Florence - A tour of the Uffizi
Trip Start
May 16, 2006
1
17
33
Trip End
Jun 13, 2006
Florence,
Italy
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
We stop at a Chinese place down the street from us, where I have chicken and sharkfin soup and "Chinese bread." Chicken and sharkfin, chicken and noodles, it's close, right? Chinese bread is evidently some sort of meat filled onion roll, which rendered it basically inedible to me (I am picky about onions), but the soup was tasty, and Sarah vouches for the tea. They charged an exorbitant sitting fee, though, so we shan't be going back there.
The rain has slowed down the occasional drizzle, and we head over to the Uffizi. The voucher gets us in without a line again (I suspect we were overcharged for the vouchers in trade-off), which is very convenient. What I remember of the Uffizi mainly were the Botticellis, which I was disappointed in, the da Vinci exhibit, the La Fortezza virtues set, and the Germans, which I also disliked. I liked the colors in the Michelangelo, but not his lines as much, and the Botticellis just struck me as too sweet and plain. The da Vinci exhibit showed models of some of his inventions and explained the math behind some of his geometric work. Due to that awful Da Vinci Code book, this was crowded by people trying to find the Secrets That Would Undermine the Church. Those people are growing increasingly annoying. It was such an awful book. (I care not one way or another about the theme of the book, it was the horrible writing and stupid characters that bothered me.)
This link has a catalog of everything that was shown in English: Uffizi Catalog.
After spending a bit of time in the bookstore there and in the street market, picking up souvenirs for people and taking a few pictures of Florence, I headed home to lay around for the rest of the night. I even found a bar at the corner that would make me hot tea to go ("to go" is not a common concept for drinks). I'm getting awfully good at Sudoku from all the train travel and laying about sick. Have also finished every novel we have with us, two or three we've left behind, and am about to break down and start on the Complete Works of Sophocles, that I picked up from another book trade table, whether it's light reading or not.
Sarah went out to explore the night life for a while, as I guess having tea and doing Sudoku while I cough is not everyone's idea of fun. Who'd have thought?
