I have been to almost all of the tourist sites in Florence, at least once, some of them more. If you visit me, I may accompany you on some of your trip to the sites, and some probably not. The Uffizi is magnificent, and I have been there 3 times in 3 years. Once per year is enough for me. It is huge and overwhelming, and much of the art is not to my taste, although the age and the artists amaze me.
There is one "sight" that when you come to visit, I know you will go to see, and I will accompany everyone each time. It is the one that strikes that childlike "awe and wonder" in me, that I thought was lost......David, by Michelangelo. I think the effect is very much the same for everyone, although no one ever thinks it is going to be.
By the time you go into The Galleria dell’ Accademia, you will probably already have seen so many photos of David, and even the replica (full size) that stands in Piazza della Signoria that you will think that it will be the same thing, and not so much after all, but you will be wrong. Maybe it is the "presentation" a long hallway flanked by other sculptures of Michelangelo’s, the sunlit dome over David’s head, or the lighting, I don’t know.
If you don’t remember what "awe and wonder" feels like, you are in for a treat. After having been struck twice by Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, and David my "awe and wonder" have transferred now from the art to the artist.
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