Bust a Move!

Today was a day on the go! We woke up early and had a fantastic breakfast. This breakfast was the best so far. We had fresh sliced ham and salami to go with freshly sliced cheese. Several types of cereals and yogurt as well as an assortment of croissants and other breads. We also had tea and coffee and fresh orange juice and grapefruit juice.

After breakfast we made a beeline for the train station. We were on a mission to go to Pisa to see the leaning tower. We had reservations to tour the Uffizi Gallery at 12:30 p.m. and we were planning to leave the train station around 9 a.m. for our side trip.

Pisa is an hour train ride from Florence and then the leaning tower is another 30-minute walk. So we knew that we were going to be a little crunched for time, but we also knew that the leaning tower was something that we definitely wanted to see.

The train ride was easy, and soon we were arriving at Pisa Centrale station. As we were walking the streets of Pisa, there were some local college students celebrating some type of festival. They were walking around with felt hats and blowing whistles. If they blew the whistle at you, they wanted you to put something (money or something else of “value”) into their hat. So for about three or four blocks we heard our fair share of whistle blowing.

We soon arrived at Piazza del Duomo in Pisa, home to the Leaning Tower of Pisa along with a cathedral and baptistery. The tower is unbelievable. It leans so much, you really think that it will fall down. We were trying to take photos to show how much it was leaning, but many of them just look like we were holding the camera off-center. The tower is leaning big time. Of course we took the cheesy photos of each of us “holding up” the tower, but so were 5,000 other tourists so it was ok.
We spent about 20 minutes looking at the leaning tower before we started heading back to the train station. Another hour later and we were back in Florence and arrived to the Uffizi Gallery just in time for our reservation.

The Uffizi Gallery is an art museum made up of a lot of the personal collections of the Medici family, who pretty much ran Florence during the Renaissance. There were mainly paintings, with a few sculptures mixed in. There were paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo and Brunelleschi, along with other popular Renaissance painters. There were some altarpieces that were as big as an entire wall. We were fascinated by the bright colors and attention to detail that is sometimes lacking from modern art.

We had a great audio guide from Rick Steves to bring us through the gallery, but unfortunately, the museum did not allow photos. Our memories will be enough for us though as we saw many masterpieces.

We left the Uffizi Gallery and walked a few blocks north to the Accademia Gallery. The Accademia is home to Michaelangelo’s David. There is not much else in this museum, but the David alone is worth the price of admission.

You walk through the main entrance and make a turn into a long hallway, and at the end of the hallway stands David. He stands on a five-foot tall base, but he stands 14 feet by himself, a lot taller than you would think by seeing photos in a book or online.

The attention to detail on the David is beyond compare. Michaelangelo has taken every detail into consideration, including veins in David’s hand, and the placement of the sling and rock that David will use to slay Goliath.

We sat in some chairs around David and just sat there for about 15 or 20 minutes, just looking and trying to take in every detail. We also took a few illegal photos with our iPhones as we pretended to listen to our audio guide.

There are also some unfinished works by Michaelangelo called the Prisoners. These four sculptures are still in a raw form, but allow you to see the process by which Michaelangelo created his statues. You can still see chisel marks in the marble as the people seem to emerge from the stone. Even in its unfinished state, these works are still a sight to behold.

We came back from the Accademia and decided to pack some of our clothes in preparation for our trip to Venice tomorrow. Then we left the hotel to go on our Florence night walk. We decided that we wanted to go for a walk like Florence natives would. We walked through a market of clothing, purses and jackets, and saw some other shops as well; we even got lost and had to ask for directions. But it was really nice to get out in the city and see it how a native of Florence would.

We went to dinner at a place called Trattoria Anita, which was a block behind the Palazzo Vecchio. We started out with Ribollita, a Tuscan bread soup, that was not very appealing to the eye, but was very appealing to the tastebuds. It was a vegetable soup that contained peas, spinach, cauliflower and beans that had been mixed with pieces of bread. The bread had soaked up some of the soup, so it was very thick. It was very good and we ate it all very quickly.

Our next course was a pair of spaghettis. Jessica had Spaghetti alla Carbonara that was spaghetti with egg, bacon and cheese to form a creamy sauce. It tasted a little like alfredo sauce in the United States, but with a little twist. I had Spaghetti alla Fiaccheraia, which had a spicy tomato sauce, onions and bacon. It was very spicy and the bacon gave it a nice meaty flavor.

We were stuffed, so we opted to leave without dessert. I grabbed some good gelato on the way home, pineapple and coconut (to make a version of a pina colada). We tried to find a canoli for Jessica, but were unsuccessful, so we will try again tomorrow.

Tomorrow we tour the Duomo and climb to the top of the dome in the morning, and then leave to go to Venice in the afternoon. We are excited for our next adventures. Ciao!