In July, Italy changed their rules regarding quarantine, relaxing the requirements for vaccinated visitors from a few countries, including Canada and the US. Less than a month later, Loradona and I were each on a plane, heading to Rome.
These next few blog posts are going to be chronicling my trip. I've decided to separate them out based on city. So, while we flew into Rome, this first post will be about Florence.
To give Mom and Dad a chance to do some work, Loradona and I headed up north by ourselves.
The fast trains are awesome, and gave us a chance to play some rummy with the Hogwarts cards Kyler gave me in preparation for this trip. How awesome is he, by the way? Supporting me going off without him, staying home and taking care of the kiddos, and buying me cards.
Anyway, first stop: Firenze (Florence), and a trip to the Galleria dell'Accademia, most famous for...
This guy. Michaelangelo's David. He is impressive.
Just look at the detail on his hands!
The whole Accademia was very cool. There was a whole room of amazing musical instruments,
which could only have been made better to hear someone play them.
There were many cool statues, in addition to David.
This was one of our favorites. Her emotions really struck a chord with us. Haha.
At the Accademia, we also started our collection we later entitled, "Have You Ever Even Seen A Baby?"
With sub-categories such as, “Do You Even Know What To Do With a Baby?”
(Hint: it's not throw Jesus into the fire...)
And also, “…Baby! Do You Even Know How That Works?”
Because that is not the best way to eat, kiddo.
Stay tuned for more questionable artwork as we go to more museums.
After the Accademia, we headed to our Air BnB.
It was the amazing little apartment originally built in the 1700's close to everything we wanted to see. And Loradona and I decided that, as we were still pretty jet lagged, we needed to take a nap. Yes, even me. So we crashed, hard. Good thing we set alarms, because we would not have woken up otherwise. But we did wake up and then I experienced some of my favorite moments of the entire trip. I heard something outside and out of view: some Italian men singing a song. It was a little moment that just felt so perfectly, wonderfully, Italian.
And another favorite moment: we went for a walk to the piazza of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.
Which was amazing.
The detail on the doors and walls and...
Oh, it was just amazing.
After wandering the piazza and buying a couple of souvenirs, we stopped to eat some dinner.
And, in spite of the fact that my stomach was seeming permanently unsettled at this point, we thoroughly enjoyed our dinner, complete with salad course.
And these ravioli...
...the ricotta basically melted in my mouth. I still dream of these ravioli. YUM.
Jet lag was treating us pretty rough here and there, though, so it wasn't the best of nights. Loradona and I both woke up in the middle of the night and, while sleepy, couldn't fall back asleep again for a while.
On our second day in Firenze, we headed to the Bargello, formerly a prison:
Dante was here before his exile!
It is now a museum, with a ton of amazing sculptures, among other things.
This statue was fountain in its prime.
Do you see where the water came out? Keepin' it classy!
Another David, this one by Donatello.
We saw 3 different Davids and all four Ninja Turtles on this day, like this one ↓↓
Also by Donatello. It's Saint George, ready to slay the dragon.
Not one of the ninja turtles, but heavily influenced by them is this one,
While at the Bargello, I decided I love sculptures. They feel so dynamic and real: they take up real space. One of my favorites was at the top of the stairs: Jason.
We also spent the afternoon at Uffizi.
In the piazza just outside we stopped at a small outdoor selection of sculptures - for free even! - and I loved seeing them.
Inside, we finished off our Ninja Turtles
and also saw work by Bottecelli, Caravaggio, and so much more.
Uffizi is so big it's almost overwhelming and definitely exhausting. But definitely worth it.
Plus, we added to our "Have You Ever Even Seen A Baby?" collection.
I mean, seriously, babies shouldn't look like this!
We decided Botticelli has an amazing eye for detail.
We loved the faces on his women, in particular.
My favorite was probably the Medusa room, the Caravaggio in particular.
Unless, of course, it was this:
This is an artist (Gerrit van Honthorst) and a group of people who clearly know what a baby looks like and what to do with it.
The final thing we did in Firenze before heading to the train station and continuing our adventures was get some gelato.
This raspberry gelato was probably my favorite single flavor. Maybe. But it has tough competition, as you will see later...
No comments:
Post a Comment