Galleria dell' Accademia:
 |
| Michelangelo's masterpiece - The real David you can't miss seeing in Florence. |
Day 1 - After a nice lunch, we went back to hotel and rested up. We unpacked and got changed. At around 4pm, we walked to the Accademia Gallery to get our prebook tickets. It got us in quite quickly, we skipped the long line up.
The gallery had some modern arts, but our main purpose was to see the real DAVID by Michelangelo. There was no photo allowed, but we still happened to take several sneak shots inside.
The real David is big, bigger than I had expected. The masterpiece was so detailed. we were quite amazed at this famous sculpture. (see below).
There are quite a few of David replica placed around Florence, but nothing could be compared to the real one. This was bigger, and you can actually see the details of the veins and muscles.
Tips to skip the line to the Academia Gallery:
- prebook the tickets online from the OFFICIAL website. (b-tickets)
http://www.b-ticket.com/b-ticket/uffizi/venueAccademia.aspx
If you just google online, there are tons of websites that sell you the tickets but they are more expensive. So it's best to buy from the official website. The time we went, the museum had an expedition so the ticket price was a little more. You do have to pay for reservation cost of 4 Euro. In general the info of the ticket price should be:
The official site for Polo Museale Fiorentino museum ticket sales
Opening hours
Tuesday through Sunday: 8:15-18:50, entry every 15 minutes.
Closed: Mondays, Christmas, New Year’s Day, May 1st
Tickets
Full price: € 6,50
Reduced : € 3,25
In conjunction with the exhibit "Dal Giglio al David. Arte civica a Firenze in età comunale", 14 May - 8 December 2013, full ticket price € 11.00, reduced € 5.50
Reservation cost
€ 4,00
After I made my payments online, I only got an email but it didn't give me an authorization or reference number. So I made a long distance call to their museum and asked. They said they will try to send it again, and even if I didn't get it, it should be ok. They would have a list of my name and the visiting time on that day.
When you buy the tickets online, they made you reserve a time. I picked 4:15pm; so we had to arrive by 4pm. Make sure you don't go to the wrong line. You first need to go to the reservation counter, across the street from the museum. Then they checked ID and the confirmation number, and then print you the tickets. Then you walked across the street to line up to get into the museum and for security check. It felt good to skip through a big line up to get in.
- Avoid bringing a big backpack or any food in. They would make you leave your bags at the security counter until you leave the museum.
Basilica de San Lorenzo:
After visiting the Accademia Gallery, we hung out around the Duomo area. Everything was so close together. We took some nice photos and bought some postcards. We also visited the Basilica de San Lorenzo - the oldest church in Florence, I believe.
It was a nice walk inside, not bad...but nothing special.
My first impression of Florence:
I fell in love with Florence. There were many tourists walking around, very commercialized with shopping and brand names, yet very classy with the cobblestone and the vintage buildings.
No comments:
Post a Comment