Florence
If you only had a few hours in the city, what are the big things you'd want to hit? The Duomo obviously. Pitti palace and the Ponte Vecchio as well. And lastly, you'd need to see some art, whether the academy or uffizi it's up to you, but it's impossible to do both. So we got to Florence and went straight to the Duomo. But it wasn't open for another few hours. We went on the first Sunday of the month, which means a lot of stuff is free, including museums and palaces and things. We walked away from all of that because being free, they would be crazy busy. We found a little garden and walked around it a bit then went back to the Duomo. These days, you need an advance ticket to climb the dome. We found that out once we got to Florence. No dome for us. But we still got into the cathedral. Now it would have been great. Except these days, it's all blocked off. There is a small, overcrowded path through, you're no longer free to roam about the cathedral as you please. But I did get a good floor pic because of that, so that was nice. After a somewhat disappointing trip through the Duomo, we went to the pitti palace. What a bunch of rich people. Literally every room covered in art, gold, and statues. Unfortunately they couldn't afford air conditioning so we went to the gardens outside, also free on free Sunday. They were gorgeous, but hot. So we didn't stay long. We got a late start to our day so it was around like 5ish by now. Right across the Ponte Vecchio is the uffizi. We figured by now it might not be busy. We were kinda right. Damn near no line outside. Got in in about 5 mins. Inside there was a good number of people but we still got to see some good stuff. Having barely an hour we rushed quite a bit. We went straight to, in my dear father's words, Venus on a half shell. For normal folk, The birth of Venus. From there, we walked through a room or two before heading to the Rafael room, which was open this time around. Then we went to see the Leonardo Da Vinci room, which, after a 6 year restoration, houses his unfinished Adoration of the Magi. I felt so cultured. From there, we went to dinner and then to the train home.
View from the train station
Original wood architectural blueprints from Brunelleschi
Cute botanical garden we found
They were growing Ethiopian coffee among other things
Also modern art
Cool floor pic because they don't let us be free anymore. Also tons of security around. Legit military hanging out.
Ponte Vecchio
Free entry to pitti palace
This isn't excessive
Modern art. The only modern art I've ever appreciated.
Still at the gardens here
Uffizi
Check out that Venus in a half shell
I feel so cultured
Rafael
Rafael
Rafael
Da Vinci
Da Vinci
Medusa
Goodbye Florence. Thanks for being free and awesome.