ART IN FLORENCE - WE THOUGHT!

Our plan for today was to take the Hop On/Hop Off bus around and up to the Piazza Michelangelo with a great view back at the city! Angie and Cathy had a ticket from yesterday that was good until noon today. We walked to the train station to catch the Red Line and get my ticket. It was a beautiful sunny day, in the high 60s maybe, compared to yesterday's drizzle! We got some great shots

Next stop was to try to see Michelangelo's David and his unfinished sculptures in the Accademia Museum. Online this a.m. it showed there weren't any reservations available until tomorrow! So we were just going to get online and give it a shot. We had a bit of directions problem but finally ended up in a big piazza where a LOT of noise was going on. A big crowd was waving white and green and red flags. We heard later, when we got to the Accademia, that it was closing in 1/2 hour (around 1) because the museum workers were on strike!! We had changed plans and went to Lucca instead of Florence on the weekend because the 1st Sunday of every month is free at the museums; I thought they'd be too crowded. THEN when we arrived Sunday, we discovered it was WORKERS' DAY so the museums that were supposed to be open, weren't!! Monday most museums were closed (the Duomo, tower, Baptistry and Museum were open and I did that! Then today, the STRIKE!! Not having much luck in that department but otherwise it's been a great trip! 

We then tried for the Bargello museum behind the Duomo and were able to get in - no word about early closing! There were many smaller pieces by Michelangelo (a Pieta with Nicodemus in the back which was supposedly modeled after Michelangelo, at the end of his life; lots of sculpture by Donatello and other lesser known artists, all nicely arranged. 

I then parted from the girls and hopped back on the Line C that would take me out of town to Fiesole, with a great view back down to Firenze. It was a lovely restful ride. We passed the Fiorentina (Florences purple-shirted football team - yes, Jackson, I got you a shirt!) football stadium in a "sports" area of town with lots of facilities, and headed up, up to this high town.