Tuscany – Day 3
Today, we ventured out again from our Tuscan residence into the city of Florence. After battling the tiny streets and one-way traffic, we finally found a parking spot and then did an audio tour of the Uffizi museum. In my opinion, this museum which had the most beautiful paintings by Botticelli. I fell in love with ‘The Birth of Venus’ – simply breath-taking. Seriously, I could stare at that thing for hours.
The Uffizi also had works by da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt – amongst other famous Italian artists.
The next stop was a church, Santa Croce Church, which was one of the few charging admission. I was curious as to why a church would charge you for admittance, especially when St. Peter’s Bascilica does not. But once we got in there (and I covered up my shoulders with my sweather and my knees with Carolyn’s sweater) I saw why.
This church had some pretty famous dudes entoumbed here including Donatello, Michelangelo, Galileo, Dante, Raphael and Machiavelli. The coolest part about seeing where these guys were entoumbed is most of them (especially the ones that were creatively gifted) actually designed their tombs before they died. Then, when they did die, their students created their masters’ tombs using their designs. Some of them were pretty ornate.
Lunch was at the very same restaurant Ryan visited when he was 13 years old. He traveled to Italy 18 years ago with his mother, sister, grandfather, and a friend from school and on one of their day trips to Florence, they also visited the Uffizi and Santa Croce Church – as well as this restaurant. Ryan kept raving that it was the best in the world and that we HAD to find it. Surprisingly, we did. And yes, the food was excellent. Ryan & I had penne bolognese, Carolyn had a spicy marinara sauce over spaghetti and Clark had ravioli with pesto.
We took in some more sights of the city and then headed back to our Tuscan home. We chose to have dinner at our residence that evening, which was a 5 course meal, each served with almost too much time in between. It was typical of all the meals we have been eating in Italy – more time to sit and visit inbetween eating. The courses were pre-empted with a bottle of the local vineyard’s wine and were followed by:
- arugula salad with prosciutto
- penne carbonara
- pork tenderloins with spinach and roasted potatoes
- gelato with fresh berries
- cappuccino
Divine!
