Day 95...Michelangelo's David - 29th September

Got up early, left our bags at the hotel and walked up to Galleria dell' Accademia. We bought some yoghurt and fruit which we bought from the nearby grocers. We ate it in the nearby park and tried to warm up in the weak morning sun. The line to get into the museum (for those that hadn't booked) was already incredibly long. We were a pair of little smartarses and walked straight in with our tickets. ha HA

Inside the museum were many lovely works that we had no idea about. Most of it was religious art, and again we mused what a shame it was that only the church could really affort talented artists. Therefore all the topics are skewed. It'd be nice to see them get to paint something else for a change.
But anyway, we were here for only one thing - David. He was at the end of a long, open hall under a skylit dome. And he was lovely. My mum told me to observe the hands, and she was right. They looked almost stupidly large from a distance, but when you went and stood under him, they were in beautiful proportion to his body from that perspective. Nathan thought "i don't know, he was pretty good" - he said better stuff than that, but that's all I can get from him right now. From what he said at the time, he marveled at the size of all that marble, and also wondered why they didn't laquer it and make him all shiny.
You aren't allowed photos in the museum at all (tight bastards) but I stole one anyway! Ha ha HAH! One yankee tourist was even dobbing to security about tourists taking photos. What a sad loser!

Along the sides of the hall leading up to David, were 6 unfinished works by Michelangelo. It turned out that the Pope, back in the day, had commissioned Michelangelo to make these sculptures for his tomb. Michelangelo got to work, but before was finished, the pope changed his mind and built a church instead. And didn't pay him!! Prick.
The sculptures themselves were pretty interesting. They were all deformed as they hadn't been sanded down to perfection yet, and mostly still in the marble. They looked like they were getting birthed out of the rock, like something out of Lord of the Rings! Seeing these, then the massive finished David showed the skill and effort required to create him.

ANother section had hundreds of plaster busts some guy liked doing. I got entranced in there - it was eerie to see all these faces that once lived, now frozen in time. Real people, their faces gazing down at me.

After that, we hopped into our little car and drove to Pisa. The drive was only short, and the day sunny and we made it in plenty of time. The town ended up being pretty unremarkable, so we just decided to see the leaning tower and then elave. We got there and the tourists were prolific! Also the african touts trying to sell you souvenirs and watches. The tower itself was just like the picturs (but we were standing in the pictures now!) and looked like the builders had really fucked up. We took the customary 'push up the tower' pictures and felt like tools. Then we left.

I hadn't done too much research on Tuscany, so we picked a meandering route from the map that had the smallest roads possible. Getting there, we saw a few tuscan houses and it looked kinda shit. We started to get worried. Then suddenly we crestd a hill and we were upon sweeping hills, sunny vineyards and large Tuscan villas! It was very beautiful. We spent the afternoon just driving around windy roads, small towns, past vineyards and over clay hills. Late in the arvo, around 5ish we were driving and saw a little hamlet perched on top of a hill. It looked cute so we decided to stay the night there. We were pleasantly surprised to find out it was an old fortified village. It was a small fortress complete with walls, with a little tuscan town locked inside. It was called Volterra. We scored a cute place from the TIC, a double bed with bathroom for 40 euro. Its been a while since we've gotten something this cheap and being very nice. The guy didn't speak a lick of english when we turned up, and we had a laugh at our botched Italian attempts.

We spent the afternoon meandering around windy alleys and admiring the quaint architecture. Later on we settled down for a bottle of fine white Tuscan wine, plus a plate of cheese and olives. (Sheeps cheese to you). The place was built over old ruins, and were clever enough to make the floor out of thick glass. So you could look down and gaze into old wells and foundations. Very cool. It was even cooler when we went t pay and they said there was no charge on the cheese and olives! Right on! After some more walking we ate at a cute little restaurant where we had wild boar (my first) deer, and a bottle of red Chianti. It was not a bad little drop at all. The same thing we've found all over Europe - the cheap wines here taste really good, unlike at home.

A smite tipsy (our livers are well practiced by now) we headed home, had a playfight and I got locked out by Nathan. I sat down in the street and ate some biscotti, and didn't realise he had quietly opened the door for me. When I finally realised (after getting a few good stares by the locals) I started to trudge up the stairs. Unbeknownst to me, Nathan was hiding on the stairs in the dark. WHen he 'boo'ed' me, I screamed the whole hotel down!!!