July 9
Today we were scheduled to take a train from our port in Livorno, Italy to Florence. This was one of the stops on our trip that I was most excited about- to go to the city where the Renaissance was born! On the advice of people who have travelled Italy by train before, I had downloaded the free app, Trenitalia, to purchase our tickets beforehand. I was told (both online and by people) that the ticket lines would be long. However the ship was 25 minutes late arriving in Livorno, and we ended up missing our train by five minutes. From the port we had to take a taxi to get to Livorno Centrale Stazione: there were no buses that went there directly. While we were in the taxi I purchased tickets for the next train, which didn’t leave for another hour, again not wanting to chance long ticket lines. I shouldn’t have worried. The lines were non- existent. Oddly enough they never asked for our ticket once we boarded the train. Go figure! While we waited I went into a cafe there and bought a donut zebrato, which is a dark chocolate filled doughnut with marble icing. The cafes in the train stations here have amazing baked goods, coffees and sandwiches. We arrived at Firenze Santa Maria Novella on schedule and made the 20 minute walk to the Galleria dell’Academia where we had pre-purchased skip the line tickets through Trip Advisor. I highly recommend getting your tickets in advance because the entrance lines were LONG! The museum was well worth it. We saw amazing paintings and sculptures from the Renaissance. The paintings are amazingly beautiful and have such vibrant colors in them.
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| Saint James the Great, Saint Stephen and Saint Peter |
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| Atlas by Michelangelo |
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| Madonna and Child in Heaven Crowned by Two Angels |
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| The Rape of the Sabine Women |
And then we got to the hallway that leads to the crown jewel, Michelangelo’s David. The entire hallway (or gallery as they call it) is lined with other sculptures from Michelangelo, including one called Atlas. I’m not sure, but I think these were all unfinished projects. They feel that way to me, anyway. But the statue of David— It is absolutely magnificent. And so beautiful. I don’t know that I can adequately describe how in awe I was. And it is an incredibly large piece. I had no idea how big it was! The fact that it was carved from a single piece of marble is astonishing.
We spent an hour or so in the museum, then I made some purchases in the gift shop. On our way back to the train station we stopped in a leather outlet. I had heard that Florence was a good place to buy Italian leather goods. I bought a purse and Lindsay bought a backpack. Back at the train station we went into Tentazioni Cafe to grab something to eat. I had the Pesto e pomodorino pizza and Lindsay had the re rusticò panino, which is a sandwich with prosciutto and mozzarella. I also bought a Nutella muffin for later. The only disappointing part of today’s adventure was that- due to the late arrival of our ship causing us to miss the earlier train- we didn’t have time to go to the deMedici family house.
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