After Pisa, we hit the highway to head to a Euro Camp we were staying in outside Florence. The Italian Autostrada is nice, but the tolls really added up over the week we used it!
We stopped at ye olde McDonald's for lunch on the way. The kids got their standard McNuggets, juice box, and fries, but the Happy Meals also included a large wedge of fresh pineapple.
This was our Euro Camp "cabin." It was actually perfect- two bedrooms, two bathrooms, little kitchen and patio. We stayed here for three nights, and tried out the pools, water slides, restaurant, and gelato, and they were all great. Awesome value for a very little price tag. (We did purchase everyone a new swimsuit at the shop so we could enjoy the pools.) It was also well located near Florence and the Tuscan hill towns.
In the morning we drove into Florence. We made a few wrong turns (thanks GPS,) and got stuck in some rush hour traffic, so by the time we parked in a garage we didn't have very long to figure out how to get to the Accademia for our 10:00 reservation. We might have hopped a street car without paying, and we might have carried lagging kids a mile or so, but we made it there on time and got in to see Michelangelo's famous David.
So, why does David matter? This is the question I get asked about nearly every piece of art/artist by my kiddos, and sometimes I just don't know, other than IT DOES. Here's what I do know about David. He is 17 feet tall, really bigger than I thought he would be. He was unveiled in 1504, that is a looooong time ago for him to still be in such pristine condition, he must work out. Michelangelo was only 26 years old when he began carving it and it took him two years. And also, it is just amazing how you can see the outline of muscles and even veins- Michelangelo was just an artistic genius, and this may have been the first work where his contemporaries realized that.
The Accademia is surprisingly small, but we did also enjoy this room that showed how sculptors and their apprentices worked from models, made plaster molds, and carved out of stone. Statues like this have become a lot more interesting since Charlotte and Toby have learned about all of the Greek Gods and Goddesses and can now tell us about the statues and stories behind them.
After the Accademia we strolled down to the Duomo. The Florence Cathedral was begun in 1296, and completed with this dome in 1436. I love that when they began building it, there wasn't even an understanding of how to make a dome this large, but they just left a hole and figured someone would figure it out eventually, and they did. (The ancient Romans had the knowledge, but it had been lost since that time.)
The cathedral and bell tower are so large, and the streets are so small, I found it impossible to get far enough away from it to take a complete picture, but it is beautiful, and Gothic, and I'm sure to medieval Florentines it was a symbol of their prominent place in the world and God's kingdom.
The Baptistery next door is home of the Gates of Paradise doors by Ghiberti. Ghiberti won the commission when he was only 21 (Florence was a young men's town I guess) but it took him 21 more years to complete them. There are 28 panels, 20 of which depict the life of Christ. (The other eight feature prominent Saints.) These doors are actually a replica-the originals were moved to a museum in 1990 for preservation.
Next we strolled over to the Piazza Della Signoria, which is the town square in front of the Town Hall. We took along with us on this trip a Treasure Hunt for kids book about Florence that Rob's mom had sent us. It was great for keeping the kids engaged and awarded points for things like finding out who this sculpture is of. (It's Cosimo de Medici, the first Medici to really run Florence behind the scenes.) This square was also where the Bonfire of the Vanities occurred: in 1497 the Church in Florence gathered things they thought might lead people to sin, including mirrors, make-up, books, musical instruments, paintings, and so on and destroyed them by fire.
Also on the Piazza Della Signoria is the Loggia dei Lanzi. This is basically an open air sculpture gallery, and a lovely place to sit in the shade and watch people.
This was our favorite sculpture in the Loggia dei Lanzi, with a view of the Palazzo Vecchio in the background. The "Old Palace" is the Town Hall.
The next stop on our Florence stroll was the Ponte Vecchio. The "Old Bridge" had market stalls built into it that were originally home to butchers that would toss their waste into the Arno River below. At some point the shops were taken over by Florence's gold and gem dealers. It was fun to do some posh window shopping.
This is what the bridge looks like from the riverbank outside the Uffizi Gallery.
By this point we were all ready for a nice long Italian lunch. We found a restaurant on the Piazza Della Signoria and settled in. I love how European restaurants with patio seating offer blankets. (You can see the lady behind Toby using one.) Toby tried to survive this trip by only eating McDonald's and pizza I think. It was really good pizza though.
Rob loves the Aqua Panna and always tries to order the most interesting pasta on the menu. (You can just see Amelie's hand next to him trying to draw the Florentine crest in our little Treasure Hunt book.)
Our appointment for the Uffizi Gallery wasn't until 4 pm, so we had some more time to stroll and shop for souvenirs after our meal. We really liked all of the fancy paper shops, but they didn't seem to love our four kiddos roaming around touching their fancy papers- so no photo of that. We did manage to find Dante Alighieri's old neighborhood though, and take a few pictures there. This was the church he attended in the late 1200s.
And here we found a bust of Dante glaring down at us... "All hope abandon, ye who enter here!" He doesn't seem like he was the cuddliest sort of guy.
Then FINALLY it was time for the Uffizi Gallery. We made reservations ahead of time and so we were super surprised to see the massive line we had to wait in. Turns out there had been a not-really-a-strike strike by the gallery employees that morning and they told everyone with reservations then to just come back at any point during the day. Sheesh. Also, it was a strategic error to plan the biggest museum for late in the day when the kids are pretty over it, but oh well! Onward!
You guys. The art in this place is AMAZING.
Just masterpiece after masterpiece.
Sometimes we'd let the kids take a break in the hallway and Rob and I took turns going into individual galleries because they were so tired. But it was an experience I will never forget.
There were so many famous paintings, that I couldn't possibly take a picture of each of them. And seeing art in real life instead of a photo is just a different experience. Seeing the layers of paint, brush strokes, glossiness, and details. Did I mention I loved it?
At the end of the top floor you can poke out onto this terrace and get an up close view of the Palazzo Vecchio and some fresh air. A lot of people ditch out at this point and skip the special exhibitions on the lower floor. We powered on and boy were we rewarded!
Do you know what this is? It is Leonardo Da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi from 1481.
It is hard to tell in this photo, but it is HUGE, and unfinished, and just came back to the gallery after 6 years of restoration work. Da Vinci had to give it up when he moved to Milan (to paint that Last Supper fresco you may have heard of.) It was neat to see an unfinished work, with the sketches, and kind of see his process a little bit. I loved it!
But boy, did I wear these guys out.
After the Uffizi Gallery we had a loooong walk (without transit fraud) back to our car. We did stop in a chocolate shop and buy some mini-cannolis, fruit tartlets, and such for sustenance though, so that helped perk everyone back up.
No comments:
Post a Comment