The Purple Penguin

To see the art of course. And to see art concentrated go to the Uffizi which is what we did today.

Up early(ish) after a good night’s sleep and had breakfast then off to the museum. I bought the tickets on the web so had a voucher. Top tip: you need to take the voucher to door three to get your tickets before going to door one to enter the museum. If you go straight to door one you will be sent away to door three. And door two is the entrance for people who have to buy a ticket and that queue is very very long indeed. Also, if you have a bag you will have to leave it at the cloakroom. Which means if you have a ridiculous amount of camera equipment (as Joe does) you will be left juggling it while the very nice guard laughs and gets you a clear plastic bag. Because you are leaving the bag in the cloakroom. Which is free.

We ended up not taking all day as the museum is slightly smaller than I expected and bits are closed off due to renovations. But the art is wonderful. Unfortunately Titian’s Venus of Urbino is in Tokoyo so I didn’t get to see it, but that was the only main piece that I wanted to see that I didn’t get to see. The rest was there and wonderful. The roof top terrace for coffee/hot chocolate is wonderful and Joe enjoyed taking photos from there.

Which reminds me – if you aren’t seeing the photos it’s because he’s had trouble loading them on the site. They will eventually be up there!

We spent the later part of the afternoon walking to the train station (the long way round) stopping in San Lorenzo to see the tombs of the Medici (but didn’t really get to see the major works because parts were closed off which was disappointing). But saw Lippi’s Annunciation which was nice. We were headed to the train station to work out when we have to leave tomorrow to catch the train to Paris. So only one more day to wander around Florence. If the weather is nice we’ll go over the rive and walk up to San Miniato al Monte and Piazzale Michelangelo.

I think we have one of the best rooms in the hotel and also have access to the roof top terrace with views of the Palazzo and Duomo which is lovely at night all lit up!