Day 13 - Galleries and bad planning

Took the boys out this morning to give Lucy a rest and we went over to the gallery at Palazzo Vecchio.  They had an exhibition of Damien Hirst's 'For the love of god' as well as their normal works, which I thought might be interesting.

The Damien Hirst exhibit was just off the first room, so we approached the door and saw only 12 people were allowed in at a time and there was a waiting room, where you had to stay for 3 minutes, then the exhibit room, where you were only allowed a further three minutes.  I hadn't realised there would only be a single exhibit and the restrictions were a bit weird, but we went in all the same.

It's basically a copy of a human skull made in platinum and covered in diamonds - when I saw it, I remembered seeing something about it on TV.  The room was completely dark apart from the skull itself, which was lit and so the diamonds sparkled as you moved around it.  It was pretty cool and the boys liked it, but it was definitely an odd experience to have such a brief time with a single object.  There's a wikipedia page on it, if you're interested.

Boys at Palazzo Vecchio

I didn't think the rest of the gallery was that amazing but the boys said they liked it - can't predict what they'll say about anything!

We met up with Lucy after the Vecchio.  I was planning a visit to the Uffizi later, but decided we should have lunch and then a bit of a wander before splitting up again.  Dan Healy had specially sent me a message on twitter to get to the Uffizi early,  but I paid no heed to his advice and swanned off for something to eat.

After lunch, we crossed the river and made our way up a fairly steep climb to the Piazzale Michaelangelo, which has great views over the city.  It also has yet another copy of the David, this time in bronze.  We enjoyed the fantastic views for a bit and rested from our climb, before making our way back towards the Uffizi.

Florence viewed from Piazzale Michaelangelo

Of course, Dan had been right and there were long queues for the Uffizi.  The people at the front of the non-reservation had been waiting 2 hours and there were only two hours left before the gallery closed, while there were no reserved bookings until tomorrow.  It looked like I was going to miss out.

Went for an ice cream to treat the boys and console myself and we had a bit more of a wander.  After five, we paid another visit to the Uffizi, just on the off-chance, and there were no queues.  I managed to get straight in, although there was only an hour of gallery time left, so Lucy took the boys back while I went round.

An hour really wasn't long enough, and I had to rush around a bit and completely missed out on a Carravagio exhibition they're running, but it was way better than not seeing it at all and I got a real flavour of their renaissance paintings.  Of course, it's yet more religious subjects - often just the same four or five scenes repeated constantly, but I realised this gives a real idea of how painting changed and how the different artists tackled these same subjects in their own ways.

When I got back to Lucy and the boys we did most of our packing and started planning out our morning.  We decided to bee sensible and book our train reservations tonight rather than leaving it until the morning, assuming it would be no problem.  How wrong we were!

We queued for about 45 minutes to find out that there are no reservations available until 5.30 tomorrow - we need to be at the airport for about 4.30.  We have managed to find out some times for the regional trains, but it means a change at Bologna and we won't arrive in Mestre until after our bus leaves for the airport, which would mean taking a taxi.  Not sounding great, but do-able.

Apparently we could turn up at the station for one of the fast trains and ask the conductor if he has any reservations available, but that's no guarantee.  We're also looking at whether we could hire a car, and fortunately there are a few hire car places nearby (assuming they're open on Good Friday).  So we have a few options but it looks like we won't know until the morning exactly how we're going to make the plane.

Poor Luke started panicking when we were at the station and he heard there were no reservations available, but we managed to calm him down and convince him that we will make the plane so he's happier now.  Just need to work out exactly how we'll do it, now!

All going well, we'll be back in blighty by this time tomorrow, though - I'll have to do a final blog just to document the journey.

Luke's joke of the day:
Jon: I ate a snail by accident, what should I do?

Luke: Here's some whisky, have a good long slug.

Jon: I don't want the slug, thanks, the snail was bad enough, but I'll have the whisky!

Callum's riddle:
Answer from yesterday: A secret.