I met a student at 7:15 who had been sick to see if she was up to going. we went to the train station and eventually she chose not to go.
We left by train at 8:35 from the Arezzo Station. We were on a group ticket and had to go and return as a group.
When you buy a ticket, you can buy it whenever and it has a range of available dates. but then you have to validate it so that you won't try to use it again. This is more important than I had thought, see the note on the Thursday in Florence.
We met our guide Elizabeth at Farmacia in the train station. She is fun and I am excited that she is going to be our guide in Rome as well.
Elizabeth is an ex-pat who has married an Italian. She lives about a half hour outside of Florence and teaches for Elon University from North Carolina. During the summers she guide for OU and others.
Her pace was good and she did a great job of explaining things for Italian and American contexts so it was fun.
We first walked from the train station, to the Piazza Republica http://www.visitflorence.com/florence-monuments/piazza-della-repubblica.html for bathroom breaks. This served as our meeting place on both days in Florence and it was about 10 minutes from the train station and a relatively easy place to find.
There are not public bathrooms in these old cities so the routine is, buy a bottle of water or a cappuccino and ask for the bathroom key.
She showed us two buildings side by side, this first was a very old building that was about 13th century and looked very castle like, it has these metal spokes that went through the whole building to tie it together and reinforce it.
Next to it by great contrast was a building from the 16th century that has ornate frescos on it that adorned the outside of the entire building. its hard to see the detail in this picture it the surface was ornate.
next we went to the church of san michele (orsanmichele). This church was decorated inside and out with the symbols of the guilds (or trades) of Florence. the more powerful ones, had statues outside and the smaller ones were able to leave their mark inside. here is more information on this landmark. http://www.visitflorence.com/florence-churches/orsanmichele.html
next we walked by the Duomo.. Its a landmark in Florence but free to go in. (which we did later).. I have to admit, it looked like a cartoon to me. I had to touch it to believe it was real.
Doesn't it look like a cartoon..
Originally the David statue was supposed to sit on the top of the smaller dome.. and both domes can be climbed inside. I am tempted to go back but its going to be some real cardio.
We then walked to the Academia to see the David statue. Funny one student ran into a high school friend as we got into line.. Small world.
You are not supposed to take pictures in there, so I don;t have any.. but I will link to some blogs that do.
http://www.visitflorence.com/florence-museums/accademia-gallery.html
https://flic.kr/p/4K1GkB
So seeing the David statue.. it really cannot do it justice.. its gigantic.. and sits above you. his hands and feet are huge! and other things are quite small. :) The detail of the anatomy was quite impressive from the muscles to even a little bit of a love handle. His look looks different from all directions and honestly you could stare at it for hours and keep seeing things.
Elizabeth did a great job of telling us the history of this statue and how it had been commissioned several times before and that he made it out a block of marble of that another sculptor said was too soft to work with.. and I guess Michelangelo showed that it could be done.
They have it where you can look at in 360 and walk all around. It is in a hall that a bunch of unfinished statues by Michelangelo and these were very interesting because the form was coming out of the rock.
Also in the academia was renaissance art and some of those crosses and such painted on wood that I associate with medieval castles and such. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25759/25759-h/images/illus-053tb.jpg Is this one that was found there. They are much more intricate in person.
Finally we went to the Palazzo Vecchio or the town hall. it was greatly influenced by the Medici family when they ruled Florence and even lived there for a time. The town hall is where David orginally stood and they also have quite a collection of statues commissioned and collected by Comisimo Medici. .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palazzo_Vecchio
Then the group broke for lunch.
Had lunch with Elizabeth and talked about the Rome trip. Went inside San Michelle church which had a beautiful alter.
Then we went inside Duomo, where I took a picture of the dome. Jim ran into a friend from Norman, not associated with OUA - small world.
Went back to the public square to meet students. On the way, we noticed that there were several street performers dressed in full costume that were acting like statues. I got my picture taken with Leonardo Da Vinci.
Train back to Arezzo delayed and packed.
Got back to Arezzo about 8:00 pm.
ate at home.
crashed hard.
The ill student went to hospital for dehydration. Charlotte handled all that.. Thank god. for someone who speaks Italian.
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