A day as a turist

So today was the second day in the great city of Florence, as we say here: " La Culla del Rinascimento". Todays program was Museo dell'accademia to see the David, Museo di San Marco to see the Annunciation by Beato Angelico, Opificio delle Pietre dure (probably most people have not heard about it) and then Le Cappelle Medicee. Unfortunatelly in most of the museums it is impossible to take pictures so I guess you need to come to Florence and see.

This is the Church of San Marco with the monastery next to it. The famous fresco there is the annunciatio by Beato Angelico, super cool. Also we saw all the other frescos that he did and we also saw the living quarters of the dominican monks. Super cool stuff.
This is one of the oldest trees in all Florence it is approximately 500 hundred yers old. It is the the middle of one of the coisters.

Supposedly this in one of the olderst pharmacy in the world.

San Marco Coister

This is a small chapple I have never heard about. It is called la cappella degli scalzi, the chapple of the schoeless. Funny name. Anyway there are some frescos from Andrea del Sarto that are pretty interesting, and it is free!! You know how I love free stuff!

This is the street where the Accademia is situated, so if you are thinking to see the David either be patience or spend 3 bucks to reserve. I guess in either cases you need to be patience since there are a lot of people with a reservation. Both ways it is worth it. I learned that the David is the biggest marble statue carved out of one big block. It is really impressive. Also there are other statues there that probably are less known but relly cool as well.

After the Accademia and the monastery we went to the Museum of the hard stones or Museo delle Pietre dure. It is not super well known but it is the house of the most renoun restauration school in the whole world. They are so good that if it is not an important art piece they don't even bother to look at it. Anyway in their museum they have some amazing stuff. Check it out at the link below, too bad I was not able to take pictures.

http://www.opificio.arti.beniculturali.it/eng/index.htm

After the museum we went to eat at the super cool place, very florentine. We got some amazing food for a bit more then 6 bucks. I got focaccia bread with prosciutto crudo. Ahh!! I haven't gotten something like that in ages. I thought I was going to cry ( I mean men tiers, but still)

After lunch we went to Santissima Annunciata where they have an hospital for the abandon kids. The hospital, as most things in Florence is 500 years old. I learned that at that time people could leave the unwanted kids on the steps of the hospital and leave the them a something to recongnize them. For example the parents woul leave half of a coin. The hospital would collect all these things found with the baby and archive them with the baby information. In that way if the partents would decide to come forward and claim the baby they would have to bring their half of the thing left with the baby and the family would be reuinited. Isn't it cool? Today the hospital doesn't work anymore, not it house one of the UNICEF branches and it is considered the oldest UNICEF builing in the whole world. Inside the old hospital there is a pice of art fron Della Robbia. This is the annunciation, is really famous because these Della Robbia guys were able to invent this really cool way to glaze pottery to obtain the some kind of effect that others at that time were not able to obtain. Ask your Art Major friend I am sure they know more about it.

Coister of the old hospital

View of the Duomo from one of the streets

Walking toward the Duomo. That's one of my favorite place it is super amazing I get a smile everytime that I get there, and believe me I have been there a lot!

I also got Gelato I'll post the picture another time. I am keeping up with my goal don't worry. I just need to start running off all that Gelato. I is soo good it makes me cray ( of course men tiers)