentrated around the few sites here.

either way, we enjoyed what we saw and went straight back to our room. the temperature is up to the 90′s today…we were happy to waste a couple hours out of the hot streets until dinner. wil is checking for a good place to eat right now in the book. it looks like we’ll have another leisurely evening together enjoying to drawn out meal, and later preparing for our big day trip to cinque terra tomorrow (yay for more train rides!).

here’s a video while we were bored in line at the uffizi…get ready for some edge of your seat action. oh and by the way, if you can tell in the video, yes, my cheek decided to break out in the last couple days (without me thinking of bringing any medication). what fun.

ciao!

Filed under:
art/architecture, europe, fun, kris, photos by kris