Day Otto!

Ciao from Florence J

   I really, really, like it here! We’ve been having a lovely time. Today we went to the Uffizi Gallery of Art. It was incredible. Words aren’t able to describe some of this artwork.

   We were quite lucky to get to the Uffizi early, because the lines became very long not 15 minutes after we’d walked through the gate! Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures of anything there. But I’ll tell you about some of the art works.

    The first few rooms we went through were very gothic in style. Iconography was big at that time (late medieval times I think). One of the coolest things was the layout of the gallery. The art works in the rooms were laid out in a chronological fashion. My family and I found it fascinating how art progressed through time, with the innovative techniques the artists discovered and employed.

   My favorite room was definitely the Botticelli exhibit. It was so exciting to see all the paintings I learned about in history last year. Two of Botticelli’s most famous paintings—La Primavera and The Birth of Venus—were on display. They were gorgeous, unsurprisingly. Leonardo da Vinci paintings as well as Raphael’s were exhibited. So many rooms had so many beautiful pieces of art, I could go on forever about them, but I don’t want to bore you. I’ll just comment that I absolutely adored this museum!

   After the Uffizi, we went to visit a church, Santa Croce. It was really pretty. I still haven’t become used to the great size of the churches around here. Oh, and of course the fact that there must be 15 church per square mile. Not kidding! Anyway, this church was stunning. First, I was amazed that people other than saints could be buried in a church! At Santa Croce, commoners were well, commonly, buried inside the church. It was quite interesting. Some very famous people were buried there also! By famous I mean Michelangelo Buonoratti, Niccolo Machiavelli, and Galileo Galilei! I was completely blown away.

   Once we had toured the church, we stopped for hot chocolate. It was very odd. I thought it tasted like warm brownie mix. That’s how thick it was! It was then that we realized there was a mass at Santa Croce (literally across the street) in 15 minutes.

   We went to mass, but it was hard to pay attention because it was in Italian. It was pretty amusing; the priest smiled the entire mass. It was a nice service.

  After dinner we went back to the apartment, seeing as we were all rather sleepy. 

Tomorrow we’ll wander through more of Firenze, then it’s back to Rome for us! Then we go home L

Arrivederci!

Olivia J

Pictures soon!