We headed back to Florence today, again via a train from Bucine that brought us to the city center. Nice. This time we tackled a different part of the city where the Bargello, Uffizi, and Science Museum are clustered together, i.e. near the Ponte Vecchio. The Bargello houses sculptures so we had the chance to see some of Michelangelo's earlier works as well as some of Donatello's. The Uffizi Gallery, the former offices of the Medici family, is filled primarily with paintings and offers a really good glimpse of how art developed through that incredible period of time. And I was pretty delighted to find a temporary exhibit in place of Artemesia Gentilleschi's work...one of my favorites!!
Unfortunately lunch was somewhat mediocre...I guess they all can't be perfect, right?
The Science Museum perked us back up though. A good reminder that the Renaissance offered the world more than art. Calvin was in hog heaven!! And we got to see Galileo's finger mummified in a bell jar. Kind of an odd practice, but since we also saw St. Catherine of Siena's head and thumb in a church yesterday, we're getting used to it.
THEN Alex and I finally put our foot down and demanded some shopping time. We found a cute shop that had some clothes made by a Florence designer (similar to Hand Jive for you Fort Wayne people) and it had a GREAT sale going on, so we were on it! And of course we're in the land of leather, so a little purse shopping was imperative. The photo today shows Drew and Calvin being patient during this shopping excursion.
After Calvin's obligatory handstand photos and a few flips on the lawn of the Church of Santa Maria Novella, we headed back for a swim to try to get our body temperatures back to normal. Have we mentioned that it's hot here?
We head back to Rome tomorrow to show Alex around a bit, so this is the last blog from Tuscany. Everyone is staring at me now waiting to play hearts, so I'll sign off for now. More tomorrow!
xo
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