Almost felt like we were back on the cruise ship again with the early morning excursions! We had a 9am appointment for a tour of the Uffizi Gallery to get to! In fact we had 2 bookings today – the Uffizi Gallery at 9am and the Academia (where David is) at 4pm. Between that time there are several things to accomplish and see! Starting out at the Uffizi Gallery, we met our tour guide from Keys of Italy who knew what he was doing from an accessibility standpoint and getting me into the Gallery – which was pretty cool! He had an awesome knowledge of history and lead us through this huge museum, which was constructed in the 1500’s and was the largest building in Europe at that time. The collections of paintings are from the 14th-century and Renaissance period including some absolute masterpieces: Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Beato Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo, Raffaello, Michelangelo and Caravaggio. The gallery also has an invaluable collection of ancient statues and busts from the Medici family, which adorns the corridors and consists of ancient Roman copies of lost Greek sculptures. The building has recently gone through extensive renovations, where it was closed for 6 months. It re-opened with over 100 rooms of art on display. Once we completed the tour, we walked over to the “Bridge of Jewelry” or also known as the Ponte Vecchio. It is lined with jewelry stores on either side! This is the type of place you just walk straight and do not look as the shop owners are onto you with their eagle eyes wanting to sell you something! At the end of the bridge, we stopped in for some gelato and low and behold – it all contained gluten! So while Andrew got some to eat, I had to settle for a whipped fruit ice drink…. Next we proceeded to return the rental car (that took us over 2 hours due to a turn we kept missing) and then took the tram back into Firenze which was fun before walking to the Academia section of Firenze, walking past many interesting structures including an old church, sculptures, the main church, baptistry and duomo. Walking down one of the streets towards our destination we came across a gluten free restaurant! Check mark – dinner after our tour! We shortly arrived at the Academia building and to meet our tour guide! There really is only one reason to visit the Academia – to see the bemouth statue of David that Michelangelo carved when he was about 21 years old. Yes there are wonderful other displays too however people seem to focus on this one thing. I really enjoyed the paintings too and especially the music room! Once done, we went for dinner and then took a taxi back to our hotel to prepare for our train ride the next day to Venice!
NOTE: Some paintings have no or very little description as I was thoroughly enjoying the commentary of our tour guide and how he described them that I did not think to record what the painting name was or who painted it!
With regards to Michelangelo heads – the Academia museum is currently studying them to figure out which 3 busts are the ones created on his death. They currently have about 8 on loan from various museums who claim to have one of the last original busts made of him. They have made casts of them which are what you see in my pictures. The originals we were not allowed to take pictures of. They are not able to carbon date them as they are made of clay or terra cotta, except one which is in bronze. They are studying them compared to other known features of Michelangelo and will be in June I believe, announcing which 2 or 3 are the actual ones commissioned to be made on his death.