One of my prized possessions at the moment is my membership card for the Uffizi. For a mere 60 euros for the calendar year, I Amici Degli Uffizi get unlimited access to the gallery and a whole lot of other State museums in Firenze. Members also get to skip the lines, which is worth 60 euros! I discovered one of the best times to visit the gallery is late in the afternoon - no lines for anything and the gallery is almost empty. On Thursday, I went for an hour or so, just to see some Caravaggio's I had spotted the previous week, but didn't have time to look at. They were wonderful and it was so nice not to feel pressured "to see everything" in one or two visits. On Friday, I returned for an hour to look at the "Doni Tondo" by Michelangelo (thank you David B!), plus a bunch of Raphael's and other pictures from Fiorentini, as they are called. I looked at every painting in just 3 rooms and it was a delicious 60 minutes!
Friday night I took myself to a movie ("Shame" - very intense but excellent) and afterwards happened upon a lightshow in the courtyard of Palazzo Strozzi. The artist digitally mapped the elegant interior of the palazzo and created a 5 minute show which highlighted the building's architecture, but also made the courtyard "move" in wonderful ways. It was all carefully choreographed to music and it was mezmerizing! This "show" was called "il sole sui tetti" which translates to "The sun on the roofs" and if you visit the website, you'll see the Strozzi courtyard. It also explains the laser light show I wrote about previously (see "light show" post.)
On the way home in Piazza della Repubblica, I happened upon a huge installation of contemporary urban murals - part of Fashion Week here in Firenze. Open at both ends, this luminescent black box housed 8 murals measuring 6 meters wide and 4 meters high.
As with most things art-related, I liked some pieces more than others but it was engaging, visible, public, open and free.
The cultural extravaganza continued on Saturday. A couple of students from school and I went to a late-afternoon piano recital by famed Canadian pianist (and resident of Umbria, Italy) Angela Hewitt at Teatro della Pergola. After 2 hours of Bach, his piano music starts to all sound the same, but Hewitt held the audience's complete attention all the way through two encores!
By Saturday night, my brain was hurting with all the high culture I was experiencing, so I turned on the TV, poured myself more than one glass of wine, and settled in for the evening to watch my new guilty pleasure "Ballando con le stelle" (Dancing with the Stars - the Italian version.) It's worse than the American version but it was fun to skype with my friends Lori and Buzz who got to watch parts of it live from the comfort of their Toronto home.
Today - Sunday - there was NO culture: just European credit downgrades, sinking cruise ships, and a new verb tense to worry about for tomorrows class.
