Florence - Day 2 {Michelangelo's David at the Accademia, Museum of San Marco, Piazzale Michelangelo, San Miniato Church}

for our only full day in Florence, i was ready to hit the ground running ... literally! before the girls woke up, i ate a granola bar and snuck out of the apartment for a morning run. (grammar nerd alert: Blogger doesn't like "snuck" and upon further research, "sneaked" was the original proper past tense form of "sneak", but "snuck" has been used colloquially as early as the 1800s. plus it just sounds more sneaky. so it stays.)

the weather was perfect -- fifty degrees, with an occasional raindrop falling, just enough to keep cool without making the sidewalks too slippery. i ran along the north bank of the Arno towards the park, then cut across the bridge and came back on the south bank. with every footfall, the light changed infinitesimally, although the overcast skies muted the sunrise. i'd had this run marked on my calendar for months, as on this same day, my friends from church were hosting a 5K in Pittsburgh to raise funds for their adoption journey. for sure, the most difficult part of being away from home (more so than the language or the lack of familiarity!) is not being able to visit with our friends in real life. running a 5K this morning, even though i was by myself, was a wonderful way to feel connected with the families from our church back home.

i passed the Ponte Vecchio, ran as far down as the Uffizi Museum, then turned around to cross back over to the north side of the river. i couldn't resist running over the Ponte Vecchio itself. at just shy of eight o'clock, the bridge was deserted and none of the shops were open, but i could still imagine the bustle and smell of the bridge in medieval times when it was monopolized by the butcher's guild (the butchers would conveniently fling carcasses and other animal refuse over the side of the bridge into the river). then, in 1593, the Medici family decreed that only goldsmiths could operate businesses on the bridge, and to this day, the bridge is crammed with jewelry shops.

the Uffizi seen from across the river (that's the short base of the U -
the museum extends two long "arms" away from the river)

crossing the Ponte Vecchio

a bust of Benvenuto Cellini, a master goldsmith and sculptor

looking out from the arches

sweaty selfie on the Ponte Vecchio!

when i got back to the apartment, the girls were happily ensconced on the couch watching Italian cartoons. after a proper breakfast and coffee in the Moka pot (which was more irritating than predicted since we both wanted full mugs of regular coffee and this mini pot produced less than one espresso shot per round!), we were ready for our first official sightseeing of the day!

Michelangelo's David used to stand outside the Palazzo Vecchio, but in the nineteenth century it was moved to the Accademia Museum where it is safe from the elements and any potential vandals. we had timed entry tickets to the Accademia this morning, but after the relaxed atmosphere at the Uffizi the day before, i wasn't quite as concerned when we were running a few minutes late. our fifteen-minute walk through the heart of the city took us right past the back of the Duomo, and of course we had to stop for a little while and marvel at the incredible architecture.

we had to pull ourselves away and keep trekking, though. when we arrived the Accademia, there was already a queue of people standing outside waiting to buy tickets -- i was quite pleased to show the guard the tickets on my phone and waltz through the museum doors! we had to laugh as the very same guard manning the security checkpoint at the Uffizi museum yesterday was here at the Accademia today. and we also saw a family that had been sitting just across from us on the train up to Florence the day before, going through the security checkpoint right behind us. with a lot of smiling and waving and gestures to the effect of "what a small world!", we proceeded into the museum.

normally, i would plan to save David for last, the cherry on the sundae of the museum-going experience. but i also wanted to beat the mob starting to gather outside. so we headed to the left and there, at the end of the hall, stood David. he dominates the hall, of course, standing 17 feet tall, chiseled from a piece of marble that had been rejected by other sculptors for its massive height and narrow width. Michelangelo sculpted him when he was just 26 years old. (what quarter-life crisis?!)

from this angle, David looks a little less self-assured

when Greta saw these art students sitting on the bench behind David, she immediately
asked for her own sketchbook and colored pencils -- melt my heart!

i guess i would rather her stare at his back than his front at this stage in her
artistic ventures ;)

Cecilia wanted to color too -- for a while, anyway

Greta didn't want to budge from her sketching spot, so Nick and i took turns exploring the rest of the museum on our own while the other one watched the girls. there are a few other interesting sculptures, but my favourite part was the wing devoted to early music.

one of the unfinished sculptures in Michelangelo's Prisoners series

Pieta, by Michelangelo

plaster cast of the Rape of the Sabine Women, by Giambologna (the original stands in the Piazza Signoria)

Grand Prince Ferdinando de' Medici with his Musicians, painter unknown (c. 1685).
G.F. Handel is in the background on the right -- he and Ferdinando kept up a correspondence throughout their lives.

cellos from 1696

tenor viola from the Medici Quintet, 1690 (made by Antonio Stradivari).

