64. I mai visti 2 at the Uffizi, Teatro Goldoni and Castelfranco di Sopra.

I Mai Visti 2 Sat 1st feb

A nice start to February, Annette is starting her diploma course in TEFL, which means she will be busy for many Fridays and every other Saturday for the next year and a half... which means I will be on my own to explore a bit.

This afternoon I decide to check out a free exhibition at the Uffizi. I came to a similar one last year, it's called, 'I Mai Visti', or 'Never Seen Before'. Basically the Uffizi art gallery has something like 10,000 thousand paintings in its basement and there is only enough floor space in the main gallery to display 1,000 of them! Also many of them were damaged in the flood of 1966 and are still waiting to be restored. Who knows what masterpieces are there waiting to be discovered...

This one is entitled  'Soprese di frutta e Fiori' it's a homage to what the Italians call 'Natura Morta' which translates as 'Dead Nature'... not very appealing! We in fact call it still life.
There are some quite nice pieces featured although nothing as good as last year's edition which included works by Titian and Boticelli.

Here's a link to some more of the pieces exhibited

http://www.universitadelledonne.it/i%20mai%20visti.htm

Teatro Goldoni  Sun 2nd

This evening we have a date at the theatre. There are supposed to be 33 theatres in Florence and the Goldoni is one of the smallest. Named after the Venetian playwright and Librettist Carlo Goldoni , it was built in 1817 and holds 363 people.  Annette has been given a couple of complimentary tickets by one of her students, who just happens to be the local minister for education!

So we spend a very pleasant couple of hours in the company of Beethoven, Debussy and Schubert

Castelfranco di Sopra  Sat 7th

And so here begins our official house hunting experience. Not that we're unhappy at Olmastrino, but after a year of living in Tuscany, we've decided that we want to settle here and make it our home.We've been waiting since December to see if we can get a mortgage, but we're going to start looking anyway... Today we have arranged to see a place in Castelfranco, which is in the Val D'Arno, just off the A-1 Motorway. The farmhouse is apparently being restored, but we figure a nice drive in the countryside won't hurt anyone. The small town, which dates from 1299, is very pretty, with old walls and a tower built by Castelfranco's most famous son, Arnolfo di Cambio.  The house unfortunately is quite inaccesable, i.e. you need a 4x4 to reach it! And yes it's quite unfinished, in fact it's just a shell, the setting is spectaular and we're told we can even bring our horse if we want! Beautiful, but totally impractical. So we head back to the town for a cappuccino, check out the local market and soak up some of the atmosphere.

Our landlady, Lucia has suggested another flat which we also check out today, it's in Greve, but too big, too expensive and it's in an ugly apartment

(Original journal entry 7/2/03)