Florence and Padua

We spent a day seeing some great art in Florence.  I think I was probably the most excited out of everybody to spend a few hours in museum, and I hope other people weren't too bored, but I thought it was pretty neat.

We started in the Uffizi Gallery where we saw things like Botticelli's Birth of Venus.

This is a view of the famous bridge Ponte Vecchio from inside the Uffizi.  That's as close as we got to it.  We didn't have enough time in Florence. But every day was like "This, or this... Here or there."  So much to see and do, so little time. 

We ventured on to the Accademia where we saw some amazing sculptures like Michelangelo's David.  I'd have to say it's worth the hype. 17 foot tall naked guy, carved from a single block of marble.  But besides being 17 feet tall, it was amazingly lifelike. Like he was going to step right off the platform at any second and excuse himself to go and put some clothes on.

And just for fun, I took a picture of this little book store.  The place was full of piles of books.  I'm sure it wasn't up to fire code. Ü

That night we made our way to Padua where we found that little B&B I mentioned a few days ago.  We didn't intend on sightseeing, but the proprietors talked us into it, they were so proud of their little town we thought we'd check it out.

We weren't sorry.

Nothing special, just a cute, pleasant fairly touristy-free place.  The main town square was lovely with it's statues and canal and fountain.  

  

We wandered around the botanical gardens for a bit, before deciding it was time to head to our next destination, Venice. (to be continued...)