harpsichords from the 1700s

pair of Parisian hurdy-gurdies, 1775

our next stop after the Accademia was the Museum of San Marco, a monastery dating from the fifteenth century that has been turned into a museum because the painter (and monk) Fra Angelico decorated so many of its walls with original frescoes. we were pushing our luck a bit here as the girls were starting to get hungry for lunch. as we soaked up the stillness and quiet of the cloister, i would suddenly be brought back to reality by Cecilia yanking my hair as she rode on my back in the Ergo, or Greta dramatically sighing "i'm huuuuuuunnnnngry". but we powered through, shamelessly bribing them with the promise that they could ride the merry-go-round later that day if they were good. thank God for that merry-go-round: it worked!

one of Fra Angelico's frescoes

those small windows on the upper level belong to the monks' cells

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Greta wanted us to leave her in the stroller sitting in front of this triptych
because she said she wasn't finished looking at it yet. (i will go to my grave proclaiming that little kids
absolutely understand and respond to beauty!)

then again, this one was over it. as fast as i could put my hair up in a bun, she'd pull it back out again.
somehow, this isn't exactly how i envisioned my personal journey towards holiness.

stunning crucifixion fresco in the main chapel on the ground level

she was singing "Baa Baa Black Sheep", thankfully sotto voce

pressing our luck and reminding the girls for the fiftieth time about the merry-go-round, we took a quick look around upstairs at the cells where the monks used to sleep. many of them were decorated with small frescoes. imagine having some of this artwork looking down at you while you slept!

the monks' cells were in these small rooms off the main hallway

this cell belonged to Cosimo de' Medici

the interior room of Cosimo de' Medici's cell

this old fresco is buried underneath the floor -- they have rigged up a group of mirrors so you can see it

most fascinating, however, was the cell of Girolama Savonarola, a Dominican friar who denounced political and religious corruption, inciting the Florentines in a popular uprising against the ruling Medici class and eventually defying Pope Alexander VI's command to come to Rome. he preached on the importance of stringent moral laws and encouraged the destruction of secular art. he was eventually excommunicated and then seized in this very monastery, imprisoned, and hanged as a heretic in the Piazza Signoria (just outside the Palazzo Vecchio) in 1498. however, the monks of San Marco continued to voice support for his mission after his death, and he has become a symbol of social justice and reform. in fact, a campaign was started for his canonization in the 1990s (more fascinating reading here), and his book The Triumph of the Cross has since been approved as an orthodox, non-heretical work.

Fra Savonarola's rosary

the hanging and subsequent burning of Fra Savonarola (along with two other fellow monks) in the Piazza Signoria

articles of clothing that Savonarola wore

Savonarola's desk

next we visited my favourite room in the whole monastery: the library. it's massive! and they have dozens of preserved books. absolutely incredible.

a psalter with illuminations by Fra Angelico

detail of the Gradual for the Feast of the Virgin Mary, Protectress of Dominicans

the studs were strategically placed to prevent breakdown of the leather book covers

one last glimpse of Fra Angelico's work on our way out (possibly the only
version of the Last Supper i've seen that includes a cat!)

now we were definitely ready for some food. we headed over to the Mercato Centrale, hoping to find some local meat and cheese and enjoy some DIY charcuterie. the downstairs is a full-on market with all kinds of delicacies on display!

lampredotto (the fourth stomach of a cow) + tripe (the first or second stomach of a cow). i'd totally
try it at a restaurant where it's cooked by someone who knows what they're doing, but ... i'm not gonna order it out of a display case.

upstairs features a full food court with all kinds of delicacies. it would have been wonderful except for the fact that it was packed. we hadn't realized that we were essentially doing the Florentine version of going to Costco on a Saturday. after a frustrating twenty minute slog through crowds around the perimeter to try to find something that looked good and also find a table where we could sit down, we finally opted for a mediocre meal of overpriced pizza taglia since there wasn't much of a line at that counter. Cecilia was quite excited at the prospect of pizza with hot dogs on it, so at least it was a win in her book.

i forgot to mention that it was still cold, because the upper level is open to the air. so... not the unique
and relaxing lunch we had imagined. oh well!

feeling slightly claustrophobic, we extricated ourselves from the melee and walked out through the stalls of the surrounding open-air market. thankfully we were able to get Greta to look in the other direction when we passed the minions leather wallets.

the papal crest of the House of Medici

and finally, we saw the Duomo from the front! this incredible cathedral was begun in 1296 and was not completed until 1870. Brunelleschi, of course, was the mastermind behind the cathedral's famous dome, completed in 1436 (and i still have to read the book Brunelleschi's Dome, recommended by many people). it's actually two domes: the external dome is essentially a shell, supported by an inner dome. at the time, it was the largest dome built since the Pantheon's dome (and when Michelangelo designed the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, he allegedly said that he would make the St. Peter's dome "bigger, but not more beautiful" than Brunelleschi's).

the Duomo is dedicated to the Virgin Mary: her state is above the center door

the Baptistery in front of the Duomo is the oldest surviving building in Florence, built in the eleventh century

when you didn't realize your phone was on selfie mode ...

a better view of the facade

the bronze doors of the Baptistery are copies; we saw the stunning originals the next day in the Duomo Museum

the Campanile (bell tower) stands 270 feet tall and was built in the 1300s by Giotto. if we were here without kids, we would
definitely climb it to see the view of the city (and a close-up view of the dome). that wasn't in the cards for this visit, though!

