Italy 2007 Day 7: Ufizzi in Florence

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Today was a pretty laid back day. It began around 10am with Aimee and I heading out to a local grocery store to pick up some thing for the villa (paper products, laundry detergent, etc). It's always an interesting experience going grocery shopping in a foreign country. Everything is kind of familiar, but not really. We must have looked at 15 different bottles of stuff before settling on one that we are pretty confident is laundry detergent (there is a washing machine in the villa). Our other big find here: cheap win. We bought 2 bottles for ~4 euro each. Hopefully, they will be drinkable!

As we were walking back to the villa, a pretty steady rain started to fall. Partly for this reason, we decided it would be a good day to stay inside so the five of us headed out for the Uffizi Gallery. On the way there, we stopped for a decent but kind of expensive breakfast/lunch at a café on Piazza San Firenze. After lunch, Rooney tried to call Steve to see if he had made his rather short (1 hour) connection in Paris. He didn't answer so Rooney decided to head out to the airport to meet him. The rest of us continued on to the Uffizi and found a really long line. Since it was kind of cold and yucky anyway, we just decided to wait in it. It took almost 3 hours for us to finally get into the museum.

The Uffizi started as the private collection of the Medici family, Florence's most powerful family in the 1500's. It contains an amazing collection of Renaissance art work, but the big star of the museum for me was the building itself. Really neat. Beautiful ceilings. Large rooms (shocking for a museum, I know! :-). A good view of the Arno and the Ponte Vecchio. The museum was also a somewhat manageable size. Big enough to spend several hours in, but not quite as overwhelming as some other European museums I have been in (the Louvre in Paris and Prado in Madrid are two that come to mind). The Uffizi doesn't seem quite as large (which is a good thing), but they are in the process of changing that. Apparently, it is undergoing a major renovation/expansion that will double the size of the museum. The overwhelming thing about the museum for me was the crowd. Too many people crowded around the major pieces. Lots of big tour groups. This did not enhance the experience, but what can you do?

The one thing I've written very little about so far is the famous pieces of art I saw there. There were lots of them, one of the most famous of which is Boticelli's "Birth of Venus". There were many others that made me stop and thing "I've seen that somewhere." My only really complaint about all of this art: it was almost entirely from the Renaissance period, which has never been my favorite type of art. It's mostly religious scenes and, while I appreciate the historical significance off many of the pieces, this type of art frequently does not inspire me as much as other types (such as Impressionism). In spite of this, it was definitely still good to see the Uffizi.

After our long wait in line and a 2-hour visit to the museum, the weather had cleared up a little bit so we decided to go for a short walk across the Ponte Vecchio. We stopped for some pretty bad gelato at a place near there. We are learning restaurants and such seem to be better when you get away from the really tourist areas, even if only by a few blocks. Since she had gotten in late last night, Sheila had not yet had much of a chance to explore Florence. She saw one thing she really liked: a sharp looking leather jackiet at a store near Piazza dei Pitti. She went into the store to try it on and it really did look good on her. Just not 790 euro good! I guess the pictures we took will have to suffice.

By now, it was time to head back to the villa where we hoped Rooney and Steve would be waiting for us. They were indeed there and the six of us decided to celebrate by drinking a couple of bottles of wine. We learned there was probably a reason the grocery store win was only 4 euro. The first bottle was almost drinkable, but not quite. We decided to save the other bottle for another time -- hopefully it will be better.

We decided to keep dinner kind of low key tonight, heading over to Trattoria Pallatino sort of across the street from the villa. It was decent, reasonably priced food, but the most notable thing about dinner was the Rooney welcomed Steve to Italy by spilling a glass of red win on him. Needless to say, she was very apologetic about it (we are talking about Rooney here!), but Steve took it all in stride. Since we were so close to the villa, the two of them ran back upstairs to change his shirt and soak the one he was wearing to (hopefully) keep it from staining.

The other ironic thing we discovered tonight: the really good gelato place (Vivoli) is a lot closer to the villa than we had thought. We stumbled on it from an odd direction last night. Tonight, we realized it was almost next store to the restaurant we were eating at (i.e. less than a 1 minute walk from the front door of the villa). How fortunate for us! I'm sure tonight will not be the last time we stop in here for a late night treat.