CHAPTER 8: Room for art & wine! Transfer to Rome

Our second day in Florence started with a rich Italian buffet breakfast in the terrace of our lovely hotel, facing the Duomo’s cupola, the masterpiece by Brunelleschi! Did you know that the building of Santa Maria del Fiore (the cathedral) took 140 years to be completed?? Something incredible! I didn’t know it, but the accessible walking tour of the highlights of Florence we took yesterday with our private guide was really interesting, and she gave us useful information about the history of Florence, and its Renaissance masterpieces.

I’m sure once back home I’ll miss having an Italian espresso every morning looking at the cupola! Its is built with over 4 million bricks, weighing over 40,000 tons, almost the size of half a football field across at the base, and standing over 10 stories high – and it is the largest masonry structure in the world. If it’s still a big deal today, imagine what it must have been like to see back then, before the technology even existed… I was shocked when I discovered all this!

After our delicious Italian breakfast, we met again with Chiara, our private guide to visit the amazing Uffizi museum, one of the most important museums in town! Being Gina an art teacher.. You can imagine our happy she was!

We were suggested by romeanditaly group to book skip the line entrance tickets to avoid lines… and I have to say…. Thank you! The queue was iper-long in front of the entrance, while we only had to collect our tickets and go inside, skipping at least 3 hours waiting! Skip the line tickets are definitely the best solution ever, check the link here: https://www.romeanditaly.com/services/skip-the-line/

Once inside the Uffizi Museum I was surprised by the elegance of the building, the rich decorations of all rooms, but above all the huge numbers of paingtins and artworks it collects. Some of them were dated 1200.. a long long time ago, but anyway very well-preserved. Thanks to Chiara we had the full evolution of paint history and techniques, going from one room to the other, ending our tour in the accessible terrace of the Uffizi Museum where we had a coffee standing directly in front of Palazzo Vecchio.

The masterpieces I loved the most inside the Uffizi were the famous Birth of Venus, which definitely deserve its celebrity around the world, the Tondo Doni by Giotto, all the artworks by master Piero della Francesca, and also the amazing Adoration of the Magi by the genius of Leonardo da Vinci (seen already in Milan, at the Cenacolo with the masterpiece The last supper)

Uffizi artworks: https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks

Cenacolo in Milan: https://cenacolovinciano.org/

I have to say that the Uffizi accessible tour was really interesting for all us, maybe a little overwhelming on information and dates for the kids, but I’m sure it will be a long time memory for their lives.

After the museum visit we stopped in a lovely place called Vinaino (https://vinainofiorenza.it/ ), a typical Florentine restaurant and street food place, to have a quick lunch and wine tasting. We were guided by a guy throughout the tasting of 4 different Tuscany wines coming from the famous Chianti area, the hills surrounding Florence, and very well know for their wine production and beautiful panoramas (I already put in our bucket list for our next accessible holiday in Italy a week into the Tuscan countryside which should be really amazing!)

Together with the wines we also had a typical “tagliere” (board of cold cuts and cheeses), Tuscan bread with oil (called fettunta), 2 different kinds of bruschetta (tomatoes and truffle), and coccoli (fried bites of dough) filled with cured ham & cheese. Was everything really delicious!

After lunch, we came back to the hotel where we left the luggage after checkout this morning, collect them and reached by private accessible transfer, the Florence train station, to reach our next destination (and last) Rome! As usual, we booked dedicated assistance service on departure in Florence, and on arrival in Rome, and reached the eternal city by high speed train – only 1:30h. Once in Rome, by our accessible transfer by van, we reached the Hotel (http://www.lancelothotel.com/ ) – unpacked and took a looong shower to restore our energies!

We had a typical Italian dinner at Hostaria Isidoro (http://www.hostariaisidoro.com/ ) an accessible restaurant right in the heart of Rome, and of course another delicious ice cream before going to bed!

Uffizi museum accessible walking tour by romeanditaly group: https://www.romeanditaly.com/accessible/accessible-florence-uffizi-gallery/

Stay tuned with us, next Monday the next chapter of “The accessible trip to Italy of our Friend Bill” will be released

written by #Bill