Well, with our train ride to Florence, I could feel our trip beginning to close, to know that we will make only a quick visit to Venice after this, before returning to the states. I have not been writing very much about Italy I am afraid, but hopefully I will get the inspiration to fill in the gaps of this journal after my trip, after maybe I have gotten some time to process everything.
My first day in Florence was spent sleeping mostly, and eating good food! I am finally understanding the restaurant situation here. A plate is typically 10-15 euros, and they tend on the small side because it is assumed that you will order several of them! Sure we have all heard of multi-course meals, but it took me awhile to catch onto the fact that is how all of Italian restaurants are here. An appetizer, a pasta plate, a meat plate, a nice salad... and it amounts to a very nice and satisfying meal... but very expensive by my standards!
Today we got up ridiculously early to get to the Uffizi Gallery since lonely planet claims that it can take 4 hours of queuing to get in. Well it took us about half an hour, but even after we left several hours later the queue didn't seem any longer. The museum was pretty awesome though, definitely worth the venture. I did an audio tour of the museum to get more of the details...especially since my experiences here have been that the museums, even if they charge outrageous prices, often lack English translations on the labels. It was cool, but it was very selective about which pieces it described. I couldn't help but think that the project I have been working on the past few months cool be applied to make a better museum experience. (I have been working with a company producing Portal Media Players... e.g. iPod competitors).
The plaza just outside the Uffizi (well actually between the Ufizzi since it is a U shaped building with a central plaza) was filled with street venues and several human statues. (ya know those people who dress up and stand perfectly still and wink at you occasionally) What was really interesting, was that the police make regular strolls down this plaza to harass vendors who don't have permits. This was most of them in fact. I wish I could have recorded a video of this, for the whole activity seems carefully choreographed! As the police walked by the vendors would promptly pack up there stuff. But if the police were 20 meters away they did not... and if they were right around that distance they would pack up partially. After about 10 minutes of this, more police arrived, and with this every single one of the vendors packed up and ran away... all of this in about 20 seconds! they are quite skilled at it.
But they didn't run away completely they ran to one far edge of the plaza.The police followed over and harassed some of them, but didn't really accomplish anything. After awhile a few of the vendors setup again despite the police being so near.
We got a very nice lunch and then headed to the Duomo which as it happens on the first Saturday of every month closed early and we missed entrance. The opening times of places here in Italy are very strange, very irregular. After wandering for a while longer we returned to the hotel for our siesta. We had a very nice meal that night.. amounting to about $50 US a person, but well worth it.
We ran across some street musicians: a couple performing on violin and according. A surprizingly good combination. Well, maybe it is fairly common, but I have not heard it before.
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