Tourist Season

Florence, Italy, May 1984. Oh, it's always tourist season in Florence.

He's weak in the ankles.

Michelangelo's "David" statue "risks collapsing under its own weight because of strain on the sculpture's 'weak ankles'."

The "David" has stood in Florence's Accademia Gallery since 1873. The statue in the Piazzia della Signoria is a replica:

Florence, Italy, May 1984. Some tourists assume the "David" guarding the Palazzo Vecchio's entry is the original statue.

I visit the Uffizi

Florence, Italy, May 1984. This morning's Uffizi post reminded me of my visit to Florence. I didn't find the city charming. There were more tourists than in Venice. The historical sites stood in a tight area that made the city center seem like an amusement park. The place was claustrophobic. I also had some trouble understanding the Florentine dialect, which softens the "c" sounds: "Casa" becomes "hasa," for example.

Florence is the city in which I encountered my first "ugly American." As I sat sipping a macchiato, a woman exclaimed to her husband, "Why can't these Italians make a decent cup of coffee?!"

At the Office

Florence, Italy, 1951. My Best Friend's Dad, Dolfo, visits the Uffizi.

Thanks to my Best Friend for making this photo available to us.

"In a globalized world like ours, the fundamental rules for visiting a museum have been forgotten, that is, ‘Do not touch the works’."

An American tourist visiting Florence's Museo dell’Opera del Duomo allegedly broke a finger off a 600-year-old statute as he apparently measured his palm span against that of the statue. An Italian paper, Corriere Fiorentino, reports, however, that the tourist was setting up a "give me five" photo pose with the statute when he snapped off the statue's pinkie.

The head of the museum "confirmed that the broken finger was not original to the piece, and had been added at a later date."

A Weekend in Florence

Florence, Italy, May 1984. I didn't like Florence: it felt like a worn amusement park. The pensione did have a nice view of the Ponte Vecchio.