Uffizi Gallery
I woke with gooey crud in my eye. Since I had uveitis I need to be very careful about eye infections. I needed to see a doctor. We agreed that we would both skip the 8:30 tour of the Uffizi and get this taken care of somehow. I asked our tour leader about finding a doctor and within a half hour a doctor showed up at our hotel room! He examined my eye and gave me a prescription for eye drops and for antibiotics in case it doesn’t clear up. Easy. We joined the 8:30 tour and then got the drops at a local pharmacy (they’re everywhere). Amazing. The Europeans have this figured out.
The Uffizi is a wonderful art museum. It’s worth seeing just for the exquisite building. Those Medici sure knew how to gild a palazzo. The guide selected a few key works that illustrated the progression of art in the Renaissance, comparing paintings in the same room from different eras. Very interesting.
Later, after getting caught in a rainstorm, we went to the Galileo Museum. There we saw Galileo’s telescopes and other instruments of the time. It’s a marvelous collection, but it needed context—what problem the items solved. There was an app, but it didn’t load until later that evening. This shrine to technology also had a relic—one of Galileo’s fingers. Gross. There were also some 19th century physics parlor tricks, like a wheel that appears to roll uphill, that were fun.
In the evening we had a farewell dinner for the Heart of Europe and bade farewell to the other 22 people we’d been hanging with the past nine days. This was a great feast with three pasta courses, the famous Florentine steak and the choice of maybe a dozen amazing desserts. Great way to end a great tour. Tomorrow we start another one.