:: Italy '09, Day 4: Florence ::

Well, there's been another extended break in blogging, and thus in our "tour de'Italia." It was given purposefully of course, so you could fully enjoy all the Carnivale costumes. Kidding; the break is actually the result of a couple of crazy busy weeks, which find us solidifying details for our next adventures in life... More on that in less than a week!

But for today we're continuing our tour of Italy (which I hope to wrap up by Friday - yeah right?): From Venice, we headed west a couple hours to Florence.

Florence was our "art & shopping" stop - after a quick pizza, pasta, & wine dinner (we arrived Saturday night) and a good sleep, we spent all morning in the Uffizi Gallery, which was stunning room after stunning room filled with many of the most famous paintings in the world, plus sculptures, tapestries, and much less-famous art as well. A three-hour tour gave us only the most surface-level view of many of these great works. Plus, no photos allowed, so no pics below, but here's the link to the Uffizi, where you can view some of their collection - check it out!

We spent the afternoon in Florence wandring the city and crossing the old bridge, at an outdoor market called "Il Porcellino" because of the bronze boar statue guarding the entrance (supposedly a rub of its nose brings good luck. Or you get in a car wreck 6 days later. Either one), and at the Duomo - easily the most impressive structure in the city... millions and millions of tiles, and it's HUGE! Most of the pics below are from these activities. Notice its size, compared to the ant-sized people in the last picture below

Our day wrapped up at Galleria dell'Accademia, an overall smaller, less-impressive gallary than the Uffizi, but home of the one statue that really does blow all others out of the water, Michaelangelo's David. Not being an "art guy," I had no idea why this one statue was so much more famous than the millions of others in Italy, but words can't describe the difference! Here are a few words to try: huge; amazing that it was carved from one rock; smooth - perfectly shaped without flaw, like glass; detailed - every hair on his head, the sling down his back, muscles, etc.; perfectly presented (which makes sense; dell'Accademia was built for this monstrosity). Of course, no photos allowed in this one either, but check the website if you haven't seen The David. Which you have. Surely.

One funny story (at least, at the time... hope it translates over blog): after a day of walking the city, by the time we got to dell'Accademia, we were completely worn out. So we entered the museum, and decided to sit by another really impressive statue to rest for a bit. We did this for a bit, then we pulled out the guidebook, which informed us that just the line to see the David could be an hour wait. Having no idea where it was, we saw that it was in the far back of the muesum, while we were in the front. With a train to catch before too long, and having spent the morning in the 2-story, 50+ huge-room, enormously cavernous Uffizi, we freaked out a bit, threw on our backpacks, and scurried toward the door into the next room.... where we saw the David, only 100 feet away, dwarfing only about 12 onlookers. Funny? No? Had to be there?

So that's Florence in words; here's the city in pictures: