Out With Erin

Awaking bright eyed and bushy tailed, we quickly walked down to the Galleria dell’Accademia in hopes of seeing the real David. As we turned the corner, a steady line was already being formed. We hopped in and waited just a little over an hour before entering the gallery.

As we walked in, we were completely surrounded by beautiful pieces of art work and statues galore.

Of course, the most anticipated feature was that of David. I can’t even describe the massiveness of the statue and the immense amount of detail that it contains. It’s something else.

We continued further throughout the gallery and I was quite in awe of the sculptures in general. The amount of time and patience to create these beautiful pieces of artwork is impressive. I also learned that through the Middle Ages, art was dedicated solely to representing God.

Once through the majority of the gallery, we continued further to explore the music museum. It has beautiful pieces of instruments dating back to the 1600s.

When our tour was complete, we headed to our local breakfast spot for another tasty morning treat.

We spent the next few hours walking around Florence and seeing all the major sites. We went to the cathedral and duomo and were blown away by the grandeur of the plaza. It’s massive and absolutely stunning. The pictures don’t even do it justice.

Venturing on, we headed to the Ponte Vecchio for a view of the Arno River, passing the Uffizi Gallery on the way. The line was way too crazy to wait.

We crossed the river to the less touristy side and explored the beautiful streets. We also stopped for a little gelato snack!

By 2:30pm we were quite hungry so headed back over to find a place for lunch. We had scoped out a few but all were closed by the time we arrived. Instead, we stopped at a place purely by its name: Da Pinocchio.

To start with, we had the bruschetta.

Next, we shared the scampi linguini and the seafood risotto.

It was recommended to us to check out the Museo dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, which was back in the Duomo square. It’s a museum dedicated to describing the steps and process that went on to actually build the Duomo and Cathedral. It also contains several statues by Donatello and Michelangelo, and bronze gilded baptistery panels. It was quite education and we enjoyed our time there.

Deciding on what to do or where to go next, as we were walking around the Duomo plaza, we noticed there was a very short line up for the Bell Tower (Campanile di Giotto). We stood in line for no more than 20 minutes before being able to ascend the 414 steps and get our nice leg workout! When we arrived at the top in record speed and real sweaty, we were surrounded by gorgeous views of Florence and especially the Duomo itself.

Shortly after, we headed back to our B&B to get ready and cleaned up for our dinner tonight. Plus we needed to break open our brunello that we bought yesterday!

We ventured back to the market for dinner. Tonight we tried out the pizza. We ordered the margherita and the magnifico, with a glass of red and a beer.

After dinner, we decided to check out a local negroni bar. I’ll report on that tomorrow!