Florence Part II
A lovely day today. We began with breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which was a combination of English/American ( cereal, bacon and eggs) and continental (croissants, cheese, chocolate and other cakes). I had my first Italian cappucino in years and enjoyed it very much.
After breakfast we called my parents via Skype to wish Mum a happy Mothers' Day, then went to the train station and bought our tickets for tomorrow's journey to Rome (from a machine, since the ticket staff were on strike). Then we walked down to the Uffizi and queued for about 40 minutes to buy our tickets and took three and a half hours to go through the galleries - unlike the Louvre, it is actually possible to see all the rooms in one day. The Botticelli's are the highlight of the collection for me.
By thetime we'd finished at the Uffizi it was after 5pm, so we came back to the hotel for a rest then went out for a quick dinner and to watch a free concert peerformed by an organist, a countertenor and an oboist in one of the local churches - a mixed program , including (I think) Handel's "Lascia ch'io pianga" and Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor". The organist was good, the oboist okay and the countertenor a bit dodgy (annoying glottal stops everywhere!). We followed the concert with tiramisu (yum!) and wandered home, stopping to listen to a couple of girls, presumably Florentine singing students, busking in one of the covered walkways. They were pretty good, particularly the alto (the soprano was clearly getting tired and losing a bit of her vocal control).
When we got back to the hotel we went up to the rooftop terrace and enjoyed the full moon rising above the Palazzo Vecchio, which was a very picturesque end to a lovely evening.
After breakfast we called my parents via Skype to wish Mum a happy Mothers' Day, then went to the train station and bought our tickets for tomorrow's journey to Rome (from a machine, since the ticket staff were on strike). Then we walked down to the Uffizi and queued for about 40 minutes to buy our tickets and took three and a half hours to go through the galleries - unlike the Louvre, it is actually possible to see all the rooms in one day. The Botticelli's are the highlight of the collection for me.
By thetime we'd finished at the Uffizi it was after 5pm, so we came back to the hotel for a rest then went out for a quick dinner and to watch a free concert peerformed by an organist, a countertenor and an oboist in one of the local churches - a mixed program , including (I think) Handel's "Lascia ch'io pianga" and Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor". The organist was good, the oboist okay and the countertenor a bit dodgy (annoying glottal stops everywhere!). We followed the concert with tiramisu (yum!) and wandered home, stopping to listen to a couple of girls, presumably Florentine singing students, busking in one of the covered walkways. They were pretty good, particularly the alto (the soprano was clearly getting tired and losing a bit of her vocal control).
When we got back to the hotel we went up to the rooftop terrace and enjoyed the full moon rising above the Palazzo Vecchio, which was a very picturesque end to a lovely evening.