Florence Day 5!

Today, we went to the Uffizi Gallery and brace yourselves,...it's not as great as it's made out to be. It's still a very beautiful building, and does hold some very famous works, but when compared to other museums that we have been to, it doesn't hold its own. It is definitely worth seeing the Botticelli's, the Carravaggio's, the Da Vinci's and the Reni's, but for the price you pay with a reservation, 14 euro, about 20-25 dollars, you'd expect to see more. Unfortunately, our expectations have been set really high based on hear-say and based on the fact that we have seen the Louvre, the largest museum in the world, and also, Musee d'Orsay. Also, there are way to many Madonna renditions: Madonna Enthroned, Madonna with Child, Madonna with Child and Saints, Madonna singing live at Madison Square Gardens, come on, enough with the Madonnas!! All these factors, combined with the fact that some of the rooms we wanted to see were closed, i.e, the Rubens, made it disappointing. The Michelangelo room, by the way, only has one Michelangelo work. Oh, and the worst part is that you can't take photos at all. Pox snuck a few in.

On a positive note, Il Nascimento di Venere and Primavera (Birth of Venus and Spring) were breathtaking. They're really big!! Those two works and also Carravaggio's, Medussa are worth going to the Uffizi for. We were able to see the entire Gallery in just 3 hours. Cindy was just happy to see the two Botticelli's that she came to Italy for. There is so much to see at the Uffizi, but not all of it is worth seeing. All of the corridors are lined with sculptures and perched on the ceiling are hundreds of portraits. The views of Florence are worthwhile, and if not for some of the renovations, the Uffizi was still not a waste of time. If you've been keeping up with the blog, you should've already seen photos of the Piazza della Signoria, this square right in front of the Uffizi Gallery is very misleading, they should've saved some of those sculptures for the inside of the museum instead.

After the Uffizi, we decided to have our lunch in the square of the Pallazzo Vecchio. However, since we had to throw away our water and soda bottles before entering the museum, we had nothing to drink. Pox had to walk to a grocer, in the touristy areas, everything is more expensive, a soda can was 2.50 and at the grocer a large bottle was 4 euro, still expensive, but worth the walk. With our coke in hand, we had a nice lunch in front of the beautiful police station, accompanied by leather vendors and smoking Italians. (everyone and their mother smokes here)

After a yummo lunch, we walked around and found ourselves right in front of Dante Aligheri's house and the church which he was a patron of. His house is now a museum, we'll be going to back to it soon.