Day 3 - Exploring Looking out of the hotel window in the morning it looks like it's going to rain. The temperature has dropped quite a bit, it's now around 70F.
My main goal today is to visit the Uffizi gallery. As with most museums here, tickets for a specific time slot are required. I kind of luck into a 'pro tip' by way of asking about tickets to another museum at its ticket booth. There is no line and that particular museum is closed today. But it turns out I can buy an Uffizi ticket here. It's a 10 minute walk so I buy one for half hour from now. Arriving at the gallery, there are huge lines everywhere. Even if you pre-ordered a ticket online, the line to pick it up is very long (so long that you might miss your entry time if you didn't show up early enough). But I already have mine, so I just walk past all the crowds and right in. I'm a bit early but they don't seem to care here. The gallery itself is awesome and honestly a but overwhelming. It's an overload of art. Photos will help me re-experience and process it all later. So I'll just let them do the talking here:
The gallery is right next to Ponte Vecchio bridge, so there are some good views of it through some of the windows.
After the Uffizi gallery, I decide to climb the tower of Palazzo Vecchio. It's been supposed to rain for some time, but has held off so far. Now it's looking like it's finally about to start. Problem is, they close the tower when it rains (no shelter for staff who keep an eye on tourists on top). It's 1pm and the earliest they have is 1:45. The lady at ticket counter does her best to make sure I understand that they will close the tower if it rains and that there are no refunds. Yes, i'm feeling lucky :) I have 45 minutes and am hungry, so I grab my first 'real' meal of the trip - a nice osso bucco and some chianti at a nearby eatery. Great food, not too pricey (EU38 all said), and I finish with 3 minutes to spare before I climb a lot of stairs.
Some more cool art next to the Palazzo.
There are a lot of stairs to climb but the view is worth it. And the rain does hold off, although it can be seen in the distance in pretty much every direction.
On the way to the hotel from the tower I stop by a wine store to grab a bottle of prosecco, then take a few final snapshots along the way. It finally starts raining for the last 5 minutes of my walk, and looks like it will be raining for the next few days. Likely welcome relief to the locals after the 100F+ heatwave the previous couple weeks, which I thankfully missed literally by hours.
Eventful 3 days. will take a while to process all of it. I get on the plane home at 10 am tomorrow.
|
