Epic Honeymoon - Day 12 - Florence

The next day was a pre-designated as a day or art and culture, as we had pre-booked to visit the Uffizi Gallery, home to and incredibly huge collection of some of the most famous art from Italy’s Renaissance, and Galleria Accademia, which is of course known as the house of David.

We got going nice and early, arriving to Uffizi to find the crowds that pre-booking will get you past. You can save a couple of euros by getting yourself out of bed at the crack of dawn, if you so choose. But who needs that when you're on holiday??

Outside, hanging over the head of the line, there was a nice big billboard to warn you about the official prices of the tickets. Don't buy from hawkers on the street (wherever they are - nobody tried to sell to us!), as you will get ripped off.

Don't be duped by hawkers!

The line would easily have taken hours to move inside, I would guess, so the €4 advance booking fee was well worth it; we were inside within 10 minutes. Sometimes it pays to not be stingy!

Pay the extra fee, or get ready to stand in line for a while!

The entrance to Uffizi.

Once inside Uffizi, you quickly realise that it’s a mind blowing collection, and it would easily take you all day (if not longer) to read about and appreciate every exhibit.

One of the MANY depictions of the Immaculate Conception.

The 7 Human Virtues.

"The Birth of Venus" as she floated ashore on her clam shell.

View of the Palazzo Vecchio from the end of the Uffizi Gallery.

We took our time to begin with, but then started to speed up as we went along – it was quite tiring, actually! And in any case, we had our next booking at the Galleria in the mid afternoon. 

After a quick Panini and coffee for lunch in Piazza Signore, we found our way to the Galleria del’Accademia. We’d pre-booked this also, which is highly recommended if you don’t like standing in a long line for several hours. The Galleria is nowhere near the size of Uffizi, but still holds quite an impressive collection of art and sculptures. Of course, basically everyone is there for one reason and one reason only.

Tickets purchased online are collected at the nearby ticket office.

Again - if you choose not to buy in advance, prepare for a long, long line!

Michaelangelo’s ‘David’ stands majestically at the end of a long hall, only the second room into the museum. I remarked to Avy as we entered the room “oh, we’re here already!”. The crowd wasn’t quite as bad as I had expected, though if you want a photo in front of it, you might have to be patient to get your shot. ‘David’ is a remarkable piece of work to behold. The fine detail and that has gone into depicting his emotion and stance; the tensing of his muscles; and of course the well-known oversizing of certain body features (no, not THAT feature!). I do recall having heard his head is out of proportion with a normal human, implying his victory was one of smarts and not just brute strength. All of this coupled with the absolute smoothness of the finish product comes together to give us a fantastic masterpiece.

David never skipped abs or chest day.

The incredible detail, even down to the veins of the forearm really astounded me.

The rest of the gallery is well worth a look, too, so don’t think it’s only about ‘David’. Although, having visited Uffizi and Accademia in one day, I have to say I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many pictures of Mary and Jesus in such a short period!

Just beyond David's hall is another room full of less-famous marble sculptures.

With a good dose of culture done for the day, we stopped off for a quick bowl of noodle soup (wife’s inner-Asian was acting up again). Avy had to explain to the restaurant – which was run by Chinese, not Taiwanese – about a particular type of soup she loves with noodles in it. In China, it seems, they only have the soup and never add noodles to that dish. They were happy to oblige, but confused by the concept!

Jump a train to the slanty city on Day 13!