just breathtaking.

our next stop was going to be the merry-go-round! at long last! we meandered down the Via de' Calzaiuoli (literally the Street of the Stocking-makers), which is one of the oldest original streets in Florence. now it's prime shopping territory, and lots of people were out and about. there was quite a crowd gathered around some street musicians and the atmosphere felt quite festive.

after a few minutes, we arrived at the Piazza della Repubblica, the home of an original Roman column that marked the intersection of two main roads. this area was later transformed into a Jewish ghetto, and then in the late nineteenth century, it metamorphosed again into this open square. but the girls didn't care about any of that. they only had eyes for the carousel, and they had certainly earned it!

Piazza della Repubblica

i felt a little nervous about Cecilia riding unaccompanied (no such thing as a safety belt here, no sir!) but she sat perfectly still the whole time, holding on to the pole with one hand and the leather reins in the other!

the carousel ride was satisfyingly long. of course, they wanted to ride again as soon as they got off, but we wanted to keep the carousel as a trump card so we told them they'd be able to ride again later if they kept behaving. seriously, i need to invest in a carousel to put in our yard.

so we continued along our exploration of the city, stopping in at the Orsanmichele Church. the interior was quite odd -- there was an extravagant tabernacle on the far right with some pews, but the remainder of the church was fairly empty. Greta lit a candle and said a prayer with Daddy. then we walked around the outside of the church for a bit. the church building used to be a grain warehouse, with a loggia beneath. in the 1400s, the arches of the loggia were filled in and the external niches feature statues of saints, each commissioned by one of Florence's twenty-one guilds.

St. Mark, carved by Donatello (1411-1413)

this baby Jesus looks particularly affable

we walked back across the Piazza Signoria (where Savonarola had been executed) and explored the statues in the Loggia dei Lanzi. this loggia used to function as the podium for civic debates, but then the Medici family transformed it into a public sculpture gallery featuring statues brought from Rome.

the original Rape of the Sabine Women stands on the right

"roar!!"

Perseus, by Benvenuto Cellini (1545-1553) -- shown holding Medusa's head

we ducked inside the Palazzo Vecchio to admire its courtyard. we knew the girls weren't up for a full tour of the inside by this point (although if we come back, i want to book one of their children's tours that culminate with an opportunity to dress up in royal robes and pretend that they're part of the ruling class!). even this glimpse was stunning. the palace was considered the "town hall" of the Medici and then Cosimo I turned it into his own personal palace in 1540.

entering the Palazzo Vecchio under the watchful gaze of two lions

can i just live in this courtyard?

fanciful frescoes

the ceiling

the door of the Palazzo Vecchio, with the copy of David standing outside

by this point, Greta was complaining about being cold, and we figured we could all use a bit of warming up. so we had a late afternoon snack of hot chocolate and cheesecake at a little cafeteria on the square. delicious!

then it was a race against the winter sunset to make it up the hill across the river to the Piazzale Michelangelo for the promised unparalleled view of the city before dark. we hurried past the statues in the Uffizi courtyard, crossed the closest bridge, and followed the signs down twisting cobbled roads until we came to the gate in the ancient wall of the city. then it really got fun. Nick pushed Greta in the stroller up this insane hill while i plodded along with a sleeping Cecilia on my back, all the time thinking, "this better be worth it!"

"oh, the sunset is going to be so beautiful! OH NO we better get moving!"

woof.

i was feeling the burn right here (also, the need for some chapstick!)

but. let me tell you, dear reader, it. was. worth it.

we caught it at exactly the right time. we weren't the only ones to have this idea, however: the wall of the piazzale was mobbed by lots of selfie-takers and some professional photographers with tripods, all driven to capture this panorama of a city built by some of the world's most creative, talented minds.

after about ten minutes, we walked up a bit farther to the San Miniato Church, named after St. Minias. legend has it that St. Minias was beheaded on the banks of the Arno River in the year 250 AD. well, that part was probably true, but the next part is where the tale grows fanciful: undeterred, the saint reportedly picked up his severed head and carried it all the way up the hill, where he finally died. (which put our walk into perspective, since we'd done it with our heads intact.) the church was built in the eleventh century, with the facade completed in the twelfth century.

we weren't quite sure what to make of this contemporary art installation

it was a few minutes before their evening vespers service, and i caught just a bit of the monks' chanting. since they were on the other side of a closed door, you can just barely hear it (turn the volume all the way up!).

we headed back down the hill, marveling at the lights of Ponte Vecchio reflected in the Arno as we crossed back over to the north side of the river. dinner tonight was at the cozy and reasonably priced Trattoria Anita, just around the corner from our apartment. Nick ordered a Florentine steak, which absolutely lived up to the hype. the girls devoured spaghetti al ragu, while Nick and i shared a plate of pasta alla Norcia (with cheese and sausage) and i ordered oxtail ragu, if memory serves me correctly.