Florence: Day 4, Part 1

Today was scheduled as a day completely at leisure, but our tour guide wanted to show us a really amazing view of Florence from Piazzale Michaelangelo. The sky was still a little pink from the sunset and there were low clouds lingering before the heat of the day would burn them off.

Before our trip I tried to book tickets for the Uffizi gallery which I had to see. Mostly it was Boticelli's The Birth of Venus and Primavera that I couldn't leave without seeing. I had read that the line can be insane and the only way to get in easily is to reserve tickets. I waited too late to do this and the only reservations I could make would be in the afternoon. I couldn't do that because we were scheduled to have dinner with the tour. I was happy to learn from our tour guide on our first day in Florence that around 4pm there isn't really anyone in line anymore. (This is probably only true around the time of year that we were there. Peak season is probably insane and I would book a reservation far in advance.) So i figured that after we went on the optional tour to see David we could go to the Uffizi. However by a stroke of luck and maybe good karma we got reserved tickets for 10:15 on the following morning (the free day). In summary of that painfully long explanation- if you want to get into really popular museums in Italy and you can commit to a day and time then just go ahead and reserve the tickets. 

Upon return from Piazalle Michaelangelo we headed to the Uffizi gallery. We were a little early so we sat again in the Loggia dei Lanzi and watched the early morning tourists trying to touch the statues and promptly getting reprimanded and directed to the sign with the rules. Why would you think it's ok to touch a priceless work of art? Anyway we ended up getting into the Uffizi around 10. We lingered in the Boticelli and Leonardo da Vinci rooms. We saw da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi and Annunciation, which was breathtaking. Every piece of work is really a masterpiece. I really loved the portraits. We needed to be at our meeting place to go to San Gimignano at 12:30 so we went through the rest of the museum quickly- there was a panino place that we had to try. I somehow missed Michaelangelo's Doni Tondo so we backtracked to see it.

Who needs the Uffizi? Check out this graffiti!

We followed The Lonely Planet's Florence Encounter book to 'ino . If you've visited us here then we've probably taken you to Feast. 'ino is undoubtedly the Italian equivalent. The bread was unbelievable. I didn't learn as many ingredients as I would have liked so I generally stuck to being able to recognize the meat on the sandwich. Oh the prosciutto! The cheese! 'ino is a hip little place and if you are in Florene and want an incredible panino experience this is the place. (Not like I'm now an expert but I'm a creature of habit and I really wouldn't go searching for something better.)



On our way to the meeting place by Santa Croce we conveniently happened upon Gelateria dei Neri, one of the oldest gelaterias in Florence, I believe. I thought I'd be adventurous and try the ricotta with fig gelato. Turns out I'm not a huge fan of fig. This was a sad moment for me. However the old gelateria was very cute with some interesting seats along the wall.

This post is bursting with my ramblings so I'll leave the rest of the day for another post. I'm blogging when I have a break during the day while subbing because as I mentioned I killed the fan on my laptop and then I managed to kill Michael's cooling pad that sits under the laptop.  That might be a run-on sentence. Anyway, Michael says I have the "electronics kiss of death."