A Video from Sienna

This was just too cute not to share!

The Otrarno

Mary Beth and I had decided earlier on in the trip to make a day of it on the "otra-arno" or the other side of the Arno. The original plan was to spend the morning at the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens and then spend the afternoon visiting Fort Belvedere and heading up the endless stairway to San Miniato again.

The Pitti Palace and the Palazzo Pitti were HUGE! The Pitti Palace was the seat of power for the short time when Italy was ruled by a constitutional monarchy of which Firenze was the capital.



We discovered upon arriving that there had been a price hike, and that it was 8 euro to visit some of the palace and galleries and 10 euro to visit the garden and the rest of the palace and galleries. We went the 8 euro way and I resolved to go back to see the Boboli Gardens before I leave Firenze.


I could see them from inside of the Palazzo though!



For lunch we at at Gusta Pizza, and on the walk there we passed by a Medici Palace, made evident visually through the appearance of the family crest of six balls and also the elaborate sgraffito on the exterior walls---where we get our word for graffiti!

There is another one of these palaces near our study center, but the sgraffito is not nearly as well as preserved.

While waiting to meet one of my roommates for lunch I ducked into San Spirito, a small but important church near the riverbank. The interior shots from there were some of the best church photos I have taken!




This church was of particular importance to Michelangelo. During the beginning of the Renaissance it was unlawful to dissect bodies. In exchange for sculpting a wooden crucifix for San Spirito, Michelangelo was given permission to go down into the crypt and perform dissections!



Due to its relationship with Michelangelo the church itself had some copies of some of his most famous works. One not so well known was there as well, the "Risen Christ" that I had seen when I visited Rome!


After lunch we made the hike up a hill to the fort, and passed by Galileo's house! No wonder he was so interested in the effects of gravity! He lived on a crazy hill. If he had been a child and had lost a ball playing out front, he would've had to have gone about a quarter of a mile down a hill to fetch it!



When we finally arrived at the fort... we were dismayed to find it to be closed until later in the evening. After making the climb, we had to follow the city walls back down the hill to get to the base of the hill leading up to S. Miniato. It was a picturesque walk. (Where the numbers are will be updated with pictures when the network at school isn't acting icky!)






The picture above shows S. Miniato on its hill--that's were we were headed!

I didn't take many pictures of the climb back up because I had documented it in my previous post on the monastery. I can say, however, that the walk up was much much MUCH easier this time than it had been the first time around. It was a good feeling--and the view over Florence was still amazing.

We toured the monastery again then enjoyed the view until the store at the top opened, were I bought honey filled candies made by the monks themselves.






After descending S. Miniato we stopped by the Piazzale Michelangelo, touted to have the best view of Florence--personally I liked the view better from S. Miniato, but we could see our house from the Piazzale (we live behind the copper-topped Synagogue).