Michelangelo's Thick Crust

View from Piazzale Michelangelo - My favorite building is easy to pick out in the middle. Also outstanding are the Basilica di Santa Croce (right) and the Tower of Palazzo Vecchio (left).

My previous post at nearly 70 pictures long should have been rather educational on all that Rome has to offer. Now in Florence, hub of the Renaissance, this post will be much shorter despite spending four days here. Four days is far, far too long for anybody to spend in Florence. Phil and I were not in any other city in Europe any longer than three days. I do not recall why I fell into booking this place for so long. If I could have moved one or two of these days into Santorini, that would have made the pacing of the vacation perfect.

Hope you like David. There are at least 3 major replicas in Florence, plus the original.

I've been trying to show you only the best marble statues, but I imagine you're sick of them, too.

Anybody who's anybody in the 15th to 18th centuries found themselves in Florence, Italy. The Renaissance connects the medieval period to modern times. These days I read debate on how much this time period actually accelerated our cultural and scientific progression, but at a minimum arts and philosophy did flourish.

For what the man was worth, Florence hosts a museum dedicated to Galileo. Phil and I had to check it out. It provides an incredible framework of scientific progression through the Middle Ages and beyond, with a focus on Galileo of course and the circumstances around which he lived.

An armillary sphere, model of the universe according to concepts by Aristotle and perfected by Ptolemy

Galileo's actual right thumb and right middle finger

Some very big telescopes

Electrostatic machines, spiral conductors, and other magical things

Some tiny classical pocket watches

Watch this large vulnerable grandfather clock, from Galileo's time, tick in the video. 

A day later in Florence, we tried to get into the museum that houses the original David, Galleria dell'Accademia, but it was too long of a wait. Buy the ticket ahead of time if you're dying to see him; otherwise I feel like that museum can fairly be skipped.

We got the taste of truly bad weather in Florence. We were trapped under an awning by thunder and heavy downpour. We tried to wait it out for a half hour, but decided we were close enough to our hostel that we could sprint the few blocks if the rain let up at all - so we did.

By happenstance we were in the plaza with my favorite building in all of Europe: the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. So I didn't mind so much being trapped by rain. See it in the next two pictures on a clearer day. We tried to enter, but I got turned away at the door for wearing a sleeveless shirt. Phil entered and got a couple of pictures. I'll have to get those pics from him later.

A beautiful building. Admire the colors.

With the similarly themed Battistero di San Giovanni in the foreground.

What else... It was in Florence that I decided real Italians are incapable of speaking English without that flamboyant Mario Bros. accent. Also, they really do have fiery tempers; I was never the target of one though, just the witness of a couple.

Piazza della Repubblica with a merry-go-round

Piazza Santo Spirito

And our first run-in with a restaurant with a cover charge was in Florence. These would plague us through the rest of northern Italy. Speaking of restaurants though, we had a few positive food experiences. We decided to eat out more in Florence than the rest of Italy, since it is cheaper there than Rome, Naples, or Venice. Had to give Italian food a chance... 

I don't think you could go wrong with any pizza from Gusta.

On Ali's recommendation, we got pizza from Gusta Pizza - the spicy salami is sooooo perfect. A good chewy crust. The larger crusts seemed unique to Florence. Go at an off-hour for seating.

On many people's recommendation, we got giant sandwiches from All'Antico Vinaio - this might be the best sandwich I've ever had (Phil disagrees). For five bucks, it's too much to finish. They pile on the meats and slather on the truffle cream. It's difficult to make a sandwich memorable, but AAV did it. Again, it's gonna be packed but the line moves quickly.

Best sandwich ever? Maybe. I've had so many.

On Michelin's recommendation, we dined at Il Latini. This was okay. As I decried in Rome, a "meal" in Italy will be a small portion of pasta followed by a small portion of meat. No different here. The three pastas we got were all al dente - don't tell the Italians, but I prefer my pasta mushy, so I didn't like it here. And even if I liked tougher pasta, it was still just pasta. Don't understand the fascination with Italian food. Good house wine though. Though the meat in this restaurant was exceedingly well-prepared, it's just meat. I can make it at home. And this is my real issue with Italian food: it's boring as all get out.

This is the best Italy has to offer? Hard pass. Dat truffle cream sandwich though...

The best I can say for Il Latini is that they were able to seat us without a reservation! It was humourous actually, how many people they jammed into the restaurant. We arrived ten minutes prior to opening and there were already about a hundred people waiting. I was ready to give up and walk the streets in search of a different primo restaurant, but Phil wanted to wait and see. Good thing we did. Just when you thought the host was done seating groups, he would summon another. And another. And another. We were laughing. From the outside, it seemed like packing people into a clown car. Once seated inside though, it was plenty spacious. We never found out into what cranny of the restaurant all the people in line before us were jammed. I like to imagine the more rambunctious patrons had the floor opened from under them and were dropped into a meat grinder, to make room for two normal humans like me and Phil.

Italy's version of Gatorade: no restaurant required

Of note, I also ate a 200 gram block of pecorino romano cheese by Gran Casale. That was delicious. Probably enough salt to last me a week there. And finally, when we ran out of things to do on the last day, we befriended Alex from Adelaide and walked the city's parks.

A view from Ponte Vecchio - a thin bridge with stores lining the edges

Lindsay from high school, my Italy expert, already scorned me for my poor appropriation of days among Italian cities. She and I had worked out a good plan, then I went and screwed it all up. But having the extended stay in Florence have us the opportunity to spend a day exploring the countryside. This meant choosing between Pisa and Siena, and the former won out due to proximity to the beach. Had to get my money's worth out of my swimming trunks.

If my posting goes according to plan, you will next hear about Pompeii, Naples, and Pisa. These were our detours out of Rome and Florence. I wanted to group these short segments into a single post, and that's why I put out this post on Florence with disregard to chronological order.

My man!