Archino di San Piero

We were packed, loaded and in the car by 8am. We ate yogurt in the car and Gabe made sandwiches for the ride. We have to park our car and walk to the meeting spot because our tour in Florence starts at 10am. We made it on time! We used the “with locals” tour guide app in Venice and really liked our guide. So I decided to use it again and found Cristina. She is a Mom and gears her tours to kids. She was extremely knowledgeable about the art and has a vast understanding of Italian history and how art has heavily influenced Italian society. We began our tour at the Gallerie Accademia. This museum is dedicated to Michelangelos David. She told us a lot about Michelangelo himself. How he was arrogant and didn’t have any friends. He also didn’t allow students to study under him. He never let people see his work while he was creating. The man who commissioned David was allowed to see his progress. He came to the studio one day and told Mike that he didn’t like the nose. So M climbed up his scaffolding and took his chisel and pretended to chisel the nose. He let some dust fall down so the man could see that he was altering the nose. When he didn’t do anything to it at all.
We left and walked over to the Uffuzi. We learned that the museum used to be the offices of the Medici family. The Medici family reigned over Florence for over 300 years. The paintings and sculptures inside are almost all from their collection. The only painting that Michelangelo ever painted is here. He even created the frame its in. To be clear, Michelangelo did other things with paint but they are considered frescos not like this. The Sistine chapel is a fresco. Most of the paintings from this era are on wood. We learned so much and it would take me forever to recap the day. Overall I think the kids learned something’s but it was a little too long.
After we left the museum we were extremely hungry. After wondering and passing 4 perfectly fine restaurants, I found a 4.7 pizzeria. Once we were happy again, we went back to move our stuff into our apartment. Gabe thought it was a different apartment than the one from the photos. It wasn’t. The apartment his extremely old. It’s supposedly used to be one of the many many members of the Medici family apartment. It has been updated and things are fine. There is a washer and a dryer! I actually immediately started washing.
We set out to explore before sunset and find a spot for dinner. Florence is a big city but much more compact than Bologna. It’s also a lot cleaner and not even remotely the same level of graffiti. The streets are wider and it makes it feel less crowded. There are a ton of piazza’s. We visited Florence for the day in 2006 on our first trip Italy. I’m so excited to be here for a few days.Read more