You can see pictures from this day here.
We got ourselves out of bed and headed out early to get a good shot at seeing the statue of David. It was one of the things I wanted to see in Florence, and my guidebook said that the museum wasn’t far from where our hotel was. We checked out of our hotel but left our bags there, and then walked to the museum.
We got there early enough – there were only five or six other people waiting for it to open. It opened up at 8:15, and we went in, paid for our ticket and then left for the exhibit area. This museum also had a little gift shop in the lobby, and I thought it was strange that they didn’t have postcards and T-shirts and everything else with the famous image of David on it. Maybe they weren’t into capitalizing on art like that.
We looked through the museum – it was quite a good one. The artwork was not only sculptures, but artifacts from history – king’s scepters made of ivory, ancient Roman mirrors and cosmetics kits – they had a little bit of everything.
Upstairs, among sculptures of the Virgin Mary by Michelangelo I finally found David. It was a bronze sculpture about 1 meter tall. I had found Donatello’s David – but not the David I was looking for. Kuniko and I had a long laugh about that, and left the museum soon after to try to find the one I had been thinking about.
The museum that housed the marble David wasn’t too far away, and we got there and got in a long line of people waiting to get in. While we were in line a guy behind us started to speak with a family in front of us in Spanish – maybe he overheard them speaking Spanish and so he calmly moved in front of us and started taking animatedly with the family members. It became apparent that he was planning on staying in front of us, and Kuniko restrained me from saying something rude to him.
Karma worked out well, though. The family that he was talking to soon figured out that the guy really liked to talk, and as he became more animated and agitated there was nowhere for them to run. I decided that I didn’t mind him being in front of us at all – and it made the wait that much more interesting to watch them squirm.
Finally we got into the museum, and it was quite beautiful. The David was the one I (and all the other tourists) wanted to see. We spent a fair amount of time there, and tried to take in as much as we could. The captions of the art pieces were in both Italian and English, so we got a bit more out of this museum than the others.
Next stop was the Duomo – but it was closed for cleaning and refurbishment, so we were left with just the exterior to remember it by. For our last meal in Florence, we went to a Middle Eastern kebab restaurant. We saw them a lot in Italy, and every time we walked by a restaurant it smelled great and looked delicious, but we always skipped them because they weren’t “authentic Italian”. We had a free lunch spot, so we went there and it was just as good as it smelled. So good, in fact, it rivaled some of the best Italian food that we had while we were there.
We had an early afternoon train trip to Rome, so we headed to the station a little early and caught the train southwest to Rome. Instead of the friendly couple we sat next to on the way to Florence we had a quiet, unfriendly couple that grudgingly got up to allow us to sit down. They spoke only a few words to each other during the three hour trip, so while Kuniko slept I concentrated on enjoying the scenery.
The countryside of Italy was beautiful. It reminded me a lot of Sonoma, but it wasn’t just grapes. There were fields of vegetables, sunflowers, and farm animals. There was a castle or a church spread around here and there, and it seemed like a really quiet pace out there on the farms. I think next time we visit Europe we’ll have to arrange to spend some time out in the countryside. This trip was just the highlights, but that means lots of tourists, and they can make your vacation a little less like a vacation and a little more like work.
We arrived in Roma Termini station – the station that the guidebooks warn you about for pickpockets and nefarious behavior. There was a weird vibe when we arrived, and lots of people tried to get us to use their taxi or join their free tour or arrange a hotel for us. We avoided all that and found a taxi line outside. The people in front of us were being badgered by some young guy trying to get something out of them, and another couple in front of us negotiated a fare of 20 euros with a taxi driver that had no taxi sign on his car.
We waited around for a legitimate looking taxi to arrive, and then got to our hotel in about 15 minutes. It was only about 10 euros, so not so bad, and no stress.
Our hotel was near the Vatican in a quiet upscale neighborhood. We went up to the hotel via one of those old fashioned open-air elevators, and checked into a nice, simple, no-frills room. The windows opened to a nice view of the street, and we unpacked and settled in. The clerk told us that it was a public holiday in Italy today, which I didn’t know about. It didn’t seem to affect us much. Everything was pretty quiet because it was summertime anyway – it didn’t seem any more quiet that day.
It was late in the afternoon, but too early for dinner, so we decided to walk over to the Vatican and check it out. It was about a 10 minute walk, and soon we arrived in a huge square in front of the Vatican cathedral. This was where the Pope holds audiences, and the sheer size of the square was impressive. We joined a short line to get into the cathedral. Once again they were checking the clothes to make sure no bare shoulders got into the cathedral.
The inside of the cathedral was beyond description. Something that big, something that beautiful – I’m not religious at all, but I was amazed that something like that could be made with human hands. It was nothing short of astonishing – we walked around inside with me trying to snap pictures to capture it all and Kuniko guiding me around to the most interesting-looking sites.
We left Vatican City after that. The Sistine Chapel was closed that day and the next day, so we would have to wait a few days to come back and see it. We walked the long way around to our hotel, and from there had to walk almost all the way back to the Vatican until we found a restaurant that was open. We ordered pizza and salad and pasta and beer. The beer really hit the spot – all the walking was starting to take its toll.
After dinner we walked around until we found a gelato place that was open. Like most places they didn’t have prices posted anywhere that we could see – you could either ask up front, or order and just pay whatever the cashier tells you. We decided to just order, so one person scooped them onto our cone, and then when we took them to the cashier, he charged us nine euros for them. That’s 4.50 euros each! That’s a six dollar ice cream!
We came on back to the hotel to rest up – the next day we planned to see the rest of Rome, so we’d have to be ready to run all over the place.
