Florence - Day 2

 Ignore the formatting. It’s screwed up. Today we had a reservation at the Accademia Galley to start the day. Trev and I have been twice so I wasn’t super excited but something about David really is amazing. We spent about an hour enjoying David and also especially the unfinished Prisoner series of statues that really show some of the process of how it would have been to carve a statue out of marble. It really is incredible impressive!

Unfinished pieces

After that we went to the Leonardo Divinci Interactive museum. I planned this because I thought it would be fun for the kids but honestly I think it was my favourite part of the day!  Wow…DiVincci is as a really incredible human being. 

He is well know for his painting (Mona Lisa) but was also a sculptor, architect engineer and inventor!  At this exhibit they had built the different machines that DiVinci had described and sketched in his notebooks. Many of them they didn’t have the technology to make at the time but they used his ideas for so many inventions later in. He had an amazing understanding of linkages, and motion and invented machines for the army, for farming and just to make life easier. Each exhibit had a photocopied page from his notebooks, a great description of what the machine would do and then a full sized working replica that you could play with!  It was really interetesting and fun!

Anna putting Snapchat filters in the copy of the Mona Lisa

Owen’s favourite, a murdering machine. Horses pull a machine that swings knives to murder anyone it comes near. 

My favourite - an odometer

Trev’s favourite - a tank

Joel and Anna had the same favourite - a water lifting machine (a pump)

Exhibit. See drawing from the notebook to compare

From there we were hungry and decided to head to the Market Centrale for lunch. I hat an experience. Maybe tied for my favourite tofay. It was just a big markwt with vendors selling all of their delicious takeout food. Sandwiches, meats, homemade pastas, homemade pizzas, desserts, sushi, etc. we all good food from different booths and found a table. And then a waitress comes over and takes drink orders. This time we were smart enough to have got the kids Fanta at a grocery store for like 2 euros so Trev and I could have a guilt-free drink! 

Anna got gnocchi with parmasean sauce

Owen got sushi

Joel and Steve and I got porketta sandwiches and arancini balls

Owen and Anna also got mozzarella balls

Arancini outside

Arancini i side

Split some donuts for dessert

The area around there is just a million tourist vendors with the typical junk. Lots of leather bags. Rick Steves said to barter so Anna and I did so!  Haha!  Anna bought a wart hog stuffy (because of the famous wart hit statue we saw yesterday). And I bought 3 necklaces. And Anna bought a pair of earrings. We were successful with our haggling at 2 out of the 3 booths, lowering the prices significantly. 

From there Owen really wanted to buy a plaster bust of Leonardo DiVinci (you never know what the kids will want as a souvenir!). He thinks he looks like Dumbledore. 

Anna buying a wart hog

Owen on a step pretending he’s taller than me!

Then we wandered around Florence doing the Rick Steves audioguide for Renaissance Florence. The kids find the Rick Steves audio guides boring so Trev and listened and they enjoyed just walking and catching Pokémon. 

Pokémon raid

Gelato #3!

From there we went to the Galileo science museum. This was probably the first dud of the trip. They had a lot of interesting science gadgets, many of which were very old, but the descriptions were poor and it really wasn’t that interesting. At this point our feet were killing us! The entertainment of this museum was that they had free folding stools available that you could grab and carry around with you. Trev and Owen grabbed them and for some reason it was just hilarious when they’d just fold out their chair and plop down on the middle of the museum wherever they were. This spectacle was much more interesting than the actual museum!

From there we walked back to our Airbnb where we had left our bags. We had a moment of panic when our Airbnb host was supposed to have activated a digital key for us to get our bags (that’s how we got in on the first day) but must not have. So we couldn’t unlock the door!    Good thing we were about an hour early for our train!  We spent 10 minutes emailing, messaging on the Airbnb app, whatsapping, and texting with no answer. A bit stressful to know our train is in an hour and our bags were locked inside!  But finally I WhatsApp called and she answered and she unlocked the door remotely. 

We waited at the train station for a bit and then we were off to Rome!  With the high speed train, the trip is just 1h 35 minutes!  easy peasy!

Got to the Airbnb, dropped the kids, ran to the grocery store and we were exhausted by the time we got back. But we needed to figure out the washing machine as we have only one day of clean clothes left. I washed and dried 2 loads of laundry and we had a grocery store supper. Trev and I had showers and we are finally crashed into bed. The travel part of travelling is very tiring!  But we are now in Rome for 6 nights so the moving around and packing and unpacking is done now. Next time we pack up we will be headed home!