Highlights-Florence Day 4
This was the Uffizi museum day. Between the crowd and the number of things to see, it is an endurance test (four hours). Like the chaos around the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, it was very noisy in the room where Botticelli’s _The Birth of Venus_ is displayed. Whisper boxes (why are they called that when no one whispers into them?) are required for tours, but they don’t help. There are so many guides and un-guided people talking at once that the room sounds like a livestock shed at the state fair. My souvenir at the gift shop? A fridge magnet. It’s the only thing that fits in my carryon bag besides bookmarks and pencils.
So True
Just as true now as it was then
Sustainability …
Selling it as a style choice may be more effective than government edicts
Looking out my back door
Actually, the only door to the apartment is on this alley
Ponte Vecchio
Taken without having to lean around someone’s midsection
Melanoma Case Study
I hope this man (a people herder at a restaurant) uses SPF 50 sunscreen
Silent contemplation of great art?
Not so much
Notable Items
You have to show identification with your ticket at the Uffizi. Why? Probably Italian law or to combat some scam that my non-criminal brain can’t imagine. I may be overdoing the “it’s the law” presumption, but it is more charitable than “they’re idiots.”
The Uffizi has a huge collection of head sculptures. There are lots of “heads on torsos, no arms” sculptures. Something on the corresponding didactic panels (those signs that explain what you’re looking at) caught my attention: “The head is not germane to the body.” What is a germane head? For those who aren’t museum curators: “The statue didn’t have a head when we found it in the dirt so we stuck one on and made it fit.” I’ve noticed some people in real life whose heads don’t seem germane to their body based on their behavior.
The far end of the U-shaped top floor of the Uffizi offered splendid views of the Arno river, if you could get people to stop taking selfies (there were lines). One man was standing for such a prolonged period, gazing toward the Ponte Vecchio, that I thought he had turned to stone. Perhaps I wasn’t the only one. A man positioned himself behind the River-Gazer and curved his arm around the gazer’s body to get the photo he wanted.
Tip: You can learn how well bathroom hand dryers work by observing people as they exit. If you see women waving their hands like leaves on a tree on a fall windy day or men wiping their hands on their pants, you know what’s coming.
I saw one of those people (you know, those people) who wear their pants significantly below the traditional male belt line. It occurred to me that I have never seen one of those people with a date or female companion. Never. If this pants-wearing style is a signal for members of the opposite sex (like male peacock feathers), it isn’t working.