Saturday, July 26, 2008

Under the Florence Sun

This post is a probably a bit late but I've been in Florence since Wednesday afternoon. Florence is actually a beautiful city if you can look beyond the crowd of tourists. For the past 2 days, I've walked around the city and have visited 2 of the most popular and crowded museums in Florence, the Accademia (which houses the statue of David by Michelangelo) and the Uffizi (which has the 2 famous painting by Botticelli).

Looking into the eyes of David inside the Accademia does not even compare to the replica in the Palazzo Vecchio. Though the statue was originally made to admired in an exterior setting (like the replica made standing outside the city hall), in the Accademia, you're looking at the statue through the eyes of Michelangelo. Or maybe it was just the lighting or the interior setting that makes David unresistable to the eyes of the public
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The Uffizi has a really good collection of arts but of course everyone visits it for Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus' and the 'Primavera'. Both are equally beautiful paintings but I wish they didn't have the glass panel covering the paintings. Its was too difficult and distracting to really admire and study the painting as it was intended.

Florence is a small city. The scale of the city actually reminds me of Boston as it is very walkable and most major sights are within a 15 minutes walk. Coming from Rome to Florence, I think of Rome as New York City and Florence as Boston.

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