May 27, 2010 Florence, Italy Pt 2

So since I didn't have time yesterday this entry is going to be a combination of yesterday and today's adventures. So yesterday was classes and then Sarah and I went to Uffizi and spent a good 2 or so hours there to see it all. I love Uffizi but they won't let you take pictures so sadly I have nothing really to show for going. After Uffizi we went to get dinner, we just grabbed some pizza quickly and then sat on the steps of Duomo for a while. After a few minutes these slightly creepy/nice italian guys came up and tried to talk to Sarah in Italian since she speaks a little italian and he spoke a little english. When the conversation got a little awkward we left and said we were headed back to the hotel when in fact we wandered around for a while. The sun was starting to set so we headed to Ponte Vecchio to watch the sunset but didn't get the pictures we wanted because those guys were there and we didn't want them to see us. But I got a few good pictures as we walked to the next bridge down. Those are the pictures below.




So after the sun set we got some gelato and headed back to Ponte Vecchio because we figures the guys had left, and got a few pictures of the night scene on the river. Then we went to the piazza Signoria since there was supposed to be a concert starting at 9:30pm, we heard about it from my history professor Dr. Carter. So we headed over with our gelato and found some sort of seats on the side of the concert area. While we were waiting for the concert to start Dr. Carter and Dr. Bilo found us and joined us in waiting for the concert. After an hour of listening to angry Italians shouting about possibly the mafia the concert actually started. The concert itself was awesome, there was like probably about 100 or so singers to accompany the small orchestra that played classical music. I wish they had actually started on time so I could have heard a bit more of the concert!

So then today I took a short trip to the Bargello museum and saw many works that I recognized but once again I could not take pictures so I have nothing to show for the trip. Then after lunch Sarah and I went to the Duomo museum that has the original panels Ghilberti did for the Gates of Paradise, and Donatello's Mary Magdalene. Sadly they only had one of the panels from the Gates of Paradise at the moment but that and the Mary Magdalene is shown below.