Holy statues batman!

Trip Start Feb 21, 2007
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Italy  ,
Friday, March 2, 2007

yeah and plaster molds too....  Florence has em all!!!  Well I have to say one of the best things I've done so far is leave that hostel out in the boonies. I was able to score a bed in a hostel super super close to EVERYTHING (specially the train station, that is KEY). So now Florence is easy to navigate by foot. Buses are for the burbs apparently. And it's super easy to meet people in the hostel, although most seem to be Yanks, but whatev... better than staring at a blank wall haha..  Well I have to say Florence is FANTASTIC.  I chinced on the food yesterday (you truly get what you pay for) so didn't make the same mistake today and it was soooo good. primi: ravioli w/ spinach & cheese, and shrimp/olive oil on top. secondi: boiled beef (i meant to say roast, oh well) and boiled potatoes. dessert: biscotti and for real vin santo.  mmmmmmmmm....  so pretty much that filled me for a good coupla days right there. and the hostel offers omlettes, french toast (toast w/ eggs.... uh, ok if you want to call it that), and a whole giant spread of fruit and vegetarian bean stuff for the veg heads. all complimentary w/ your bed.  YES.

Food aside, get to the other good stuff: art.  yessss!  Started w/ the Uffizi Galleries where all the great religious paintings are, like Boticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring, and Da Vinci's Annunciation, etc...  tons of statues in the area as well.  Then saw David today. He's doing good. I'm sure he'd say hello if he wasn't rock and well, basically dead.  Next to him was a room full of plaster molds for various statues around Europe and heck, after seeing David you can pretty much never look at another statue again and be quite ok w/ that.  But the models were super as well once you got over the initial shock :)  I was getting sick of all that religious art (it's just not me somehow...) and checked out a Cezanne exhibit at the Palazzo Strozzi which opened today. Sigh. Nothing like Impressionists to pull you out of a cathedral/religous art slump.  It was on Cezanne's influence w/ Italian artists, specifically Florentine ones, and included works collected by Fabbri and Loeser. Made me wish I'd caught the one at the AIC of Vollard's collection but perhaps I'll catch it in Paris later..tra la la....

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