david, palazzo strozzi, and ciao to firenze

On our second and last full day in Florence, we booked tickets to the Galleria dell'Accademia - best known for Michelangelo's David. We thought it would be less crowded if we went in the morning, so we had tickets for entry at something like 8:45am. We were wrong! It was super full. It kind of wasn't worth it for me? Don't get me wrong - it was really interesting to see the unfinished Michelangelo sculptures at the front of the gallery, and the plaster gallery on the side that showed pieces that were reproduced many times over. But pieces like the David and the Mona Lisa and Starry, Starry Night just aren't worth the crowds for me. Whatever weird combination of fate and history that caused certain works of art to become extremely popular usually don't line up with the works of art I like the best. And even if they did - I still probably wouldn't want to wade through a huge sea of tourists to catch a glimpse. There's so much good art out there - I'd rather find a quiet room where I can experience it in peace!













Anyway - we walked all through the museum and enjoyed the parts I mentioned above. Both the unfinished Michelangelo sculptures and the plaster models were cool because you could see the process in the art, which I really like. The rest of it was a little too "Renaissance Disneyland" (as Matt said), but most of Florence seemed like that to us. On the way out, we took a detour to see a building I really liked when I studied it in art history - l'Ospedale degli Innocenti. It was founded as an orphanage 500 years ago, and we learned that it still exists to help children today! It basically marks the beginning of the Renaissance in Florence, so I thought it would be cool to stop by. When we arrived, we found that there was a ceramics fair setting up in the piazza out front!











There were all kinds of cool ceramic artists from all over Italy. We ended up buying the blue and white teapot on the left and are reminded of the market every time we use it! After we dropped off our teapot, we realized we were super hungry so we went over to a sandwich shop I read a review of on an Italian food blog - I Fratellini.







Mine was amazing - tuna and salsa verde. Matt got butter & anchovies and it was also delicious. Once again - if we'd gone here before our last day, we probably would have gone more than once! Next time, I guess. Since we were right by the Palazzo Vecchio and a bunch of other famous buildings, we took our time wandering around before heading to our next stop, Palazzo Strozzi.







Palazzo Strozzi is an exhibition center/art museum that shows art exhibitions throughout the year but doesn't have a permanent collection up. The exhibition that was up when we were visiting was all about the 15th century in Florentine art and the transition from High Renaissance to Mannerism. We thought it sounded pretty interesting so we headed over. It was probably my favorite museum of the whole trip! The exhibition was really well curated - informative signs that explained details of the transition in the art world and how it related to cultural transitions and political changes. It was super interesting because it was actually very similar to the current cultural and political climate, one of social change and upheaval. Also, even though it was a Saturday afternoon, there was hardly anybody there! Compared to the madhouse at the Accademia that morning, it was a really nice change.





The end of our day was spent having a snack on our balcony, going over to this amazing perfume/soap/wonderful scents shop called Aqua Flor, eating yummy gelato, and going to dinner for the last time in Florence. The weather was as perfect that day as it was every day!

















And that was that for Florence! We did a bunch of unforgettable stuff that I loved - but overall, it's not my (or Matt's) kind of city. Way, way too touristy, at least the parts we went to at the time of year we went. Whereas Rome felt like a normal city that has a lot of tourists (like New York), Florence felt like a city that would be empty if tourists stopped coming. I think if I went again, I'd want to go in February or March, when the tourist numbers are lower and we could experience more of regular Florence. And maybe stay in Oltrarno since it's farther from the main tourist sites. And we'd avoid the David and the Duomo and things would probably be a lot different!

first visit to the whitney

Confession! We'd never been to the Whitney before 2017. Somehow, we'd just never gone in...probably because it's not pay what you wish and packing into museums on free nights has kind of lost its charm. But when we got a membership to it for Christmas from Matt's parents (thank you!!) we finally took the opportunity. Since we visited less than a month before the Biennal, a lot of the museum was closed off in preparation. In a way, that was a good thing though - we couldn't get overwhelmed by floor after floor of amazing artwork. What we did see was great, though, and I'm already looking forward to going back!













This was in the portraits exhibit, and I thought it was particularly relevant to today, even though it was painted in the early 80s. Of course, I didn't write down the artist, but I guess one of the perks of membership is that I can go back and look again!









...I love this photograph! It's perfect.







After our visit, we wandered around the west village before finding our way home (and it was kind of literally finding a way, because the trains were all running on different tracks and not stopping at a bunch of stations...it was a mess!).







When I was taking this photo, a guy walking by stopped for a second and said, "It's a great day for puddle shots!!" and I realized that it was a great day for puddle shots! Which isn't something I'd ever really thought about before.

a trip to the met

The other day, I met Matt for lunch and then went up to the Met to see the Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun exhibit. It had been up for two months and was closing that weekend, so it was time to finally see it! On the way, I walked through Central Park - somehow, I went through an area I'd never been through before, even though I'd passed it by a million times. It's right behind the theater where they have Shakespeare in the Park (this year, we will somehow get tickets!!). It's a Shakespeare Garden, and it was really pretty! I know there are a million little places like this in Central Park that I haven't seen, but it's still fun to discover new places.















It was a drizzly day, but it made the park look even nicer! And the city streets looked good, too - I really like it here when it rains.











I headed straight for the Vigeé Le Brun exhibit - but no photos were allowed inside, so the picture of the entrance will have to do! It was a really nice exhibit, a lot larger than I expected. I studied her work in art history classes in college, but had never seen any of it in person before. She was Marie Antoinette's portrait painter, and was friends with a lot of her royal friends. There was one set of paintings that I really liked - one was a portrait of the queen wearing casual, peasant style clothes, holding a rose. It was right next to another, very similar portrait of the queen wearing very fancy royal clothes, holding the same rose. It turns out that the portrait with the casual clothes was shown in a salon and caused such an outrage because of how casually the queen was portrayed that she had to quickly repaint the portrait with fancy clothes. Seeing them next to each other was really interesting - it was nearly the exact same face and background, just that one was regal and one was bucolic. Anyway, after seeing lots of paintings of wide eyed children and women and fancy dresses and ringlets and powdered wigs, I'd had enough rococo sweetness and walked around the rest of the museum a bit.









Then, it was time to go! Back out into the drizzle (it cleared up). Did you know that the Met recently opened a whole new building? It's called the Met Breuer, and it's in what used to house the Whitney, not too far away. It's more focused on modern art and there's an exhibit up right now called Unfinished that I really want to see! Maybe I'll have to meet up with Matt again for lunch?