La Dolce Vita

July 08, 2014

La Dolce Vita

Buonaserra and happy Tuesday from Florence! Today we went to our first official art gallery of the trip and ate our way through Eatily. We had a great day and enjoyed all of it.

Our morning started relatively early, as we had an 8:15 AM reservation at the Uffizi art gallery. We enjoyed our breakfast at the Ok, Bar before (basically) running to door three to get our tickets. After waiting in a couple of lines, going through security, getting an audio guide, and standing in another line, we finally got started. We noticed that most of the paintings inside of the first wing were very religious and the same thing. It was kind of neat to see the different takes on the same painting, but it also seems overwhelming when you're seeing in double (or triple, quadruple, you get the point..)!

We got through all of the major works, including the Birth of Venus (Sandro Botticelli), the Leonardo DaVinci works, and Michelangelo's only surviving canvas piece. It was very cool and I enjoyed all of the artwork that we saw.

About 3/4 of the way through our visit, we stopped at what must be the most expensive museum cafe in Italy before finishing up. This is what I enjoyed while Nick ate a sandwich and everyone enjoyed a cheese plate:

Here are the highlights from today's Uffizi adventure. (Photo Credits to Mom)

The Uffizi was very neat and I am very excited to see the Accademia tomorrow as well as the art galleries in Rome.

When we finished at the Uffizi, we were planning to go to the Cathedral that is famous for its dome. However, it was sprinkling. Some of the street vendors were selling umbrellas and approached mom to see if she wanted to buy one- but her reaction might suprise you.. The original price was 1 for 5€ and 2 for 10€, but mom bargained to get the entrepreneur down to 2 for 7€. The whole family would like to thank mom for the umbrellas because it started pouring immediately after... Very very helpful to have a cover. Despite the rain, we enjoyed lunch at a place we wouldn't have found otherwise. It was called Yellow Bar, and we will definitely give them five stars for a great meal.

My funny experience of the day was when I ordered a marinara pizza thinking that there would be cheese on it and ending up getting this:

User error, but still delicious! We then stopped at the Santa Maria Cathedral (famous for il duomo) to go look at it. Compared to the other churches and cathedrals we have visited, this definitely wasn't my favorite. The walls felt blank but there was a super cool frescoe on the dome. It was good to see it from the inside before taking a siesta.

Oh yeah, and we also had gelato! This was definitely the best place we've eaten at so far. It's called Mordilatte and it's by our hotel. Mom found a new hazelnut flavor, and naturally she got it with her favorite Bacio. We will be back!

After a fairly long siesta, we enjoyed dinner at Sasso di Dante. This was an amazing meal with a great setting and a fun waitress. We all declared that we "won" the family food contest because they all were really great. Here we all are eating our food (or staring at it!)