Hotel Tina (we stayed here the first two nights before heading over to the Locanda Starlight Hostel– highly recommend both!)with the beautiful Boboli Gardens done, we scheduled ourselves an appointment to see the two signature attractions in the city: the Galleria dell’Accademia with Michelangelo’s David and the Galleria degli Uffizi stocked with the most recognizable Botticelli masterpieces in the world. I can definitely wait in lines when the need arises, but the three of us agreed that it was worth the four extra Euros to schedule appointments (we paid €10.50 instead of the standard €6.50 and had the hotel call the day before with our desired times!) and walk by all of the suckers spending several hours sweltering in the heat of the day –we chose to Thanks to the recommendation of the proprietress of the Hotel Tina (we stayed here the first two nights before heading over to the Locanda Starlight Hostel– highly recommend both!)with the beautiful Boboli Gardens done, we scheduled ourselves an appointment to see the two signature attractions in the city: the Galleria dell’Accademia with Michelangelo’s David and the Galleria degli Uffizi stocked with the most recognizable Botticelli masterpieces in the world. I can definitely wait in lines when the need arises, but the three of us agreed that it was worth the four extra Euros to schedule appointments (we paid €10.50 instead of the standard €6.50 and had the hotel call the day before with our desired times!) and walk by all of the suckers spending several hours sweltering in the heat of the day –we chose to expend that energy standing in front of the artistic masterpieces of the Italian renaissance.

We started out at the Accademia, and I have to say, the David is everything that you have heard and more. It was, flat out, amazing. I’m not an art-history major, I don’t know the intricacies of that period in renaissance art, but I do know that this statue is just spectacularly beautiful in person. The Academia houses a small collection of paintings that are, quite frankly, not that interesting. We glanced at these before heading directly to the hall with the David statue.

The long hall has spotlighting amongst and black floors that work in perfect contrast to the pristine white sculptures prominently displayed in the corridor leading up to the David – in fact, the building was actually built specifically to house the David. As soon as we walked into the hall we could see the David proudly standing in a huge spotlight at the end…but we tore our eyes away from him and paced ourselves down the hall.

The sculptures leading up to the David really set the tone for the masterpiece – on display are nearly a dozen half-finished sculptures done by Michelangelo during that time period. The unfinished figures are literally emerging from the stone and it is wild to see these beautifully detailed faces emerging from a mere block of stone; it’s like the figures are trapped inside and Michelangelo was freeing them…but he died before he ever finished the pieces on display so these figures are forever stuck with just a fleeting glimpse of an expression on their faces and the faintest outline of their delicate hands emerging from the stone.

The real masterpiece though is undeniably David. The 17 foot tall statue created from 1501-1504 is carved out of single piece of marble and is considered to be one of the single most examples of beauty of the male form. Umm…I agree. A mini-history lesson, this  sculpture of David is markedly different than all the others before it because Michelangelo shows David before he slew Goliath, as he contemplates what he has to do. There is just no possible way that I could begin to describe the sculpture and do it justice – it’s just perfect. Jenn believes that it’s the fact that the David looks supple that makes it so magnificent. He’s carved out of marble yet looks as though he would be soft and supple to the touch – his veins pop out of the marble and his well-proportioned muscles actually ripple and look squeezable.

We spent well over an hour gazing at the statue and walking full circle laps around the base to admire him from every angle…we even eaves-dropped in on a couple of tour-guides to learn a couple of tid-bits of knowledge (the guide noted that David is actually 100 percent perfectly proportioned although it appears otherwise…it’s the angle from which we see him that creates the optical illusion…Michelangelo intended him to sit much higher off of the ground!). The picture by the way was snuck in by Jenn – it’s definitely not allowed.

After leaving the David we hit up a small Mexican restaurant for lunch (needed a break from all of the carbs honestly!) and then began a long hunt for one of the oldest gelato shops in the city. Jenn’s book recommended a Vivoli as having some of the best ice-cream in the city with a recipe that dates back nearly a century. We are inclined to agree that although this shop was hard to find, it was well worth the effort. The lampone was the hit of the trip and had “little frozen puffs of happiness” according to Jenn and the pistacchio was creamy, delicately light, and amazingly delicious!

That gelato fortified us for the several hours through the Uffizi –with our appointments we were able to walk right in the door. Again, just unbelievable how spectacular these masterpieces are; we saw a lot of Botticelli – most notably “Birth of Venus” and Primavera” among other really lovely ones that are definitely under-appreciated with the “Birth of Venus” in the same room! Once done with the paintings we wandered through the statues looking for the ones with the most interesting pose –not a particularly high-brow game but proved entertaining nonetheless and merely a different way to appreciate the art :-)

We couldn’t take pictures in either of the two Galleries, so these pictures of the statues are pictures of the replicas that stand in piazza outside of the Uffizi. The “Rape of the Sabine” was particularly moving as the woman in the statue is being kidnapped. A copy of David is out here as well -beautiful but not quite the same as the gleaming marble origional. The center of the piazza is focused on a huge dominating Poseidon fountain and there are a dozen or so additional key pieces that are replicas of those actually displayed in one of the two Galleries.