I have lived before at the center of an urban city before and I was reminded why I preferred living in the suburbs - the noise of the nightlife. I'm more of a quieter kind of guy and I like my peace and stillness. We arrived in Florence on a Friday night and that night people were out and about. More annoying was experiencing the Italians love for their scooters. All night and into the early morning were scooters zooming up and down our narrow street. I had a hard time falling asleep.
But we had a great room at a great location. The next morning, we set up to check out the world famous Uffizi museum. We were told that we need to reserve tickets, but since that took 3 Euros extra per ticket, we opted out to line up for the museum (being cheap and all - who wants to spend an extra $10 on tickets?).
Well, when we got there, the line up was long and it was moving slowly - but we were ready since this museum was hyped up by the Lonely Planet. Sadly, we can't take pictures, but after a 2 hour wait, we got it. To make a long rant short - it wasn't all that it was hyped up to be. Many of the pieces of art was on loan to other museums and the architecture of the museum was a let down (after the splendid buildings of the Vatican). I'm glad we didn't fork out the extra money for admission, but it seemed like the 2 hours was wasted to get in. Ah well...
The Althea Rooms in Florence was great - very clean rooms, air conditioning and internet access! Deb updated her blog frequently when we took our afternoon naps. We decided to go with an easier schedule and not walk around as much in the heat. It was a much relaxing time at Florence than Rome.
The line at the Uffizi. Everyone seemed eager to get in.
Why did ancient art display nudity? My wife observed that by doing so it showed the artistic skills of an artist's ability to capture the realistic proportions of the subjects he was painting or sculpting. This picture was taken from the Vatican's museum since we couldn't take pictures at the Uffizi. I find it funny that sculptors took great length to display their artistic skill to sculpt a nude figure, but took the time to add a little leaf to cover the loins. There were works of art that had clothed subjects, of course, and a commentary mentioned that even how an artist paints folds in a garment can be his signature on a painting. 
The Ponte Vecchio, the famous shop covered bridge that was rumoured to even survived WWII German bombing due to Hitler's direct orders not to destroy it (another version being a commander in chief disobeying orders to destroy it). Both Deb and I took numerous shots of this bridge.
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