Chris & Kelly's Travel Adventures

Yes, we are in Florence and yes, we see beauty everywhere we look.  However, this morning had a different appreciation for us...a semblance of normalcy.  For the 1st time 3 weeks, we are not staying in hotel- but a rental apartment.  We are able to unpack, able to stock a refrigerator and to feed ourselves.  So the day started with coffee, greek yogurt, scrambled eggs and toast!  We did several loads of laundry and then set out for the 1st half of our day.

The Accademia museum started off with a bang.  Michelangelo's prisoner's emerging from stone, followed by the "David".  We saw many sculptures, some very old and unique musical instruments and paintings.  It was a packed 2 hours.

We walked back to our apartment for some lunch, then went for gelato (then a nap).  There is a gelato shop directly across the street from us.  We still aren't sure if thats a good or bad thing.  My pants will tell in week!

In the afternoon we visited the Uffizi museum.  It is two floors, we only managed to cover 1 floor in 3 hours.  I'd love to give you details on artists, styles, dates etc...but I have information overload!  We were offered self guided audio tours, but decided we would just find pieces that appealed to us and read the plaques on them.   That way we could appreciate the lesser known artists as well as the "headliners".  Some things that stood out were details like the use of different colored marble on one piece, or vivid colors in a painting, or intricate carvings of hair, fabric, hands, (fluid movement of a piece of sculpture) detailed ceiling fresco's and so forth.  We will go back next week to try to complete the tour.

This is a picture of Ponte Vecchio from the 2nd floor of the Uffizi.  We finished the day with dinner of fried polenta with chicken liver pate, spaghetti carbonara with red wine sauce and then an evening walk around Basilica Santa Maria del Fiori.  Sweet dreams to you all.