Uffizi - August 13, 2020

 Friday August 13, 2010

Senne's Summary: Went to the Uffizi Gallery, saw more than our fair share of "Madonna con Bambino" paintings!

Today we got up moderately early and went to the Uffizi Gallery. It was on the list of things you must do when you are in Florence. We were glad we had reservations because the line was ridiculously long… I can’t imagine how long those people were going to be standing out there, but I’ve read that often the non-reservation line is 6+ hours!

I think perhaps that we are both “museumed out” 😀 The first part of the gallery we looked at had hundreds of paintings from the 1300’s with basically the same three themes: the birth of Jesus, the death of Jesus, and the adoration of Jesus. It is clear what was on the mind of the people in the 1300’s!

It was a good day to be in the museum because there was a thunderstorm while we were inside… that’s one way to clear the tourists off the streets!

The museum did get a bit more interesting once the paintings started to have other themes… but it took a long time to get there. I think we’ll stay out of the museums for the next couple of weeks anyway.

When we left the Uffizi Gallery it was just sprinkling a bit. Clearly the tourists aren’t from the west coast of Canada because there were a lot of rain ponchos and umbrellas. As a matter of fact, a lot of people were going up and down the streets selling ponchos and umbrellas and making good money doing it!

We stopped for a little lunch at the “vegetable place” from yesterday. Today we had chicken, rice and three kinds of vegetables. We should be set for vegetables for this month, right mom?!

We did some errands and lounging about this afternoon and then went out for another evening walk. We ended up in some square with a carousel and a giant arch. There was a young girl singing Ave Maria on the street and she had a beautiful voice. Then we went over to our favourite place with the statues and sat and watched people/stuff. Florence looks different at night. I almost think it looks more beautiful at night than during the day.

Steve and I were discussing the “most beautiful city” theory that we had read about… and we both agree that this probably isn’t the most beautiful city in the world to us… but we realized why… to us a city can’t be the most beautiful if you can’t see the ocean.

Florence is beautiful, but not the most beautiful. I think our viewpoint is a little jaded because the neighbourhood where our apartment is, seems a little sketchy… particularly at night. Even two blocks away is better than our street. It’s a good reminder about buying real estate… you really need to see the street at different times of the day and for a good period of time to know what the neighbourhood is really like.