Today we soaked ourselves in Renaissance painting at the Uffizi gallery. Then it poured with rain so we lurked in our apartment for the rest of the afternoon, which is acceptable behaviour when you’re away for a whole month and can spare an afternoon.
Big national galleries are marathon events, I still remember destroying our bodies and souls with 5+ hours in the Louvre. We were 5 hours in the Uffizi as well but probably paced ourselves better, because we were only weary-but-inspired by the end.
It was busy, but nowhere near as heaving and queued as I’d been fearing. We had bought the Firenze Card, giving you free entry and queue hopping for almost all of the museums in Florence (sans Duomo), and that was definitely the right choice for someone as allergic to queues as me!
It’s just impossible to summarise all the art we saw, although I definitely loved the Renaissance works the best. Having done reading and listening to lectures on the period put everything in context and probably increased our enjoyment and appreciation of what we saw by 200%. At least.
If I had to pick a favourite, it would be Botticelli. Seen up close and in the flesh, his Birth of Venus, Primavera and Annunciation are all just serenely beautiful and entrancing fantasies.
Anyway, after all that and with the weather coming in, we stopped at a little small producer-supporting wine bar in a back street near the Ponte Vecchio for some nduja-slathered toast and wine, then hid at home and cooked pasta for ourselves along with the rest of the bottle of Brunello from Zeb.
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