Travel Day 13 – A Boy named David
Today we were off to visit the Accademia, an entire museum dedicated to the works of Michelangelo and his students. But first, we had to get some laundry done. When doing laundry about 10:00 we met some great guys from Sweden (Gianni and Isac you guys are awesome). They helped show us how the machines worked and we connected and said to make plans later in the day for dinner. After laundry, we first visited the Piazza San Marco (there is one in Florence too) and then found where to pickup our tickets. Once we knew where to go and what to do, we went to look at the Botanical Garden behind the Accademia before going back to see David.
We stayed for about an hour looking at the garden and all the interesting types of plants. As this was a botanical garden after all, they had multiple species from around Italy and the world. There were a lot of interesting plants to be seen, but as it was getting close to 14:00 and our tickets were for 14:30 we headed to find some lunch before we went into the museum. We found a little café in Piazza San Marco and then went to stand in line. Unfortunately Dean forgot his headphones to listen to the Rick Steves tour we downloaded, but what’s neat is you can still read the script so you don’t need your headphones end of the day. For most of the major places we’ve visited there has been a Rick Steves audio tour that has accompanied it, and I think I speak for both of us when I say we recommend this as a cheap way to get a guided tour.
Viewing the masterpiece that is David is breathtaking. Did you know Michelangelo created him freehand from marble?! Well know you do, but besides that he is a wonder. The entire museum is shaped around him. The 12 prisoners (other marble statues made by Michelangelo and 1 by his believed students) show how difficult it is to create a statue from stone, especially freehand, with all their rough edges and unpolished surfaces. Looking at David takes about 20 minutes to really take him in, and you can walk all around him to see each and every angle (and yes his ass is uncovered). It’s amazing the work Michelangelo put into him.
After viewing David, I headed over to the plaster statue room to the left to see all the works of art in there. While not everyone is as talented as Michelangelo in sculpting freehand, others used plaster casts and various other tools as reference to carve out their sculptures from marble. I wish I had counted all the pieces in there, but each wall had shelves on shelves, rows on rows of statues an works of art. The molds alone were interesting, and a majority of the pieces were commissioned in memoriam to dead loved ones of counts, dukes and aristocrats with money to dedicate to their lost loves.
After the sculptures, I headed over to the Medici instrument portion of the museum. The relics in there are some of the only survivors of the collection Ferdinando Medici added vigorously to in his rule as the Medici head. Each piece is unique and Ferdinando even helped pioneer new instruments to be used in his grand operas and shows he hosted at the villas.
Taking our time in the Accademia was wonderful, we spent nearly 2 hours before deciding it was time to head back and take a breather. Isac messages me asking what we were up to for dinner and so we met at the train station and headed to the central market, where Dean and I had dinner the first day. We all got some pizza (I accidentally ordered the one with anchovies bleh) and ended up talking about the similarities and differences between Canada and Sweden the whole time. Around 21:00 we all headed on back to our hotels and hostels and promised if we were ever in one another’s countries we’d stop by for sure!
We have met some amazing people on our travels and with Venice as the next and final destination, I can only hope we make some more. I can’t tell you how excited I am to head to Venice tomorrow and I can’t wait to take some pictures and show you all! Until tomorrow, ciao!
~Spencer
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