Florence Saturday the day of climbing steps

Up early this morning as we had reservations at 8:30 at the Uffizi Museum. I had researched enough online that I knew we needed to make reservations for here to avoid long lineups for tickets. We had stopped by here last night as well when we were passing so we knew exactly where to pick up the tickets. We arrived about 15 minutes early, to find the only line up seemed to be for those that had reservations and needed to pick up tickets! I think we would have walked right in without a reservation at that time of morning, but it was only about a 15 minute wait and we are on our way in.

I had printed off a list of things to see at the museum as neither of us are art experts by any stretch of the imagination. It was fun to follow along, but also fun to just admire all of the work here. This is supposed to be one of the best museums in Europe, so off we went.

Much of the work here comes from the Medici family, who were very wealthy bankers, and at one point their art was left to the city and to remain in the city, lots of treasures. The building was actually the office at one point. Beautiful architecture, and lots of nice views of the river and the city from different points inside. It is basically 2 very long hallways that have lots of busts and statues to see as you go from one room to the next. There were probably 50 or 60 rooms off these hallways, all showcasing amazing work.



Raising Lazarus

Hercules and the Centaur Nessus

Beautiful long hallways lined with sculptures, you go off into individual rooms to see more exhibits and return to the hallways

The Ognissanti Madonna by Giotto - 1310

Madonna with Child and two Angels by Filippo Lippi - 1465

The Battle of San Romano by Paolo Uccello - 1438

Portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino by Piero della Francesca - 1400's

Calumny of Apelles - Sandro Botticelli - 1494

Three Arch Angels with Tobias by Francesco Botticini

Bacchus by Caravaggio - 1596 or 1597

Annunciation by Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi - Approx 1333

Virgin of Humility with Angels - Nicola di Guardiagrele

Primavera - Sandro Botticelli - 1482

Birth of Venus - Sandro Botticelli - 1480's



Doni Tondo by Michelangelo - 1506

Carving from the Roman times

Medusa by Michelangelo Merisi

We spent about 2 hours in the museum and by then had enough. You could easily spend days in here if museums are your thing, but 2 hours and we were done. By now tour groups had also started to come in and catch up to us. One great thing about this museum is no selfie sticks! These things were so annoying outside trying to take pictures, plus on every street corner someone is trying to sell you a selfie stick. Question of the day: Do you have to be from Africa to sell selfie sticks? And they really need to work on their jokes, Andre and I are not their Mother and Father, that is obvious!

Next off we went to the cathedral museum office to verify some tickets I had bought online. This is the most confusing system ever. We only had 1 ticket, but needed 2, but I had purchased two, but I guess only printed one. They helped me download the other ticket onto my phone so I could use my phone to scan and Andre used the printed ticket. Thank goodness we went or we would have been so confused at the first place we tried to get in.

 We are hungry at this point so we grabbed some quick pasta from a nice little bar on a side street near the Cathedral. We had a view of the Dome from our seats, the prices were reasonable, and no service charge which was a bit of a surprise, we are becoming accustomed to service charges.



Lunch break - not a bad view!

Now it is nearly time for us to climb the Cupola (Dome). This is part of the bundle of tickets that I bought that was so confusing. You now have to make reservations to climb the Dome, when we were at the ticket office earlier they were sold out for the day at 10AM. This was the confusing part, you get in line, but there is no one there to help you, and you have a confirmed time to climb. Then you get to the front of the line and you need your ticket and your voucher showing your confirmed time. It was just a bit of a mess, people yelling at those going to the front of the line because they thought they could with a confirmed time, we taught some Italians to say “Back of the Line” in English. We are at the front of the line now for the next group to go up and a group of about 40 Germans come up to the front, the organizer things they should all get to go first. Andre took one look at this group and said to me make sure you get in before they do as we were definitely on the much younger side of this group. I had been a bit anxious about climbing nearly 500 steps, and I'm not sure that this group had all been warned about the number of steps.

As I mentioned I was a little nervous, we are 4^th through the ticket machine and the steps start right there. No time to second guess, I'm off. I actually did not too bad, I for sure wasn't the fastest, but I kept a steady pace and made it fine. Part way up you actually come out of the stairway and walk around the inside part of the Dome. This part is amazing, the entire inside of the dome is covered in paintings of various religious scenes.

After you walk part way along the inside of the Dome there are more steps to get you to the top. Here the stairs get very narrow, and you need to make room for people coming down as well. Thank goodness this section is not too long, it was not my favourite spot.

Once we reach the top all the work to get up here is well worth it, you are well rewarded with the views.

Climb to the top of the Duomo, you get some beautiful views part way up

Lots of stairs to climb!

Rewarded with beautiful views from the top

Bell Tower

Top of the cathedral, the dome is so much higher!

Going down

Now we have to go down. Remember the German group at the beginning that were in line, well they were still working their way up and had caused a huge backlog in the entire process. There were lineups for us to squeeze by to get down, and huge lineups for those behind them coming up. I wouldn't have been out of breath at all had I followed them, it was so slow.

