Day 08 - Europe 2010

Not much happened today, which is fine because we felt like we needed a bit of a break from the go go go.  And, of course, we still needed to make reservations and catch up with the blog.  We worked on that for a few hours in the morning and left the hostel at 11am, headed for the Uffizi.  The Uffizi is probably the top attraction in Florence.  It is home to some very famous paintings with works from Giotto, Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, and the like.  It’s best to make reservations but since they were all full we had to stand in line.  Again, I was fine with that.  It gave me a chance to study while waiting, something I have not done since being here.

The wait was about an hour and it was kind of a mess getting through the security and all that.  Nick said he felt like we were cattle.  But once we got through, it was well worth the hassle.  I was in awe of these paintings I had studied in school that were so much more impressive in person.  First of all, they are so much bigger than I expected.  There is this famous one by Giotto of Mary with the baby Jesus – of course, the most common subject throughout the museum – and I had seen it in my textbooks.  I had no idea it would be so large and look so much more stunning in real life.  Something about the way they did the flesh back then, in that pre-Renaissance period, is uncanny.  It's seem like the people are really there on the painting.

Probably my favorite artist was Botticelli.  He had his own room full of paintings and had a few more scattered throughout the museum.  I have always liked his Birth of Venus, again larger than I expected, but his piece entitled Spring really had me staring for a while.  I had never been a big fan when seeing it on paper but standing in front of it was really an experience.  I just love to study the little details and am I awe of the craftsmanship.  I kept staring at the feet of the people in the painting.  They looked so real, like they were really there stepping in this field.  And the field itself was perplexingly tactile.  It looked as if he had pressed real plants onto the canvas.  Fascinating, stunning, and awesome!

I also noticed the same woman in many of his pieces, Venus in the Birth of Venus.  I wondered whether this was just his ideal woman face or if he had a woman who posed for him, someone he thought was especially beautiful or maybe his wife or a lover or something.  Anyway, it worked out well because his faces are very captivating and keep you staring.

We also liked a few pieces by an artist named Filippo Lippi, who I know I have heard of before but I didn’t recognize a lot of his stuff.  Something about his pieces made them seem 3-D, especially when you looked at them from a distance.  Nick and I stared in wonder at that for a while, especially his Incoronation of the Virgin.  There were a few other pieces like that by other artists.  I think it occurs especially when using gold in the art piece, which many of them did, especially in the pre-Renaissance periods. 

Nick got to see his Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo da Vinci, though I can’t say I was a fan.  I was excited to see the Madonna of the Long Neck, which I had always thought was interesting.  I also enjoyed the works by Titian.  Raphael was just alright for me and there weren’t enough Rembrandts, just a few of his self-portraits.  I was pretty annoyed that, for whatever reason, the Rubens room was closed.  I didn’t get to see all his fleshy bodies!  That was about it, as far as notable works, though there are plenty more I could mention.

The museum itself consists of two long halls with rooms along each hall.  The rooms showcase the different artists but along each hall are all these statues and busts.  What is awesome about these sculptures is that they are so old, from the time of Christ!  How cool is that! 

So that was our Uffizi experience.  We didn’t finish until around 4:30pm and we were starving by then.  We grabbed some food and headed back to the hostel – which has been a great place, by the way, with affordable beds, decent showers, a washer and dryer, and a really friendly staff - where we blogged and planned ourselves to death.  I was up all night again getting things done but it felt good, especially getting reservations made for lodging up until the last week of our trip.  Finally, we can take that load off our shoulders and enjoy the rest of our trip!