I was in the mood for some cheese and asked the Italian lady for a hunk of Edam (as it was the only one I recognized) and she scoffed at me and mumbled under her breath as she gave me this giant hunk of cheese I was thinking would be 5-6 Euros and was $1.62.
So I apologized and said I didn't know my Italian cheeses. She said in broken English - " you a come a alla the way a from Canada and a you order a cheese a from Holland a when a there is a best a cheeses in a the world a from Italy a right here in a this a case a - pfft.... "
HA!!! BUSTED!!!
"Teach me!" I exclaimed. "What's good cheese?!"
She proceeded to make me a platter of 8 cheese slivers and Krista and I tried them all. Oh wow. My senses exploded as our taste buds entered an entirely new dimension...
We found a couple we liked - 4 times the price - but wow - on bread with a bottle of wine to wash that down made for a spectacular lunch!! I even had 500ml of wine to wash it down with!
We wandered upstairs and discovered the biggest food court in Florence. 50 shops around the perimeter and a beer market in the middle. As you can well imagine, the place was packed! We used the washroom and made our way over to the Academia Gallery.
The lineup to get in was a couple blocks long but the line up with tickets was only a few minutes long. We met some wonderful people from Chicago who were in line ahead of us. She was a grade 2 teacher! They had been up to Calgary in March to watch the Blackhawks beat the Flames. We shared our vacation plans with them and we laughed as they had just come from Ireland and done ten things we are doing next week. Small world.
We entered the gallery and were very much in awe of all the artwork and statues in the first couple of rooms. There was much reading to do and as you can imagine the boys decided to sit on the bench and take it all in without doing the reading.
As we rounded the corner, you could see the Statue of David off in the distance looming over hundreds of people. This is what everyone game to see. We walked past numerous statues from Michelangelo that were very beautiful but odd in that it seems like he never finished many of them. I am uncertain ass to whether they were designed to look at way or whether he just ran out of time before he passed away.
The closer we got to the David statue, the more incredibly impressive it became. It appeared to be 8 to 10 meters in night when in reality it was only over 5 meters tall.
I had seen photos of David for many years but was not prepared for how overwhelmingly large it is. Pictures cannot do it the slightest of justice as it is simply the most incredible sculpture I have ever seen. We walked around it several times viewing it from every angle and it is just sublime. His eyes are captivating - so incredibly well done - and you ponder whether Michelangelo envisioned the work prior to or after slaying Goliath. We Madden art student from Australia who was here with her mom seeing the statue for the third or 4th time and she was telling us all the history she knew about it which really brought it to life as well.
We went through the numerous rooms of paintings and into the sculpture room. This room had several hundred busts of famous people living in Italy in the 14th century created by 5 or 6 different sculptors.
We toured the floor above for another hour and were done with art for the day. Just amazing though.
We grabbed some gelatos and found a cool place in the shade to check the Internet for the possibility of Darren going to drive a Ferrari. After half an hour of Skyping, we secured a booking for 7pm. I wandered around for awhile talking to bus and taxi drivers to make sure we found the easiest and affordable way to reach the summit of the city at Piazza de Michelangelo to both drive the car and see the best view of the sunset over the city.
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