Uffizi Museum

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. It's great being back in Florence - I love this city! Plus it's great to finally be in a decent hotel, which also happens to serve a WONDERFUL breakfast of breads, yogurt, granola, cereal, fruit juice, coffee...YUM!!!

Yesterday morning we went to the Duomo, which I think is one of the most beautiful and impressive buildings in the world, but is also rather cold and distant when you consider that its purpose as a place of worship should (in my opinion) serve to bring people closer to God.

After the Duomo, we went to the museum 'Opera Santa Maria del Fiore' and saw one of Michaelangelo's unfinished 'Pietas' with his own features on the face of Nicodemus. But none of the other stuff really stood out (it was ALL religious; kinda starts looking alike after a very short time) except for the amazing choir lofts carved not with the usual stiffly posed upper-class and saints but with children singing, dancing and playing musical instruments. I've never seen stone so vibrant and full of life! It was exquisite, very moving. Why can't more religious artwork be like that? God CREATED life, so I find it so much easier to see Him in motion (dancing, playing) than in the typical expressionless faces on Jesus and Mary in 99% of all Catholic art.

After a yummy lunch, we went to the Uffizi to pick up our reserved tickets. Ten bucks each! Glad we'd reserved them this morning to avoid a 2-hr wait in the rain! The Uffizi is the world's premiere collection of Renaissance artwork, but as I said, that means 99% religious stuff/rich benefactor stuff. I feel somewhat guilty saying this, but it was rather...well, BORING! Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus' was pretty cool, though.

The next day we went to the Galleria dell' Accademia, where we saw Michaelangelo's 'David' and 'Le Quattro Prigionerie'. All are so magical and hypnotic! I also am also enchanted by the sculpture 'Rape of the Sabine Women'. Violent, yet evocative. I honestly think that if this museum also displayed Michelangelo's 'Pieta' and those choir lofts, it would win hands-down as my favorite Italian museum.

Today was sunny - YAY! - so we walked around town a bit past a bunch of churches and piazzas and ended up at the Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, a very old perfume shop that still uses traditional ingredients and methods in their fragrances! It was interesting to smell original perfumes that people were wearing 400 years ago, but I wouldn't want to put them on MY skin! We've come a long way, baby.

Here's a tip for anyone visiting Florence: GO SEE THE CITY VIEWS ACROSS THE ARNO AT THE PIAZZALE MICHAELANGELO. I have my HUF (Harding University Florence) friends to thank for this tip; it's not in most of the guidebooks. It's a bit of a climb but so, so worth it...last time I was here I arrived just in time for an amazing sunset; this time it was just before noon but still beautiful. We also had wonderful gelatto at the cafe there on the hill.

After lunch we climbed up the Campanile of the Duomo and got some great shots of the city. Then we went back to the hotel for a much-needed rest and watched the Winter Olympics. .