Lee-Ann’s lament

The beautiful, U-shaped building of the Ufizzi Gallery in Florence is home to the world’s finest collection of Renaissance art. Everywhere you turn, you are greeted by the detail and richness of painted biblical scenes, portraits and statues – 1500 works distributed across 50 rooms. The palazzo itself (previously offices of the Medici Family) is quite breathtaking – wide corridors, capped with stunning ceiling frescoes. The museum’s layout follows a chronological order from the Tuscan masters of the 12th to 14th centuries, then moves through the Renaissance, Baroque and neoclassical periods. Pride of place goes to Botticelli with his ‘Birth of Venus’ and ‘Spring’. We were lucky to stand really close to both of these paintings (an advantage of visiting out of season – it’s apparently chaos in summer). Pictures in travel guides don’t do full justice to the sheer size and detail of these masterpieces. Saying that, a few hours into our ‘Ufizzi indugence’, Robbie declared that he was bored and he thought I should stop for coffee! The cafe provided stunning views across Piazza della Signoria. However, we did learn one valuable lesson after our most expensive coffee to date in Italy ($8!), and that is to order your caffe at the counter and then sit down and savour it! Table service is a lot more expensive. Our culturally rich afternoon in Florence (albeit with my culturally-challenged sons and husband), ended with a different type of cultural experience, in the form of a Serie A soccer match (Florence v AC Milan)! I win some, I lose some....