Matt and Lisa's Adventures

6 January 2025

I had a terrible nights sleep and only managed a couple of hours. Lisa got lots of sleep but was still feeling tired and unwell. This therefore made it a very tough day for both of us. 

We caught the train from Bologna to Florence, just over half an hour which was nice and quick. Thankfully they had our room ready when we arrived. After a quick rest to regather energy we ventured out into Florence. As we walked down the main street a whole stream of old, classic cars drove past. Obviously some sort of rally but for us a really random experience. 

It was a public holiday for the feast of the Epiphany and so there were decent crowds out and about. However, it didn’t feel as crowded as last time we were here but that might just be because we were internally comparing it to Venice which was much more crowded. 

As we wandered around we came across a big group of people waiting in a square with abseiling equipment hanging from a massive arch. Like everybody else we stopped and watched. Unfortunately nothing happened and it was very unclear when it would happen. Eventually we wandered off but when we came back to the square a while later the crowd was even bigger and it was obvious something was going to happen. In Italy on the feast of the Epiphany Befana gives toys to children, basically the Italian version of Santa. Befana is an old lady, a bit like a witch, who rides on a broomstick. The people abseiling were dressed up as her and would drop in on the crowd. Unfortunately it was all very slow and didn’t hold our attention for long. 

7 January 2025

Better sleep through until 6:30am and I actually felt somewhat rested for the first time in ages. The guts were still a bit funny so Lisa bought me up some toast for breakfast which was delicious. 

We walked down to the Ponte Vecchio bridge. Along the river there was a couple having Instagram photos taken, so funny to watch. 

We had a guided tour of the Uffizi booked in for today and yesterday I thought there was no chance I would make that. But I was feeling a bit better this morning after a better night’s sleep and so I decided to brave it. Our guide was Francesca and she knew a lot about art. It was a very good tour that covered the masterpieces in the collection. After the tour finished we were able to stay in the museum which we did for several hours. 

• Started with three gothic paintings that were all of the same setting. Talked about how these were painted over ten years but had improvements in their style and technique between them. More realistic and proportionate people, better use of perspective and better use of depth/height. There was also a lot of gold used which made it feel very gothic. 
• Talked about the move from gothic into renaissance and key differences. Gothic very idealised & unreal compared to realistic beauty and real people in renaissance art. More of a focus on the real world rather than purely religious pictures. Use of perspective and depth. Realistic landscape rather than boring monotone backgrounds
• A religious painting of the holy family but the artist had just used the faces of his family members to turn it into a family photo. Sounds like a good idea to me
• Famous dual paintings of husband and wife. Sadly the wife was painted after she had passed away in child birth. As the guide pointed out there were no photos back then and so having a picture was one of the few ways to remember what someone looked like. The left to right order of the subjects was different from expected as the husband had lost his left eye in a fight. So he wanted the picture to capture his good side. As a result of losing the eye he obviously couldn’t see well from the right so he had the top part of his nose chiseled off so he could see better – crazy! Especially with no reliable anesthetic back in those days!
• Botticelli had two of his masterpieces in the collection including the birth of Venus. Which isn’t really a birth, just her turning up in Cyprus. Venus’ body is based on another statue which is why she has such an unnatural pose. Her face is based on a hot chick that Botticelli liked. He used her face on lots of paintings, someone might have needed a restraining order – if so, talk to Lisa Kennedy Barristor!
• Paintings from Leonardo including his early work for the annunciation. When you stood straight on the people didn’t look quite right but the guide explained that it was designed for a chapel and so if you stood at the right spot on the right hand side then everything looked perfect. Very smart guy! There was also a painting he worked on with his boss. They each did an angel but clearly Leonardo’s one was so much better, Don’t think it’s a great idea to be showing up the boss like that
• There was also a partially completed canvas from Leonardo. Some parts had been painted but a lot of it was just sketched. This provided an insight into his process of creating the finished painting
• There were also masterpieces from Michelangelo and Raphael. I think there was even a sculpture somewhere from Donatello to give the Uffezi the full set of ninjas turtles
• There was a massive section of self portraits. Unfortunately they didn’t have much in the way of descriptions and so it was hard to understand what was interesting about them
• Big section on Caravaggio including the famous Medusa shield
• They had a Rembrandt. It was very old and dark, it did nothing to improve my feelings towards the guy and his work, still not a fan
• We downloaded the audio guide on our phones but it was very disappointing. A lot of art work indicated there was audio but it didn’t show up in the app. It was also a problem as the app needed internet but the cell connection inside the gallery was poor. And there was no WiFi – come on and get into the 21st century mate!

After missing out on the cathedral yesterday we managed to book a tour for this afternoon. On the way we purchased some bananas – so yum to have some fresh fruit again and not too bad on my tummy. Our guide for the cathedral tour was Anna. 

• The cathedral is so impressive for the outside, huge and imposing but also very beautiful. The inside was underwhelming. There were no chapels like in most other churches and very limited art works. Only a few stained glass windows and none that were very exciting
• The marble fooor was nice (and level) with some interesting designs. 
• They had a large clock on the wall. This was a very early clock and while nice, still just a clock
• There was a tomb built into the wall. It included a sculpture of the person buried inside in the pose he was in when he died, which was an interesting choice
• There was a painting of a horse statue that looked 3D as you moved around – really it was just the base that had the effect, so not really that exciting. Now, if the horse was 3D then that would have been cool
• The dome was amazing and a real highlight. A real feat of engineering to be built this and to have somehow moved it into position at that height. The painting on the inside of the dome is stunning. The top level was painted by a different artist from the rest as he died shortly after completing that top level, the contrast in styles is very jarring. It would have been interesting to know wish his planned for the rest of it. 
• The architect of the dome is buried in the cathedral (although not under the dome part). He had an inscription of “here lives the body of a man of great wisdom”. I suggested to Lisa that might be an appropriate inscription for my tomb

The tour was scheduled for an hour but took barely half that, turns out there just isn’t that much to say. It was good to see the inside of the cathedral and it ticked that attraction off but on the whole the word to use was “underwhelming”. 

We then wandered back to the hotel for some quiet time. It is one of the saddest tragedies: here we are in city/country known for their food and we had a dinner of McDonald’s (again). In my state the thoughts of any heavy, cheesy food made me feel physically ill. McDonald’s and its simple, highly processed food was much lower risk

Overall thoughts on Florence

• It’s only been two years since we were here so everything felt very familiar
• The experience has been greatly degraded because of our mutual illnesses. I don’t think I have ever spent this much time in a hotel room and especially depressing considering all of the marvels available to explore in the city
• We came back to do two key things we missed from last time: Ufezzi (after I lost the tickets last trip) and the cathedral. We ticked both of them off, which I didn’t think we would be able to do yesterday after the cancelled tour and feeling like unwell. Good to have them done. The Ufezzi was good and happy to have done it, but didn’t live up to the Prado in Madrid or the Louvre. The cathedral – 9/10 outside, 3/10 inside
• We now haven’t done a city walking tour in three days which must be a record for us.
• A beautiful city with more I would live to explore but might need to be quite a few years before we come back