On the way down you also get a view of the Dome on the inside, and the cathedral. There are only 3 people in front of us on our side of the Dome, but the other side behind the Germans is full all around. We had plenty of time to take in the views and appreciate the work.

Once we get to the bottom we saw that there was no line to go into the Cathedral so we decided to tour it now as well. There is no charge to go in to this Church. It was nice to see the Dome from inside the church that we had just climbed. It is a beautiful Church from the 1400's.

Inside the cathedral

Beautiful dome, this is what we climbed on top of

Inside the church we also were able to go down to Santa Reparta, which was under the church which took 10 years for them to excavate. This was included in the combo ticket that we bought as well. Interesting to see the layers of floors that they discovered, I think Andres favourite is the old mosaics.

Mosiac found under the cathedral

Next we went to tour the Baptistery. By now we are thankful that even though it is beautiful on the inside and out, it is quite small inside so it doesn't take too long to tour.

Beautiful ceiling in the baptistry

Next on our agenda is a visit to the central market.  Last month when we were here it was a Sunday and only the restaurants were open, so today we are off on another one of Andres favourite things to do, visit the market.

Yummy and yummy

 Next we have a tour booked of the Cathedral Museum. For the day this is probably the spot that we didn't give enough time to. It was a bigger museum than we thought, but I know we will see plenty of Church museum things in a couple of weeks when we are in Rome, so not worried about not giving this one justice.

Next I had read that there was an English Mass at 5:00 in the Duomo. It is about 4:45 so we head over and are stopped by security at the mass entrance. I asked if we could go to the 5:00 Mass, yes but it is only 4:45, come back at 5:00. That is a first, guess it doesn't start at 5:00, just come at 5:00. A beautiful afternooon to sit outside, there were 3 musicians playing right beside where we were waiting, a young boy loving the music and dancing, a great way to pass 15 minutes.

Off we go to Mass. We definitely were on the older side here, I didn't think we had reached that age yet! We were both a little shocked at how young everyone was. Maybe the younger generation go on Saturday afternoon so they don't have to get up on Sunday morning? Service was pretty close to a Catholic Mass at home, a few prayers we did not know, and we both passed on the kneeling sections. I think the priests first language was English. I was disappointed to have no music, maybe in Rome I will do more research for a service with a choir or organ.

Following Mass we had a little time to kill before our next adventure, just fun walking around some of the streets and seeing so many people!

Amazing street painting, these are done right on the sidewalk with chalk

Isn't this fantastic, he had plenty of donations in his boxes!

On Vecchio bridge, lots of gold shops!

After Mass it is now our booked time to climb the bell tower. Yep, what was I thinking booking 2 climbing tours of more than 400 stairs each in one day. This one I booked at 6:30 hoping for a nice sunset. It was worth the climb again. It is nice to climb the bell tower as you get a great view of the Dome from here. This climb also is broken into a few levels, so you get a chance to rest a bit on the way up. It is a full moon tonight, so Andre is very happy to be up here to take pictures. On the way down the girl in front of me had about 4 inch chunky heels on, she looked great, but I would have broken my neck. Not even 30 years ago could I have done that. I wanted to applaud her, but I'm not sure she would have understood.

Views from the Bell Tower

Baptistry from the top of the bell tower

These are the 2 that we climbed today!

She climbed in these!

Back down to the bottom and we are ready for supper. The streets are packed now, people everywhere. What a difference from 8AM this morning. It definitely pays to get up early in the morning if you want to see the city without hordes of people in it. We decided to head back to the side of the river that we are staying on.

Replica of David outside the palace where the original once stood

A couple more shots of the Vecchio bridge

There is a cute piazza right around the corner from where we are so decide to try there. We are still early as it is only 8PM, and it really just gets busy with the Italians after 9PM for supper. First restaurant we liked, got a table that they sat us right beside another couple about 2 inches away, we were the only 2 tables in the restaurant. We asked if we could be moved to another table, no those are for reservations, so we decide to get up and leave, I just wasn't comfortable there.

A couple of restaurants down looked good, again no reservation so we are walked back and through a maze to the very back part of the restaurant. There is one other table here right now and much more comfortable than the last restaurant. I have a Spritz and Andre red wine to start, I am really liking the Italian Spritz drink, good thing I didn't start drinking this earlier in the trip. This restaurant also had a buffet which made Andre happy. For 9.00 Euro you get a glass of wine, and as many trips to the buffet as you like and no cover. I ordered a tomato pesto spaghetti which was delicious, my spritz and I got charged a 2 euro cover. So my dinner was twice as much as Andres, good thing he's paying!

Back to the apartment, the 2 flights of stairs felt like 20, but we are home. Last night I was able to Skype with Nancy, and tonight we spoke to Joey and Jill. I'm afraid Jill got a little short changed, I may have been falling asleep a little on the phone. Checked my phone when I set the alarm, 29,100 steps, I was not going out again to reach 30,000.