Chris & Kelly's Travel Adventures

Today was a day of surprises.  Yesterday we visited Riccardi Medici Museum (15th century) and we were very disappointed.  So this morning with tickets to visit Palazzo Vecchio (13th century Medici Palace) we held our breath.  It was room after room of breathtaking views.  On the 2nd and 3rd floor are the private rooms and offices of different Medici, each room is decorated for and dedicated to a different Medici...all different styles, but all colorful and ornate.  You can barely tell when a wall ends and a ceiling begins...every inch is hand painted in elaborate detail.  Looks like the most intricate wall paper you have ever seen.

If you have ever seen Dan Brown's movie "Inferno" then you have seen the below picture of the "Room of 500" in which a person falls from the ceiling rafters through a priceless ceiling painting to the tile floor below.  This room is HUGE.  It was intially designed as an attempt at democracy, but they decided after 1 year to scrub that idea.  Dante's death mask was also in the movie (yes, morbid...but a bit of movie trivia, if you like that kind of thing).

Below is the "Room of 100"  or  "Audience Hall" this room was used to allow Medici's subjects to approach the ruler with requests.  There is a huge 4 person wooden desk (lead photo) at the other end of the room where the Medici would sit over their subjects and pass decisions or declarations.

The next 3 pictures are favorite objects of some of the Medici.  Boy with dolphin was very sweet.  The inlaid chests were things of beauty.  I counted 5 in all.  I thought the pictures were painted or maybe tiny mosaics, but instead semi precious materials were used as inlay to create designs or portraits...really quite stunning up close.

The next two photo's are of rooms designed for Eleonora Medici, one of the wives.  She had her own chapel and a room of Lillies, the picture is of the ceiling, but the walls are also covered in blue with hand painted Fleur de Lis.

To our Dads...Bob & Mickey- lovers of history and geography, this was our favorite room.  A huge globe (faded, but still able to make out land masses) in the center of the room and each wall covered in hand drawn maps of different lands, over different time periods.  

A fun walk home from the Palazzo Vecchio, past one of the many leather markets, a street artist who did a remarkable chalk drawing with only an outline of tape! Also a stop at Gilli's candy store, still open for business since 1733 :) 

We've been away from our puppies for a month now and really miss them.  Its no surprise that we notice every Golden that walks by.  Below is a handsome boy named David...he let me say hello :) I saw David while waiting in line to enter Santa Maria dei Fiori (Florence's main church...you've seen pictures of the outside...pink and green marble) and also the one Chris climbed the cupola yesterday.  We've wanted to see the inside for a few days now (no ticket required) but the lines were always so long and open hours short.  Finally after a 45 minute wait, we entered this historic church only to find our 2nd big surprise of the day!  This one was not a good surprise.  Most of the art has been been stripped away, probably to neighboring museums.  The stained glass was pretty, but the thing we came to see is "Dante's 9 Levels of Hell" painted inside Brunellesci's dome, yet they had it roped off so that you could only see a small portion of it.  It was a 45 minutes wait for 5 minutes of disappointment.  I guess we can always watch the Dan Brown movie again for a better look :(