With Mel feeling much better we hitched a lift to the Certaldo station with Dad. Within an hour we were in Florence and in search of the red double-decker tour bus we had heard about. Before long we were on the bus and equipped with little red headphones. We plugged in and brushed up on our history.

Our first stop was The Duomo Group, consisting of Brunelleshi’s noble dome, Giotto’s slender belltower, Ghiberti’s robust gates and Michelangelo’s tortured Pieta and two panoramic terraces, all wrapped in red, white and green marble and surrounded by beggars and hawkers.

The next stop was San Marco and the Accademia where Michelangelo’s David lives. Funny thing is that there was no clear indication where the Accademia was. None whatsoever. We soon bumped into some more people looking for it and formed a small search party. Finally we all ended up down a small side street with what looked like a queue for a nightclub in a wherehouse. We joined the queue and our new found search party friends realised we were in the queue for tour groups. So we left the queue and walked to the queue on the opposite side of the entrance. And we kept walking. Finally we went around the corner and joined the end of the queue. Word made it to the end of the queue that the people at the front had been waiting the better part of an hour.

While in line we found out from our new friends how not to see Italy. They had arrived in Rome the day before, with a sick baby, without any idea of Rome traffic, without any accommodation and only a day to see everything! Then this morning they came to Florence and this afternoon they are off to Venice. It wasn’t a total surprise when they gave up and left the queue. But we persisted and in an hour we were inside. We wandered through several rooms filled with nondescript 15 century paintings. Finally we entered a corridor where at the other end stood David.

I must admit, it was an impressive sight. Bathed in sunlight and surrounded by people silently staring upwards. Someone else must have found this to be a curious sight too, as the walls of the corridor were covered with panoramic photographs of previous visitors all standing and admiring Michelangelo’s work. These obviously weren’t the only photographs that were taken as many people secretly (and not-so-secretly) took photographs. Risking having our cameras “bagged” Mel and I snuck a couple of photos.

Next we were off to the Uffizi, a large “U” shaped building adjacent to a large square bordered by statues. One of the statues was a replica of David which stands where the original once stood facing Rome. Beyond the statue stands the queue for the Uffizi. We joined the end of the massive queue with a couple of Americans. Straight away we were approached by a tour guide we had seen a couple of times earlier in the day. She claimed she had booked 4 tickets to the Uffizi that were no longer needed. We had been approached plenty of times over the last couple of weeks so I was a little skeptical. Once she reminded us of the hour and half queue ahead of us we all jumped at the opportunity. So we jumped out of the line and over to the reservations window. The four of us claimed we were the “Jacobs”, presented the reservation code we were given and walked straight in past the queue. “Thank you Mr and Mrs Jacobs” said one of the Americans. Here, here. We’d just saved an hour and a half!

Originally the uffizi (“offices”) of the ruling Medici family, the building is now home to some 1,700 works by Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Giotto, Caravaggio, Titian, etc, etc. The building also has some awesome views of the River Arno and the famous Ponte Vecchio (“The Golden Bridge”).

By the time we were back on the bus it was late in the day and we still had one more destination on our checklist, the Pitti Palace. Mel and I agreed that although it was indeed a pitty we weren’t going to get there, we had seen a lot and it was time we got a train back to Certaldo.

We finally got back to the Villa for our final meal with the family. We enjoyed an Aussie bbq Italian style (or is it an Italian bbq Aussie style?). Tomorrow my parents are off to Venice and we are off to Rome.