Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence
Dome of Florence photos in wiki:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cattedrale_di_Santa_Maria_del_Fiore
Painting of Dante and the Divine Comedy by Domenico di Michelino (1465) on the back wall, although roped off and at such an angle that you actually get a better look at it online with Google images (!)
It used to be that anyone who was anyone was baptized here, making them both a Christian AND a Florentine (including Dante Alighieri himself), but you can't help but be drawn to its shiny doors, which look like gold but are actually bronze, and are supposed to depict the Gates of Paradise (in contrast to Rodin's Gates of Hell in Paris). By the time we saw the Duomo, the Baptistry itself was closed, so we didn't go inside. (More detail at the wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptistry_doors)
Celeste and Keighley really wanted to have the horse and buggy sightseeing tour; I couldn't stop thinking about the infamous Seinfeld "Beefaroni" episode, but all went well.
If you're in Florence, you need to rub the the bronze boar's nose and it will bring you luck. You're supposed to put a coin in it's mouth and let it slide into the slots below. Of course it's a scam :) but it's fun and the real luck is to get out of the shopping area around you without being scammed by the merchants or ripped off by the swarms of street urchins around you.
I took this picture outside the Uffizi because the sky behind the David was so blue (this is the "fake" David by the way -- the real one that Michelangelo carved is outside the Accademia across town), but one of my students nudged me and asked if I took this picture at this angle on purpose because it hid David's personals and I just thought argggghhhh to myself because this question keeps coming up in different variations:
What makes this so sad/alarming/unintentionally funny is that everywhere you turn in Florence, you find miniature statues and send ups of David's doodads on everything from aprons to neckties. Look! A little statue of David with a thermometer in its back. Look! a pair of boxer shorts (ha ha!) with the relevant parts of David blown up in just the strategic spot. The David is the symbol of Florence, so every capitalist and kiosk owner has taken something that started out as art and pushed it to the extreme. So if you had a problem with David's nudity when you got off the bus, you're going to get on the bus going home completely offended.
Of course, this kind of art isn't for everybody. Some of the students on this trip were here to study Italian language, not art, and one of the guys told me he was "bored out of his mind" by the Uffizi, and someone else wanted to know where the modern art and photography exhibits were. I tried to explain that this was Florence, the city of Renaissance art, but just got blank looks. You can't please everybody.
Keighley imitating the busts inside the Uffizi
Jewelry lover's paradise.
Had to get a picture of Tiffany in front of the store.
Of course, this guy was Keighley's hero as soon as he got on the bus....
These are statues we passed in a store window in Siena.
You know how it is...the years go by...you get married, you have a couple of kids...a little too much pasta and red sauce, a little too much gelato...a few too many biscotti with your espresso... before you know it, you've got a little middle-aged paunch that never goes away....
I didn't even realize these statues were for real at first. I thought the one of David was a Bacchus that just happened to look a little like The David, and Keighley and I had joked and laughed at "the fat David" in passing when we walked by the store window, but when we walked by it again we realized there was a "fat Venus on the half shell" as well. Too hilarious to pass by without snapping a photo :)
There was a Fat Bacchus as well, but that hardly seems like far to go, does it? You'd have to go in another direction for irony in the series with something like, "Ended Up Living At Home With His Mother Bacchus" or "Developed Cancer and Had Chemo Bald-Headed Medusa."
Every time we pass this window we say "Hi, fat David...!"
In some ways, we kind of like these better than the ones in in Florence.
The line outside for the people with reserved tickets was just as long as the one for people who just wandered up to see what was going on and decided to check out The David spontaneously, which sort of made you wonder what the point was of reserving a ticket. Especially since once they let you in, there was no line inside to actually buy the ticket.
The throngs of seemingly-all-Americans waiting outside in the hot sun (maybe that was the cause of the delay -- the Barbarians are at the gates! they may have guns in their fanny packs! some of them may have voted for Ghorghe Boosh!) were all very upset and looking for Someone In Charge To Speak To. Of course this person did not exist. It was entertaining after awhile, watching as the chosen representative elbowed his or her way forward to be assertive and try to catch someone's attention. Sir? Madam? to no avail, wondering why their powers didn't work here, when clearly they worked just fine back home, and then returning, defeated, back to the end of the queue, without having been able to Go Up There And Give Someone A Very Hard Time. I was embarrassed on behalf of all Americans - not because I didn't understand it (because I did -- this would have been exactly how to handle the situation in the US) - but because I realized how futile it was and how stupid and blustery and arrogant we looked.
Also, all the information that Celeste had confirmed for me with the Italian booking agency the day before had been wrong (I had her call and ask all the questions in Italian just to be sure) - there was no need to show up 15 minutes early, because there was no rhyme or reason to the timing, and I didn't need my passport or any identification at all. It all just seemed like so much string to entertain the chimpanzees in a line for no reason.
Once we were inside and through all the airport-style metal detectors, The David was magnificent though, flanked on both sides by other Michelangelos (his unfinished "Slaves" series) and there were other things inside I wanted to see, the "Tree of Life" and a Botticelli, and I did take an "illegal" picture with the camera in my phone of Keighley drawing under the sculpture of the "Rape of the Sabine Women" -- she was facing a Lippi painting of the deposition of Christ with beautiful coloring, but after awhile you do glaze over from seeing so much art. The museum had a very ornate exhibit of musical instruments with inlaid jewels - pearls, jaspers, lapis lazuli - that went on for several rooms too.
Made an appointment for tickets here, too. Even had Celeste call and confirm them in Italian the day before. Only to arrive with the group to find out that the museum is only open in the mornings, although the booking company had given us a 3 pm appointment...!
There was no sir or madam to complain to of course (signor? signora?) We sat on the steps across from the Bargello and tried to look as dejected as possible while Julie took a picture - Wesley took some water from his water bottle and splashed it on his face and pretended to be sobbing.
How is it possible that the Italians - the caretakers of some of the world's most spectacular art - can be so unprepared for people coming to visit their museums?
We did go back another day and get into the Bargello -- but the famous Donatello bronze David was up on blocks being restored. Kind of bizarre seeing him on his back as if being prepped for an appendectomy, right in the Donatello Room where the sculpture is normally exhibited. Visitors could look at the restoration work in real time on an external monitor (again, as if participating as interns while the real doctors went about their serious business). Little white dots had been placed on his bronze body marking key spots, just the way real people are often marked for surgery.
