Giovedi , 3 Ott.
Ciao a tutti,
Our journey from SFO to Firenze was long, but otherwise uneventful. We even slept pretty well on the plane, so arrived in fairly good shape to our little studio apartment on Via Giuseppe Galliano 17. We were met promptly by Alesandra who kindly showed us all of the features of the apartment-and we were even communicating fairly well in Italian, until she got into a complicated description of the system for trash disposal and lost me!
Allora, it is a lovely little monolocale (one room) with a small bel balcone over-looking a garden complete with a resident kitty.
We are happy that it is in a nice, tranquile (quite) neighborhood-about a mile outside of the main tourist center.. After a quick trip to the local mercato, we were sure to enjoy the balcony with our antipasti and vino rosso.
Today we were up and about early and walked into the main historical center along the Arno River. The first major site we encountered was the Ponte Vecchio-so of course we joined the throngs of tourists and walked across, taking pictures from all angles.
 |
| Walking across |
 |
Ponte Vecchio
|
 |
| Classic tourist pose! |
I'm proud that on day one (without any protests from Gary) we actually enjoyed many hours at the Uffuzi Gallery: a Renaissance masterpiece Heaven. After spending the last several months viewing a course (via DVD) on Italian Renaissance Art, we were excited to see many amazing paintings-some 700-1000 year old, well preserved and completely magnificent. The museum itself is an old palace and has beautiful halls and painted ceilings.
 |
| Uffizi Gallery Hallway |
 |
| Adoration of the Magi |
 |
| Michelangelo |
 |
| Raphael's Madonna and the Goldfinch |
By afternoon, we were a bit weary, so nibbled some gelato and enjoyed people watching in the Piazza delle Republica next to the Palazzo Vecchio. Although packed with tourists, it felt alive and inviting-not at all over-whelming.
 |
| Taking a break |
As the day grew long, we made our way to the Duomo area and saw Ghirberti's doors of the
Baptistry (replicas-we will catch the originals at the Duomo Museum tomorrow). We enjoyed the view of the Duomo facade and Campanile while sipping some wine at a cafe in the piazza there.
 |
| Piazza Duomo |
 |
| Ghiberti's Paradiso |
We ended our first full day with another round of our own antipasta and then had a wonderful Florentine dinner at Trattoria Lucia, just around the corner from our apartment.
The blog looks great!
ReplyDeleteI think everything turned out fine even though you were having trouble arranging it. There was just one area where I felt that it might have been cut off. I'll send you an email with a picture attachment showing where I got confused.
I especially like the picture of Piazza Duomo. Looks so cool! Awesome that you can sit right there to have a little snack.
ReplyDelete