Stopping by to see Dave

Warning. There are lots of ancient statues, sans clothes, pictured below. If that kind of thing upsets you then this is not the blog post for you. There, you’ve been warned. Proceed at your own risk.

When you take the high speed train back to Rome from Venice you go through Bologna, the Tuscan hills and into Florence. Our initial train ride to Venice gave us about a five minute view of the Florence train station. This time we get off the train and plan on spending a 1/2 day in Florence. This was the most off the cuff part of the entire trip. Since we were not spending the night our game plan was not as laid back as our other stops. Dumping our luggage at the baggage deposit, getting tickets and then grabbing a taxi to the Accademia Galleria. One of the tricks to avoiding the lines is to pay extra for a guided tour. While a huge line to get in winds down the block we walk in following our tour guide. Up to now we have done our sigthseeing on our own. Having an art student as a guide made the tour a lot more interesting. He went into a LOT of detail on how the sculpture creation process works and challenges Leonardo faced.

This room has plaster models that sculptors would use to work out the details before they transferred the result to stone. All of the dots are reference points used in the transfer process.

After listening to all of the background information we finally got to go into the main hall and meet Michelangelo’s David.

One interesting fact. The tree stump behind his left leg is there for stability. Since the statue is solid marble it weighs over 12,000 pounds. Without the tree stump it would surely fall over.

After “hanging out with Dave” we decided to strike out and and see the Duomo. On the way we found a quaint restaurant (with dogs) and decided to have some pasta and local beer. We did a LOT of walking.