More Fabulous Florence
March 10, 2008
Oh, how can one describe the glories of Florence on a sunny day in late October when all the crowds are gone? Even now, as I sit here in beautiful sunny Spain and look at our pictures of Florence, I get a smile on my face, remembering the delights we encountered.
I am so sorry that the blog has been deathly slow of late, but we had lots of work to do here on revamping our site to make it work better and there is only so much time in a day. We are in the process of updating and expanding our website as our size and traffic has grown too large for this site, so bear with us a little while, as we go through these changes. We did not expect it to take this long . The good news is, it should make it a more enjoyable and easier to use format, for you and for us.
We are almost ready to do the big switch and get on the traveling road again, so I should be getting lots more up now. I have lots to catch up on, so I will have to do shorter posts. Things get hazy too with time, as Italy in the fall seems long ago, now that spring has sprung in Spain. We will be using more video, maps and other fun things and people will finally be able to leave comments. We did not realize it would be this big of a job, but hopefully it will all be worth it.
We loved the views from Piazzale Michelangelo which looks over all of Florence, so it was always a great way to start the day. Once, we asked a woman standing near us to take a picture of all three of us together and lo and behold, we knew each other from online! Neither of us knew that the other was in Florence, so that was great fun, once again, discovering how small the world really is.
We also found it to be the perfect spot to add another violin video to our around the world montage.
If you have not seen our montage, you should check it out here (& leave a vote or comment):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn9rDTZj-m4
Of course, being that it was Florence, we had to hit more museums. Even with our lengthy stay we did not hit all of them, but gave them a good shot. I think we hunted down all of the Michelangelo’s in town and particularly liked the close up detail in his statues.
Even the unfinished ones were interesting and we felt honored to be close enough to touch them and shake our head in amazement, like so many others have through history. We had the Museo del Opera to ourselves, during a sudden downpour, where there was a beautiful Pieta in which he carved Nicodemus as a self-portrait. DaVinci enjoyed pointing things out to Mozart, who took it all in eagerly.
At first we were disappointed when we went to the Bargello Museum, because they were doing special cleaning on the prize piece, Donatello’s David. This is the David that sat in the Medici house when Michelangelo lived there when he was growing up, so had a great influence and I had been looking forward to seeing it. As it turned out though, this was a great teaching moment, because they were smart enough to do this work right in the middle of the museum.
Mozart had a great time talking to the woman doing the work and it was quite fascinating to watch the process. The statue was lying down and it was obvious as to what parts had been finished and what was left to be done. One could see what painstaking work this was. We liked it and learned so much, that DaVinci asked the restorer to sign our museum brochure.
We had some great meals in Florence, mainly small places recommended by our friends who lived there or by asking local people/shop keepers. They were mostly small, friendly places with yummy food at good prices, but I did not get any names or have lost them by now. One had a bean and pasta soup that Mozart and DaVinci loved and I adored the gnocchi. When the tourist crowds are gone, the beauty, charm and peace of Florence seduces all.
Oh, how can one describe the glories of Florence on a sunny day in late October when all the crowds are gone? Even now, as I sit here in beautiful sunny Spain and look at our pictures of Florence, I get a smile on my face, remembering the delights we encountered.
I am so sorry that the blog has been deathly slow of late, but we had lots of work to do here on revamping our site to make it work better and there is only so much time in a day. We are in the process of updating and expanding our website as our size and traffic has grown too large for this site, so bear with us a little while, as we go through these changes. We did not expect it to take this long . The good news is, it should make it a more enjoyable and easier to use format, for you and for us.
We are almost ready to do the big switch and get on the traveling road again, so I should be getting lots more up now. I have lots to catch up on, so I will have to do shorter posts. Things get hazy too with time, as Italy in the fall seems long ago, now that spring has sprung in Spain. We will be using more video, maps and other fun things and people will finally be able to leave comments. We did not realize it would be this big of a job, but hopefully it will all be worth it.
We loved the views from Piazzale Michelangelo which looks over all of Florence, so it was always a great way to start the day. Once, we asked a woman standing near us to take a picture of all three of us together and lo and behold, we knew each other from online! Neither of us knew that the other was in Florence, so that was great fun, once again, discovering how small the world really is.
We also found it to be the perfect spot to add another violin video to our around the world montage.
If you have not seen our montage, you should check it out here (& leave a vote or comment):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn9rDTZj-m4
Of course, being that it was Florence, we had to hit more museums. Even with our lengthy stay we did not hit all of them, but gave them a good shot. I think we hunted down all of the Michelangelo’s in town and particularly liked the close up detail in his statues.
Even the unfinished ones were interesting and we felt honored to be close enough to touch them and shake our head in amazement, like so many others have through history. We had the Museo del Opera to ourselves, during a sudden downpour, where there was a beautiful Pieta in which he carved Nicodemus as a self-portrait. DaVinci enjoyed pointing things out to Mozart, who took it all in eagerly.
At first we were disappointed when we went to the Bargello Museum, because they were doing special cleaning on the prize piece, Donatello’s David. This is the David that sat in the Medici house when Michelangelo lived there when he was growing up, so had a great influence and I had been looking forward to seeing it. As it turned out though, this was a great teaching moment, because they were smart enough to do this work right in the middle of the museum.
Mozart had a great time talking to the woman doing the work and it was quite fascinating to watch the process. The statue was lying down and it was obvious as to what parts had been finished and what was left to be done. One could see what painstaking work this was. We liked it and learned so much, that DaVinci asked the restorer to sign our museum brochure.
We had some great meals in Florence, mainly small places recommended by our friends who lived there or by asking local people/shop keepers. They were mostly small, friendly places with yummy food at good prices, but I did not get any names or have lost them by now. One had a bean and pasta soup that Mozart and DaVinci loved and I adored the gnocchi. When the tourist crowds are gone, the beauty, charm and peace of Florence seduces all.
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Wow, I love this blog! What a great adventure your family is having! I found your site by the great pic of mini Europe! I hope you don't mind, I used the pic in an article--don't worry I put the HTML in the article!! Check out my blog, too. The article is in Suite 101. Enjoy your travels!!
Posted by: Julie | December 09, 2008 at 10:53 AM