Today we get up early so we can beat the crowds at the Uffizi. On reflection it might have been better if we had gone later. There is no line for general admission but there are a ton of tour groups. The trouble with tour groups is that they move like a large scrum from painting to painting blocking the view for everyone else. It is annoying but not fatal.
Of course there are no photos allowed here. We did not even sneak one this time. Important works here include Madonnas from the 13th-14th centuries by Giotto, Cimabue and Duccio and a lot of other early Renaissance painters. What a lot of people come to see are the Botticellis. There’s also a couple of paintings by Da Vinci and one by Michelangelo. Three hours are about my limit for art galleries. As we are leaving we discover that there is a whole new section downstairs for later Renaissance works. We give this a quick look through.
For Italians lunch on Sunday is the main meal of the day so we will make it our main meal as well. We find a trattoria that looks good and settle in. Our next sightseeing objective is Santa Croce and it does not open until 2PM so we can enjoy our lunch/dinner for the next hour and a half. The food is good although not cosmic.
Santa Croce is a BIG church. Many important people are buried here. We see the tombs of Machiavelli, Galileo, Michelangelo, and Rossini to name a few. There’s also a lot of early Renaissance art.
John and I are tired out and we leave Sarah around 3 PM to finish up at Santa Croce and see whatever else she likes. We walk through the Christmas market and back to the apartment. Sarah comes home later full of all the things that we’ve missed – perhaps some other trip with better knees, I’ll see it all.