So little time, so many museums
Jul. 17th, 2006 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taylweaverHi from Florence.
Welcome to Day Four of our Italy adventure.
No taxi problems today; no heavy bags to shlep. Lots of walking. More sore feet - but worth it.
We did a lot today. A big thank you goes out to AF and RL - neither of whom actually read this - for suggesting a wonderful bus tour - which, despite some problems with reserving it, we got onto. We began our day by not walking, thanks to that, as we toured parts of Florence on a bus with two tourguides - one doing English and one doing French and Spanish. This wasn't quite ideal, but it was fun to note when the different tour guides said different things about what we were passing - which we could do, since we were getting bits and pieces of the Spanish/French.
The tour took us up to the Piazza de Michaelangelo - or maybe I have the name a bit wrong, but something like that... Point is, it's on the top of a hill far enough from the city center that one needs a bus to get there anyway. It's also the place to go for a gorgeous panoramic view of the entire city. We got some wonderful photos, and a lot of info from the tourguide on how Florence was once governed not by dukes/royalty/nobility but by the merchant class, and how it was a republic. The government was selected the way we pick juries - people who qualified - tax-paying guild members, I think - were selected at random to serve set terms. The ones serving in the higher positions - I forget the name of the position - served for only two months - and were sequestered the entire time. A very interesting system.
We also got a very quick view of a copy of Michaelangelo's David - only from afar because we had to rush back to the bus.
Then down into town, where we got off the bus and went on a walking tour that took us to a few biggies like the Duomo and also showed us some of the smaller stuff - things we wouldn't see on our own, like hooks for drying dyed wool that indicated certain houses - or "palaces" - belonged to wool merchants. Palaces, by the way, tended to be the size of small apartment buildings. We also saw a wine door - a small door used for selling wine - it would get poured out into the buyer's vessel.
Our tour ended at the Borgello - the other days of the week, it ends at the Academie - where the original Michaelangelo David is, but that one is closed on Mondays, so we ended up at the Borgello museum instead. Worth missing the David for, seeing as we didn't need another art gallery. This museum had paintings, but also Donatello's sculptures and other interesting finds. So it was different enough from the Ufizzi that it was good.
After the tour ended, it was lunch time, and we headed over to the neighborhood where the food is - only to discover that the kosher bakery isn't - the Jewish Travel Guide from this year has outdated info - and so we ate lunch at the same place again - only this time, we asked for pizza. Not on the menu. And just what we needed. It was not bad.
Syanagogue tour - since we were there anyway. We learned there is an orthodox community today, and we learned the history of it. We found out that the synagogue survived WWII because the Nazis used it as a warehouse, and that the Torahs were not destroyed because the Nazis couldn't get the ark open - apparently, there are scars on the doors from their attempts - but we didn't get to see those. Ironically, the Torahs later succumbed not to man, but to nature - the flood of... was it 1966? - filled the inside of the shul with a bunch of water and, just like in New Orleans, the Torahs were damaged beyond use. One is in their museum, which we visited; the rest were buried. They did, however, manage to restore everything else - the paint is a teensy bit darker under the flood line, but other than that, no noticeable damage.
Then we made an unfortunately quick stop at the Museum of Science and Technology - we got to see all sorts of scientific equipment from throughout history - fancy stuff, plain stuff, just plain weird stuff... a huge 3-D representation of the heavenly spheres with Earth in the center, Gallileo's telescopes, etc. Too bad we didn't make it until 40 minutes before closing. If we ever get back to Florence, we fully intend to return there for a second pass.
By this point, we were exhausted, but we walked over to the Ponte Vecchio - the bridge with the shops on it - and then had some gellati - a cross between ice cream and sorbet, it seems - it was rather good and refreshing.
We did some shopping on the way to dinner - random little stores, stopped to photograph sculptures in the square near the Ufizzi, bought dinner food in the little kosher store, went on a too-long excursion for veggies - and ate in a park by the synagogue.
We were utterly wiped by that point, but the day was well worth it.
