Europe trip: Part 4

A visit to the smallest country in the world was next on cards. Our guide to the Sistine Chapel was a Canadian who gave a brief history about the place and the works and some of the artists like Michelangelo. Describing just that could take a while, so I'll skip it. Sistine chapel is all its billed to be- grand, holy, beautiful and so much more! The artistry is unmatched and the stories behind one painting after another is so captivating. (The image of a tile below was an earlier form of advertising: shopkeepers would have tiles like the below in front of their shops on the pavements to let pedestrians know what the shops sold! The other photo where one man appears to be giving something to the rest was on the ceiling and is actually drawn in 2D! The coloured image is again work on the celiling of one of the pathways in the museum..After Sistine chapel, we were out on the streets of Rome. Lunch was pizza by weight!

Florence, the capital of the Tuscany region in Italy was next on the list. Florence is known as the cradle of Renaissance and without no reason! This was the dark horse of the trip. Whether it is Ponte Vechio ('Old Bridge' in Italian) with its line up of jewellery and souveniour shops or The Duomo (the Cathedral Church) with the resplendent facade or The Accademia with the world famous David. Most inspiring though was Palazzo Vecchio ('Old Palace' in Italian) that was central to the Renaissance and folklore has it that one point housed the 'whose who' of Renaissance including Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello, Giotto, Galileo and Macchiavelli (thats the second last photo from the below. The last photo is of a sculpture by a sculptor who whilst making this piece found his girlfriend cheating on him and drew the face of his girlfriend on the head that the guy is holding!). Really, wow!