As it was about lunch time, we stopped for some wine and cheese (and salami!) not far from the Piti Palace, at a little place Judie had read about. A nice experience, though a bit on the pricey side. Then, back to Il Duomo.
We walked to the vicinity of the railroad station to meet what we thought
was our walking tour, and found it to be instead a bus tour. Enroute, I
realized I forgot the camera – ugh! The bus route took us around town to
a brief stop at Piazzale Michaelangelo, offering panoramic views of downtown
Florence, but alas no time to really enjoy them. Hopefully, we'll have
time to visit this location again later. The next stop of the bus tour
was the Piti Palace, a huge structure passed by fair means or foul between
various wealthy and powerful families, each of which rennovated and enlarged
it. Its now an art museum, containing many more paintings and painted rooms
than I could begin to describe here. Actually, the feeling Florence is
leaving me with is that you could easily spend a month giving each of the
museums the time it deserves. We have three days, and are not limiting
our activities to museums. It would seem that whenever there's a good idea
in the arts or sciences anywhere, it probably can trace its ancestry back
to something that happened in Florence.
As it was about lunch time, we stopped for some wine and cheese (and
salami!) not far from the Piti Palace, at a little place Judie had read
about. A nice experience, though a bit on the pricey side. Then, back to
Il Duomo.
To me, the structure is ...overwhelming – the photos don't do it justice,
so you'll just have to go and see it for yourself. The size, the materials
(lots of marble), the detail work, the age the history, all
made this part of the trip the high point of the visit for me... at least
so far.
Once done there, we continued to wander that part of town, visiting several shops and shopping areas that Judie was interested in. We bought several small items... I finally replace the wallet I'd been meaning to for quite some time (yeah, I realize that's stereotypically tourist), and we then headed to the Gallaria del Academia, the museum that houses, among other things, Michaelangelo's David.
What can I say about 'David' than that it, too, is overwhelming. When you've head about something grand for your entire life, how can you not be in awe when you're finally nearly within touching distance. What a remarkable work.
Equally interesting (and more thought-provoking) were several unfinished marble works by Michaelangelo... apparently a comissioned collection that remained unworked upon his death. Fascinating, to see how a work of this magnitude is created.
I attempted a conversation with one of the docents, trying to refresh my memory of where the damage was done to David when the statue was attacked several years ago. The docent had no english, and despite Judie's Italian, we were unable to communicate. This didn't stop us from trying enthusiastically for about 10 minutes, though. (Eventually I got my answer from someone else. It was the toe.)
The museum also houses perhaps several hundred paintings from 1400 forward, all of which are surely historical, all of which are surely important, all of which are surely master works, but... how many Madonnas and Children can you really look at in one visit. We left (or at least I did), overdosed in paintings. But unquestionably, the sculptures made it worth the visit.
A long walk to the area east of where we'd been exploring to yielded a wonderful dinner in the peaceful, pleasant, surroundings of Cibreo, another restaurant discovered by Judie during her research. Small group like ours were seated with other small groups, at larger tables, and we found ourselves with a couple Judie was translating for yesterday morning enroute from Venice. I find it difficult to believe that we're doing such a bad job of picking non-tourist spots that we're constantly running into the same folks, yet the only other explanation is that there are very few restaurants in town, and lots of Americans we've already met. After that couple left, two women from New Jersey took their place. They said their next stop is Rome; If we run into them there, I think I'm going to limit further vacations to out-of-the-way spots like.... maybe Antarctica.
Anyway, dinner was delightful, numerous complementary small hours de oeuvres, a meat sauce and flanish dish, followed by an excellent but improbable combination of tuna and veal, finally, after explaining that I was having a hard time choosing between orange marmalade cheesecake and the coffee-chocolate mousse, the waitress brought both of them, compliments of the house. I wonder what would have happened if I'd said 'they all look wonderful'?