I thought I made a reservation to go to the Corridoio Vasariano (Vasari Corridor) at 9:45 am. I went to the Galleria Uffizi early so I could try sketching before my reservation. The queue looked like this 10 minutes before the Galleria opened at 8:15. The entry door is by the furthest black banner with the arrow showing you turn left.

We started moving 5 minutes early. I had to show my pass and ID, go through security screening machines, show my pass again, walk past the temporary exhibition and then climb two flights of stairs. As everyone started going into the exhibition rooms on the left of the hallway, I was looking at this by 8:22:

I paused for a photo of the rooms I skipped earlier: the Medici ancient statues:

Leonardo, specifically, the unfinished Adoration of the Magi:

I then had to go down a level, past the 16th century Venetian paintings (which I plan to return to another day) to get to the Caravaggio paintings.

I sat on the bench and started sketching Il Bacco (Bacchus):

But I eventually had to move closer and sketch standing because I couldn’t see details from that far away.

About 70 minutes later I stopped to go to the Corridoio entrance. I hadn’t finished:

As I was ready to go in, I discovered I did not have the correct reservation. I had a general reservation and not a Corridoio reservation. The ticket checking person pointed out that I had purchased from a third party site and sometimes they will scam you with what they are selling. More likely I just reserved the wrong thing. Since they strictly limit entry to 25 people, there was no way I could go in at the time I thought I had booked and the rest of the day was fully booked.

I was so mad at myself that I couldn’t move on else where in the museum and do more sketching. Instead I left and went to the Uffizi ticket office and booked the next time for entry to the Corridoio that would work for me, which wasn’t easy since I have classes starting Monday and entry is only between 10 and 5, same hours as my classes. Except I will have Friday afternoon free and booked a time then.

At that point, I realized I shouldn’t have left so hastily but I didn’t want to queue again to get back into the Galleria. I went for a walk while mentally kicking myself. Since it was starting to get hot, I decided I should do further gelato hunting. Unfortunately, a number of the gelaterie I went to are closed on Sundays. But I found Gelateria della Passera, which is in Piazza Passera in Oltrarno, near the Ponte Vecchio.

Cioccolato was tied with most other good cioccolato I’ve tried but the nocciola was a very good hazelnut flavour.

I did a bit more wandering. The Oltrarno area is hillier. The high was supposed to get to 31 and it was starting to feel like it.

I crossed back and walked near Palazzo Strozzi and looked into the Palazzo Tre Porti, which was the palace of a cadet branch of the Strozzi family. A family member has turned part of it into Giunti Odeon, a bookstore, restaurant and cinema. And it has air conditioning.

On Sundays they show children’s movies. It looks like it was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Here’s the titles of the Lord of the Rings books in Italian.

The upper levels have a variety of seating.

Some people seemed to be sitting and working on laptops. I might try returning some time. The adult movies all start at 9 pm, which is too late for me, but I could come and work on my Italian homework or sketch.

Nice ceiling:

Giunti, the company behind the Cinema Teatro Odeon, is also involved in a project of creating facsimiles of Leonardo’s notebooks. They look amazing:

By this point, it was lunch time. I went across the street to Enoteca Strozzi. I sketched while waiting for my order. The perspective is off but it was just a quickie.

It’s truffle season so I had tagliolini al tartufo fresco.