Thursday, September 17, 2009

An Overdose of Art (for the kids, that is!)

I am on a blogging roll here…I will get caught up!  I have tried to be concise in my descriptions, but it just is so HARD.  There is just so much to say about a 10 day trip to Italy.  And soooooooo many pictures!

We spent days 5 and 6 back in Florence.  Florence is such a huge, huge repository of stuff to see.  This was my 3rd visit to Florence and Ben’s first.  So, we spent most of our time visiting things that I have already seen.  It was a good thing, really, because the kids needed a lot of supervision.  They did pretty well in the art museums until they had finished their fabulous BINGO games (hand drawn by yours truly), but once those were completed….well, they weren’t too excited.  I was very happy to discover, however, that they are actually noticing things.  We saw the Birth of Venus by Botticelli in the Uffizi on this trip.  The next month we saw another painting of Venus (minus the shell) by Botticelli, and Naomi recognized her.  So, while dragging kids through art museums isn’t necessarily easy, I think it is definitely worth the trouble.  Our last two days in Florence we saw (not necessarily in order) the Uffizi, the Duomo, the Academia dell’Arte (location of the statue of David), as well as a few churches we passed as we walked.  We did A LOT of walking.  Now that Ben has seen all of the major Florentine sights, I want to go back and explore the lesser known museums and churches.  We will get back. 

Outside the Uffizi….

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The Gates of Paradise (on the Baptistry)….

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Il Duomo….

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I love the Florence cathedral.  I love the colors in the marble, I love the bell tower (which we climbed), I love the architecture, I love the detail.  Even after 3 visits, it still amazes me.

A view from the top….

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Inside the baptistry (looking up)….

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A child friendly activity….

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Another view from the top (Ian and Ben climbed the dome)….

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Yet another church….

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And finally, the lovely, muddy Arno.  (The kids refused to look at me.)

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2 comments:

Rach said...

Oh, Florence, how I love thee. I love the beautiful structures and the endless fantastic art. I love the leather market and the rows and rows of Vespas. I think you should post a picture of the fabulous purse you got at the leather market there. Awesome pictures, again!

Jenna Harris said...

That goodness Ben looked at you in the last picture. Can you imagine how silly it would have been if HE had looked away?

What an amazing trip! I'm sitting in Utah working very, very hard not to be jealous. I know it's not all fun, but still... Pretty amazing from where I sit.