The alarm was set for 7:00 AM this morning, we needed to leave the room by 8:45 AM for the walk to the Uffizi Gallery. We showered, which was not as pleasant as showering in any of the rooms we have stayed in so far, the water pressure was the lowest we have had, and it just makes showering harder and longer. The shower has both an overhead rain shower type head, and a handheld shower nozzle, but the bracket for holding the hand held up higher on the rod was broken.
Once we were through with our showers and getting ready, we had our bananas and vanilla yogurt for breakfast in the room.
We were ready to go about 8:45 AM, so we headed out for the 12 minute walk to the Uffizi Gallery. We were a little early for our reserved time but it does not really seem to matter, as long as it is close to the reserved time, I guess that is typical “Italian Time”. We used our voucher we had purchased online several weeks ago to get the reserved tickets and headed to the reserved ticket entrance. We had to wait in a line for about 5 minutes, and then we were inside, going through security to enter the Gallery
We headed to the second floor to start the tour. There is a LOT of marble sculptures and paintings in the Uffizi Gallery. It was a little crowded at times with tour groups, especially in the rooms featuring paintings by Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raffaello and Botticelli.
There were also a lot of other paintings of that same period, and of later periods by other artists. There was a lot of marble sculptures from Roman times in addition to the paintings from the Renaissance. Unfortunately, after a while, it gets a little overwhelming with the number of paintings and sculptures. We were in the Museum until about 12:15 PM, almost 4 hours. It was nice to visit here, everyone should visit the Uffizi Gallery at least once, but we are not art enthusiasts, and probably did not fully appreciate the artwork they have here.
After exiting the museum, we walked to the Ponte Vecchio Bridge, the most famous bridge in Florence. The bridge crosses the Arno River. It was know in the Renaissance time for its jewelry shops, and that is still the case today. Jewelry stores still line either side of the bridge. The bridge was packed with people, mostly just going across the river. We stopped for a few photos and quickly left, wanting to get out of the thick crowds. We were being very wary because these are the types of crowded areas where pickpockets thrive, and we had read that this was one of their favorite spots for “business”.
We needed to walk across the bridge because we wanted to go to the Forte di Belvedere o di San Giorgio, a fort built by the Medici Family in the late 1500’s. The walk we took up to the fort was brutal, we should have known better, forts are always at the highest point, and this one was no exception.
There was nothing spectacular about the fort but it offered great views of Florence. Unfortunately, it had gotten cloudy by the time we got up to the fort, so the pictures of the city from high up above at the fort were not that spectacular. It even started to drizzle a little while we were at the fort. Of course, we were not expecting any rain today, none had been forecast, and we had no umbrellas, no rain jackets, and had even left our cheap “emergency” ponchos at the room. Luckily, the light drizzle passed over quickly, and did not really cause us any issues.
We headed back down the hill, taking a different route this time, which was down some steep and winding roads. This route seemed shorter than the one we took up, but much steeper. We crossed back over the Arno River on a different bridge to head to the Basilica of Santa Croce, one of the largest Franciscan Churches in the world. St. Francis of Assisi originally built a small church on the site in 1212 while visiting Florence. The existing church was completed in 1294.
Both Michelangelo and Galileo are buried in special tombs inside the church. There are also many historical paintings in the church. Some were damaged in 1966 by a 15 foot flood of the Arno River, but most have been meticulously restored over time. It was really beautiful inside, and the best part was that there were hardly any tours, so the crowds inside were minimal.
We completed the tour of Santa Croce at about 3:30 PM. We were both tired from being on our feet all day, and the climb to the fort did not help our weary legs. In hindsight, since it was cloudy, we should not have done the climb up to the fort, but that is now just part of the memory we have of the trip.
We needed a break, so we headed back towards our room, stopping at a couple of stores along the way. Before going up to the room, we stopped at the small grocery store just up the street and got some bread and different cheeses for an afternoon snack while we rested in the room. First we drank some water and took Tylenol for our sore and weary legs. We had purchased a bottle of white wine yesterday, which had been chilling overnight in our refrigerator. Unfortunately, the wine was not very good, actually it was really bad, but it helped us to relax. We did enjoy our cheese and bread.
We headed out at about 7:00 PM to find a place to eat, but first stopped by the grocery store to purchase a bottle of red wine for later. We had been so dissatisfied with the white wine, we did not even finish it all, it became a drain cleaner, much like it tasted. We went into a leather shop, and I purchased a new wallet, and Stephanie got a keychain. We considered those our Anniversary presents since today is our 11th Wedding Anniversary. OK, in reality, the whole trip to Italy is our Anniversary present.
We took the leather goods and wine back to the room, and then headed out to find somewhere to eat for dinner. We looked at several spots nearby and found one called I’Daviddino. We saw some good pasta dishes on the menu and they had house wine by the half liter, which was all we wanted for dinner tonight since we have a bottle of wine at the room for later.
Initially we were sitting outside at a table in the sidewalk/street since the streets are closed to traffic at this time of night. The outside tables were really close together, and several people nearby were smoking, one of the downsides of sitting outside because the outside tables are where smoking is permitted. The restaurant advertised on a sign at the doorway that they have an outside gardens with a small replica Statue of David at the back of the restaurant. Stephanie went with one of the wait staff to see the garden area, and when she came back, she wanted us to move to a table back there because it was quiet and smoke free. We asked our server, and she said yes and helped us to move everything to the new table. We had to walk through the entire inside seating area to get to the back where the garden was located. The restaurant was huge inside, they could have easily seated at least 200 people. There was only one family eating back in the garden area, so it was much quieter than being at the street tables.
Stephanie ordered a spinach ravioli with zucchini, and I had a Tortellini with ham. Both were served with a white cream sauce. We asked for some bread, and also olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping our bread into.
Everything was really good. We finished the wine and asked for our check, wanting to get back to the room a little earlier than last night. We stopped off on the way back for a Gelato, we split a cup with chocolate and Oreo cookies and cream, and it was very good. The gelato shop had tables outside next to the Duomo, and we enjoyed the gelato on our last night in Florence, taking in the last of the scenery.
We headed back to the room to do as much packing as we could for tomorrow morning. It seemed like we were packing again for the tenth time at least on this trip. We set an alarm for 6:30 AM tomorrow morning. We need be ready, finish packing and be at the downtown Avis location at 8:30 AM to pick up our rental car. It is at least a 20 minute walk from the hotel to the Avis Office.
Tomorrow we drive from Florence to our agriturismo in a town called Montaperti, about six miles from Siena. We will spend three nights there exploring Tuscany by car.