The Ufizzi and the Boboli Gardens

Art tradition has it that museums should be closed on Mondays. Apparently this might be a tradition upheld just about everywhere as both the Ufizzi and Boboli Gardens were closed on our first full day in Florence, a Monday. So on Monday just about the only natural thing we saw was this glimpse of a small garden in some building (a hotel maybe) that we happened to peek through, after having approached its locked gate. So our first day's walk was more like a reconnaissance city walk rather than actual sightseeing. The piazza by the Ufizzi has some statues outside (including David, a replica) as well as several restaurants to sit in and watch the crowds walk through the Piazza della Signoria.

So it was back to the Duomo and its piazza. On one of the streets just off the piazza was this restaurant, Giannino in San Lorenzo. It was the first place we ate in and it was quite good. As it would repeat just about every day later in the week, we would enter a place that only had a few people in it, and just after we sat down, a crowd of people would come in slamming the place. Either we attract crowds or something, or we happen to eat early and the locals (and tourists) eat late (not till 8pm or so or later). Giannino had the typical two-course meal choices that seem to be popular here. I had a penne dish followed by stewed beef, the latter similar to Polish zrazy but with a tomato-based sauce. Very good. A half-bottle of vino followed by coffee and dessert rounded out the meal. I remember that choosing this restaurant was made difficult by the number of other alternative: lots of them. Which is quite the conundrum for us folk from the sticks where we only have one good restaurant. Here, it seems there's a really good gourmet place on every street.

Monday night we went to the conference reception where I bumped in to a few of my colleagues. One of them told me that to get in to the Ufizzi we'd have to line up early (8:30am) in order to get in. We did this the next day on Tuesday and spent the morning looking at Renaissance art. I've no pictures as they're not allowed to be taken inside the Ufizzi. In the afternoon we went to the Boboli gardens, where I got a few snaps of the gardens and the views from the top (the gardens are on a hill which we climbed a couple of times). One viewpoint gave us a vista of this small valley with the yellow dwelling situated at left. The house reminded me of Robert Mondavi's wine labels. I guess that shouldn't be surprising as Mondavi is the son of Italian emigrants from the Marche region, just southeast of Tuscany (according to Wikipedia at least). The other side of the hill renders the view of Florence, with the Duomo again being quite prominant. I tried a panoramic shot of the city to stitch later, but being on auto, I got diferent shutter settings so that the software refused to stitch. Here at least is a zoomed in pic of the Duomo from the Boboli gardens.