Florence - Accedemia

Happy Birthday Jacinthe, I would have called when we got up but it would have been way to early for you!

We of course are now totally on Europe time. No time change here for a couple more weeks unlike North America. For some reason we are waking up at 5AM here, hate that. There are pigeons roosting very close to our apartment we have rented in Florence so that doesn't help either.

Got up around 7AM, we have a busy day ahead. First off we need to reshuffle our luggage so we only have one suitcase and no backpacks so we can check one piece of luggage in at the train station after we leave our apartment. We know that we will not be back on this side of the river so it makes sense to check in our luggage there and avoid some backtracking.

Our studio apartment for the weekend

Some Vespa here that look like antiques

Early morning in Florence before the shops open

Hope to have more wild boar later



Get up early and you are rewarded with empty piazzas for pics, but you can't ride the merry go round!

Gorgeous before the masses of tourists arrive

Nice spot for a wedding shoot!

Andre took this same picture later in the day, what a difference!

Getting spoiled having this for breakfast.  Starbucks etc are such a waste at home, Cappuccino and crescent less than 3.00 Cdn here 

Our first item on the agenda today is to go the Accademia, we had a reservation for a 9AM entry. First we walked around a very deserted city at 8AM, if you want to see Florence without all the crowds get up early, if you wait even until 10AM it is totally different. First we dropped off our luggage at the train station and moved on to Accademia. I read in a guide to plan to spend 15 minutes at the Accademia, well whoever wrote this suggestion must have just looked at David for 14 minutes and left. We actually really liked this museum. It is much smaller the the Uffizi, and much less overwhelming. Of course the hilite was David, we were there nice and early without too many people, and no tour groups, so pretty much could spend as much time as we wanted here. It was great to sit on the benches and see David from different angles, it really is impressive, especially with the way they have him displayed with natural light coming through from the ceiling. Also the way he is displayed at the end of the hall of prisoners, or unfinished slaves that were also done by Michelangelo is very impressive

Hall of Prisoners/unfinished slaves

We spent about 1.5 hours in the museum. They have a nice collection of musical instruments on the second floor which very few people visit. There are also many models of famous marble statues that are made out of plaster that are pretty cool to see. It makes sense that they make them in plaster first before starting with marble. The museum also has a number of nice paintings.



Pacino di Bonaguida: Tree of Life (1305-10) panel painting



Annunciation by  Allori, Alessandro



Madonna and Child and Female Saints

by Allori, Alessandro



Madonna with Saints by  Sandro Botticelli

Some of the plaster examples on display

From the musical instrument section of the museum

Thought to be the first upright piano

Amazing embroidery on silk

Line up to get into the museum when we exited

Next stop after the museum was Piazza San Marco, which is very near the Accedemia museum. We visited this church, but now all churches are starting to blend together and hard to remember one from another.

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San Marco church

Sant Antonino

Next we went to Piazza San Annunziata, a very nice square here with some vendors and a nice view of the Duomo at the end of the street. Nice Church here again, but it is service time so no visit for us

Next on our map near where we were was Piazza Santa Maria Nuova, we were close by so went there. Turns out this was a hospital so not much to see here, but we've added more steps to the day.

We decide to head back to the Dome from here to look around one more time and we walk by a building and hear some music. The door was open so we went in. Turns out is was dress rehearsal for a master flute school that was having a recital in 30 minutes. We stayed for the rehearsal, and then stayed for about 30 minutes of the concert. There were 13 playing flute, 1 oboe, and 1 picello that was played at times. Beautiful acoustics, and beautiful to hear only flutes being played. A great free concert.

Heard some music behind an open door, so we went in, beautiful 13 flutes playing together!

We left the concert shortly before noon as we were right around the corner from the bell tower and wanted to hear the noon bells ringing. Glad we were not climbing the bell tower now, it was really loud from the ground, it would have been extreme up there. We must have something about bells, I remember in London if it was close to chiming time I made Andre wait for Big Ben to sound.

Next we are hungry and decided to head back to central market. Yesterday we had seen some great looking brick oven pizza, and Andre remembered that the market is open on Sundays in the restaurant section, so we knew where we wanted to go. We split a great pizza with capers, anchovies, cheese and tomatoes, very yummy.

Very different view from 8AM this morning

Brick oven pizza for lunch, yummy

We never did try a Florentine steak

Now we are a little undecided what to do. Andre had seen a fort on our map, I googled it and saw that it was now a convention and conference centre, I remember looking at this at home as well. Andre said this made no sense that we needed to go check it out. So off we go, find the for that is now a convention and conference centre and can't go in. It is all locked up. So now we need another plan. Andre had also seen on our map that there is a park near the river, so off we go to the river bank again, get there, Andre looks at the map and says the park is too far to walk. By this point we have now added 1000's of steps to the day and are done. We say our good-bye to a very busy Florence by this time of day and grab our luggage from storage and get the 2:00 train back to Lucca. It is a little over one hour by train to get to our “home”.

Fortress that is now a convention centre

Its only 20 degrees, your dog needs a sweater/jacket!

I wrote yesterday's blog on the train ride home. Now that we have seen the country side a few times it is becoming more like home. Andre pointed a few interesting things as I was writing.

Back in Lucca we walk the wall to get back to our place from the train station. It is easier to pull luggage along the well paved wall than the cobblestone streets. Big change since we left is they have basically finished the construction around one of the ramps that started while we were here. We will check it out more tomorrow on our morning walk.

Lots of people walking the wall on a nice Sunday afternoon

 We stop at the information centre, Andre wants to take a cooking course this week and we wanted to check out more on that. He found one that teaches pasta and sauces, and tiramisu that he thinks he would like to go to. He is going to have to decide quickly, time is running out! We also find out that there is a concert in town at 5PM and it is now 3:30. Quick trip home, start some chili and then we are off to the concert.

Wow, lots of shoppers out tonight!

We walk along Fillungo which is one of the main shopping streets here, and we can't believe all the people. We saw lots of people on the wall on the way home, but that is normal on a nice Sunday afternoon, it was crazy how busy town was. I guess we haven't been here much on the week-ends, and it is getting closer to tourist season, plus another beautiful day. We were pushing it close for getting to the concert on time so had to get off this street to pick up the pace on side streets.

The concert tonight was Franz Schubert. We didn't even know if it would cost anything until we got there. Tickets were 12.00 Euro each and well worth it. It started off with a narrator speaking for about 15 minutes all in Italian with a pianist jumping in at times with little short segments. We weren't sure if we were going to have 2 hours of this, but after 15 minutes it turned out to be just the piano thank-goodness. The first 15 minutes we understood the words Schubert, Beethoven and love. Then the piano solo for about 45 minutes. A short intermission then the narrator came out again for about 10 minutes, this time we understood Schubert, Beethoven and New York, that's it. Then another 30 minutes or so of the piano. The pianist was fantastic, and I recognized some of the music which is always a bonus. The place where the concert was held we are sure was a church at some point, I guess one of the 99 that Andre has been trying to find while he is here. A great night and we are very happy we went.

Franz Schubert recital hall 

Back at the apartment, a very busy week-end, just finished our chili, having a glass of wine and I'm sure it will be an early night.