Tomorrow, one more museum, and then back to Rome. We'll see what we see, and that will be it.
Welcome to Day Four of our Italy adventure.
No taxi problems today; no heavy bags to shlep. Lots of walking. More sore feet - but worth it.
We did a lot today. A big thank you goes out to AF and RL - neither of whom actually read this - for suggesting a wonderful bus tour - which, despite some problems with reserving it, we got onto. We began our day by not walking, thanks to that, as we toured parts of Florence on a bus with two tourguides - one doing English and one doing French and Spanish. This wasn't quite ideal, but it was fun to note when the different tour guides said different things about what we were passing - which we could do, since we were getting bits and pieces of the Spanish/French.
The tour took us up to the Piazza de Michaelangelo - or maybe I have the name a bit wrong, but something like that... Point is, it's on the top of a hill far enough from the city center that one needs a bus to get there anyway. It's also the place to go for a gorgeous panoramic view of the entire city. We got some wonderful photos, and a lot of info from the tourguide on how Florence was once governed not by dukes/royalty/nobility but by the merchant class, and how it was a republic. The government was selected the way we pick juries - people who qualified - tax-paying guild members, I think - were selected at random to serve set terms. The ones serving in the higher positions - I forget the name of the position - served for only two months - and were sequestered the entire time. A very interesting system.
We also got a very quick view of a copy of Michaelangelo's David - only from afar because we had to rush back to the bus.
Then down into town, where we got off the bus and went on a walking tour that took us to a few biggies like the Duomo and also showed us some of the smaller stuff - things we wouldn't see on our own, like hooks for drying dyed wool that indicated certain houses - or "palaces" - belonged to wool merchants. Palaces, by the way, tended to be the size of small apartment buildings. We also saw a wine door - a small door used for selling wine - it would get poured out into the buyer's vessel.
Our tour ended at the Borgello - the other days of the week, it ends at the Academie - where the original Michaelangelo David is, but that one is closed on Mondays, so we ended up at the Borgello museum instead. Worth missing the David for, seeing as we didn't need another art gallery. This museum had paintings, but also Donatello's sculptures and other interesting finds. So it was different enough from the Ufizzi that it was good.
After the tour ended, it was lunch time, and we headed over to the neighborhood where the food is - only to discover that the kosher bakery isn't - the Jewish Travel Guide from this year has outdated info - and so we ate lunch at the same place again - only this time, we asked for pizza. Not on the menu. And just what we needed. It was not bad.
Syanagogue tour - since we were there anyway. We learned there is an orthodox community today, and we learned the history of it. We found out that the synagogue survived WWII because the Nazis used it as a warehouse, and that the Torahs were not destroyed because the Nazis couldn't get the ark open - apparently, there are scars on the doors from their attempts - but we didn't get to see those. Ironically, the Torahs later succumbed not to man, but to nature - the flood of... was it 1966? - filled the inside of the shul with a bunch of water and, just like in New Orleans, the Torahs were damaged beyond use. One is in their museum, which we visited; the rest were buried. They did, however, manage to restore everything else - the paint is a teensy bit darker under the flood line, but other than that, no noticeable damage.
Then we made an unfortunately quick stop at the Museum of Science and Technology - we got to see all sorts of scientific equipment from throughout history - fancy stuff, plain stuff, just plain weird stuff... a huge 3-D representation of the heavenly spheres with Earth in the center, Gallileo's telescopes, etc. Too bad we didn't make it until 40 minutes before closing. If we ever get back to Florence, we fully intend to return there for a second pass.
By this point, we were exhausted, but we walked over to the Ponte Vecchio - the bridge with the shops on it - and then had some gellati - a cross between ice cream and sorbet, it seems - it was rather good and refreshing.
We did some shopping on the way to dinner - random little stores, stopped to photograph sculptures in the square near the Ufizzi, bought dinner food in the little kosher store, went on a too-long excursion for veggies - and ate in a park by the synagogue.
We were utterly wiped by that point, but the day was well worth it.
Tomorrow, one more museum, and then back to Rome. We'll see what we see, and that will be it.
