Il Duomo

So I haven’t written a note in a few days. I feel like I’ve short changed everyone with short notes the last few times. So this is me catching up.

Venice was really nice and calm. There weren’t any crazy people hawking umbrellas and following us down the street trying to get us to buy something. Its a nice, small village off the mainland with the Grand Canal running through most of it.

The people really like to do Carnevale. They dress up to the 9’s and walk around in groups for people to take pictures. They don’t seem to mind the influx of tourists like Rome does. I had a great time in Venice. However, they are also quite insane. The scheme for addresses is, for each of the 6 neighborhoods off the mainland, to have absolute addresses instead of street addresses. So our hotel was at 3257 Castello. So that’s the 3,257th building in Castello. It would be great if the neighborhood was some kind of circle, right? No. It was maze-like, where you thought you had a bead on where you were going, get to 3260 going down, turn the corner, and bam!
3220. Maddening, really.

Florence is also very nice. The people are more friendly than Rome, and there are also no crazy salesman people. Our hotel is near the main train station, so there are some weird looking people around, but based on the way people look at us, maybe *we* are the weird looking ones. The thing I notice about Florence that is different than Rome is it seems like the Florentines not only have great art, but decorate the buildings as well. Its the whole presentation of things that really blows you away.

Now to the facts, and the reason for the e-mail subject. We’ve caught up on some sightseeing yesterday and today. We saw the following:

The Uffizi was my favorite of the bunch, as we were on a quest to see all 4 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in one day. Unfortunately, we only saw works by Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Rafael. No Donatello. :(

It still was a great museum, although they made us walk all the way to the other side to go to the bathroom, so we walked the gallery in reverse, only to be told at the front, that the only exit to the gallery was in the back, by the bathrooms. Bastards. So we walked the museum 3 times in all. I for one, besides having a great time seeing the art (and the museum did not allow cell phones or picture taking, which was enforced and so awesome!), I also had a great time getting in the way of the 100 tours that were going on while we were there. Maybe I’m just an ass, I don’t know.

So the only thing we haven’t seen that’s still on the Florence agenda is the David… hopefully we’ll get to it before we leave.

Anyhow, we’re planning a getaway to Siena tomorrow from Florence, we’ll let you all know how it goes. Thursday we are headed back to Rome, and Saturday we fly back to New York.