Day 62: Lizards and Dead People

My main goal for my last day in Florence was the Uffizi Gallery, and I planned to just make up the rest as I went. On my way to the gallery I stumbled onto the big Florence street market. Unlike most street markets I've seen in Europe, the Florence one isn't about food, but about leather. Italian leather is obviously pretty famous, and the street market sells things cheaper than the big designer stores, so it's popular with anybody into leather goods. There are some other stalls mixed in, but the smell makes it clear what this market is about.

The Uffizi is the most famous gallery in Europe, and probably in the top 4 or 5 in Europe. It is focused on Italian painters, and the collection has works by Titian, Botticelli and 3 of the ninja turtles (Donatello only did sculpture I think). I spent maybe 3 and a half hours there, and while it wasn't nearly as impressive as the Louvre it was good value for the price, and I added a few more names to my list of artists to investigate further.

While I was in the area I also visited the Santa Croce Basilica. It has a few small museums in it, but the highlight of it is that it contains the tombs of some of Italy's greatest minds. The big 3 for me were the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli.

The last big stop for the day was to visit the Giardino di Boboli, which is a big garden / park in the south part of the city. I just wanted a bit of nature to end things after all the galleries and churches. It had some really nice sculptures, and another great view of the city. I also was on the lookout for some animals, since I didn't have any animal pictures from Italy yet. I tend to be pretty observant when I'm walking in nature, and I noticed a little lizard peek out from behing some vines on a wall. I sat down nearby and waited to get a better picture of it, and then a bunch of French people came to take pictures of the view and try to figure out why I was looking at the wall (they didn't) and I was afraid it would run off. After they left and a bit more patience it finally crept back out and I managed to get in close without disturbing it.

This relatively short post took me a long time to write because all the new guest house visitors have been coming and going and I've been doing a lot of talking. Everybody else seems to have headed off to bed or headed out and there are still two half full jugs of wine I feel I shouldn't let go to waste. Hopefully a few more people come back in. My train to Rome isn't until 11:00am tomorrow so that will allow me a much more relaxed morning than most of my travel days. Most of the other people here seem to be coming from Rome, so I have loads of tips and advice ready now. It should be a good time.