Last Day in Florence

On our last day in Florence, we decided to take it somewhat easy. In the morning, after some croissants with Nutella (it's not vacation if I don't eat Nutella for breakfast), we headed to the Bargello, a museum of mostly statues. It houses my favorite statue, Donatello's David, as well as some other sculpture from Donatello and various other artists from the Renaissance.

It wasn't horribly busy when we got there, so we had plenty of time to admire the sculpture at our leisure. I love Donatello because he puts so much personality into his work - his cherubs look mischievous, his fauns look downright naughty, and his Bacchus looks drunkenly knowing. He actually has two David's there - one that looks younger but manly in a boyish kind of way with a hint of a lofty smirk on his face (Ryan's favorite), and the other, the one I refer to as the "floppy hat David" (he's actually wearing a wide brim helmet, but whatever), which is my personal favorite. This David is very androgynous, practically feminine, and has the look of quiet pride on his face. Personally, I think his face says, "Try to look humble, try to look humble!" while on the inside he knows he's a badass.

After exploring the rest of the Bargello (a few other interesting sections, like their collection of Persian treasures), we decided to visit the Santa Croce church, where there is more sculpture and paintings, including a Cimabue crucifix (he dates back to the 1200 and I believe is considered a precursor to Giotto and a few other medieval artists who eventually lead to the birth of the Renaissance). There are also some frescoes from Giotto, some paintings from Donatello, and various pieces of religious art. However, the main attraction of this church is the number of Renaissance stars who are buried here, such as Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Galileo. Memorials for Da Vinci and Dante are also here, but they are both buried elsewhere. It's kind of sad here, because there are various crypts all along the floor of the church where everyone walks, so many have been worn down over time, thus erasing the intricate design these marble graves once portrayed.

We decided to take it easy for the rest of the day. Our hotel's tower bar opened up for the season that day, so I had a couple of glasses of prosecco and Ryan had some white wine, and we enjoyed the sunset with some of our fellow hotel guests. Once the sun finally disappeared, we decided to go back to Rose's Ristorante and American bar (www.roses.it) where we had that fabulous ossobucco. When we arrived, Rita, the at least trilingual waitress (she spoke fluent Italian, English, and French - I would not be surprised if she spoke Spanish and German too) who had taken care of us on our last visit, recognized us and gave us a couple of glasses of prosecco on the house. She then went on to make the rest of our meal the most memorable and wonderful one of the entire trip - not only because it was delicious (it was - it practically makes me want to cry knowing we will not have this restaurant to go to on a regular basis back home), but also because of her amazing service and friendliness. We ordered a bottle of rose (I prefer red wine while Ryan likes white, so we compromised on rose) - she brought out the bottle we ordered as well as a different bottle. She explained the other bottle was a rose from her hometown in Italy (the heel of the boot on the map of Italy) and she would recommend we try it - we took her word for it, and are so glad we did because it was the best rose we have ever had! Next we had the crispy ravioli as an appetizer again, followed by the ossobucco once more for Ryan and a duck a l'orange for me (have I mentioned how much I love duck?), and both were just the most amazing things either of us had yet to enjoy on this trip! Finally, on Rita's recommendation, we had a Chantilly cream in a chocolate cup with fruit and raspberry sauce for dessert. I really cannot emphasize enough the need for everyone who ever visits Florence to absolutely go to this restaurant! Ryan and I are already planning other trip just so we can eat here again!

Thursday we head to Rome, so after dinner we trekked up the stairs to the top of the tower for once last glimpse of the city under the stars. I'm sad to leave my new favorite city, but I'm excited to see the antiquities of Rome!