Day 5: Florence

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Side Note: For whatever reason, I wake up finding my face filled with tiny pink spots.  No itch, no pain.  Just tiny pink spots.  Yuck!!!  Cheese and too greasy food must be the culprit.

According to the map provided by the hostel, the size of Florence may  be at least 3 times smaller than that of Rome, but I am seriously doubtful if the number of visitors in Florence is 3 times fewer.   I found Florence to be more congested than and as  air polluted as Rome.  It is quicker to walk than to take public transportation in the historical area of Florence.  The buses were just crawling thru those congested areas.  The noise pollution is quite unbearable; honking is everywhere.  With the cobblestone  paved roads in most area, bike ride becomes a challenge. 

First stop: Medicci Chapel.  It was the Medici  family that brought Florence unto world map.  It was also the  family (Lorenzo de Medici, the Magnificent) who discovered Michelangelo. The chapel was Michelangelo's first work as an architect and where he simultaneously applied his talents as painter and sculptor.  The Medici Chapels is a small museum with two main rooms: the Princes' Chapel and the Medici Tombs. The Princes' Chapel is covered with a huge dome designed by Buontalenti. It contains six tombs of Grand Dukes and elaborate designs in green and red marble.  But the renovation during our visit made our enjoyment a bit difficult.  The Medici Tombs house Michelangelo's spectacular statues Night, Day, Dawn and Dusk.  I studied the expressions of each of his sculptures from different angels.  I tried to understand why he allowed some faces to be so smooth and some to be so rough and why some part of the body to be shining and some not.  In one word, I can't get enough of him.  A genius he was. Nonetheless, the admission charge of euro 6 is a bit steep though.

Second Stop: Duomo and Baptistry.  Next, we walked to Duomo, which is 5 minutes away.  We passed through kiosks of merchandises like leather jackets, luggages, office bags, shoes, wallets, purses, carnival masks, gloves, scarfs, and etc on both sides of the street.  My niece's eyes were obviously glued to them.  I assured her that I would make time for shopping. 

The facade of Duomo is extremely striking and the massive octagonal cupola by Filippo Brunelleschi is very charming and becomes a distinctive feature of Florence's skyline.   However, the onsite renovation has indeed obstructed the beauty quite a bit.  Plus, the location is in the center of the busy downtown Florence.  One can hardly peacefully enjoy such a magnificent view.  Opposite the cathedral stands the Baptistery.   The third pair of these doors, by Lorenzo Ghiberti, were of such rare beauty that Michelangelo christened them the " Gates of Paradise."  But the original copy of these doors are placed in a museum.  What we see here is a replica.

Next stop: Ufizzi.  Along the way we picked up the most outrageously  expansive waffle snack I had ever bought/had.  I was dumbfounded when I was told it was 18 euro for 2 sandwich waffles with a scoop of cream in between.  We walked away with our stomach churned.  The street is just like Magnificent miles on Michigan Avenue.  Fashion shops on both sides.  Florence is not only an art world, but a shopping heaven as well.. 

The waiting queue in front of Ufizzi was only one tenth of what it was at the Vatican Museum that we both thought 30 minute top of waiting in line would get us in.  Little did we know, we stood there for another 1 hr and 45 minutes.  YUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   The line could barely budge at all.  You just simply can't apply one principle on one to another.  But the visit to Ufizzi satisfied my quest for art greatly.   It eased  some of my mental "pain" from the previous day....   All the paintings displayed here mostly dated between 12th and 17th centuries top.  80% of them are biblical stories, if not more.  A Bible follower myself, viewing those paintings are as if reading the Bible or quizzing my Bible knowledge.  Not only those paintings bring biblical stories to life, they also give me a way to understand the painter's Bible  theology.  Before this, my exposure of art was limited to the recent two or three centuries ago; I have very limited knowledge of  Renaissance arts.  I do find the themes of Renaissance arts to be somewhat narrow.  These painters seemed to be intoxicated with Mary and Jesus the baby or Jesus' crucifixion, while there are hundreds of other bible stories cao be depicted. Filippo Lippi's way of applying golden colors on the hair of his characters was very stunning and delicate as seen in his "Madonna and Child with Angels".  I enjoyed Sandro Botticelli's Primavera and Birth of Venus much.  They gave a very refreshing theme. 

After a satisfactory 5-hour of art immersion at Uffizi, I was done with museum visitation in this trip .  I might vomit if I made one more visit to any art galleries. I had what they called-ART HANGOVER.

My niece must have been thrilled to hear that.  :-)

Due to our sore legs, we decided to stop by a restuarant closer to our hostel instead of the one we went last night.  What a disappointment.  The food was very mediocre, but the restaurant charges the so-called cover charge, which is 2 euro per person, on top of the service charge.  I politely asked the waitress what was that about.  The waitress, an American, politely explained the cover charge is for the table cloth, the oil, the candles and on on..  At the end, with a 20% tips for the waitress, I paid at least 10 euro on top of the food.  My niece and I started to talk about ordering take-out instead of dine-in.  We both could care less about the ambience of a restaurant, especially after being on our feet for 12 hours..  All we wanted was to fill up our stomach and go to bed.