Today we spent a full day in Florence. We took a taxi to the center of the city where we met up with our private tour guide from Get Your Guide. We visited the Uffizi museum. I was unable to visit it on either my last two times to Italy. Her name was Kiarra, and she was very knowledgeable, an art history, major, and patient with our needs. It was very nice not to be in a large group. I don’t know that we would’ve been able to keep up with them either. It was opportunity to get one on one attention and ask more questions.

We were in the museum about three hours, and feel like we saw what we wanted to see. But there is lots more things we could’ve seen. Here are a few of the famous paintings we saw:

After Kiarra left, mom and I stayed for another hour, seeing additional pieces such as the Caravaggio’s work. We were getting thirsty so we went to the cafeteria. We had a great view of the Papazzo de Vecchio.

After leaving the Uffizi, we walked around the Piazza della Signoria. We saw Neptune and David by Michaelangelo, Palazzo Vecchio, and other statues, Loggia dei Lanzi and the Rape of Sabine.

Next we went to grab lunch. Our guide recommended a Florence sandwich called schiacciate. We found the location she recommended, waited in a little line which wasn’t too bad. We each ordered a schiacciate, which is probably not necessary because each of us were only able to eat half of it because they were really big. Mom had roast beef and red cabbage, not some thing I would have suspected that would go nicely together, but she enjoyed it, I had Tuscan salami with fennel and cream cheese. The bread is thinner than focaccia, but there’s little salt on it but it’s not toasted like a Panini.

Our last stop was the Santa Maria de Fiore, the famous Duomo in Florence. There was supposed to be a handicapped entrance but we could not find it. We went to talk with one of the attendants, knowing that the line was really long and we didn’t see the end. We weren’t sure if we could handle another long line. She asked if we only wanted to see the cathedral and we said yes, so she let us in. There were no handrails, so she helped Mom walk up the stairs. When we got inside, we were very disappointed. The outside is beautiful the inside somewhat boring. Very glad we didn’t wait in the long line. I didn’t even take many pictures of the inside, but here are a few of both the outside in the inside below.

Next, we headed home to chill, pack up again because we leave tomorrow for Siena, and hopefully go to the supermarket to pick up a few things for our trip.