Scootoir

We are going to make reservations for the Uffizi through our hotel and wonder if there is an advantage to booking at 9am or 4pm? DH and I are thinking a two-hour visit will suit us just right. Would appreciate your input.

HappyTrvlr

First choice 9am. But if you can't get that early ticket, then your idea of the end of your day is good.

mamcalice

I agree with the 9am recommendation. Two hours is a good amount of time - longer can be tiring as the crowds get dense as the day wears on.

bvlenci

The amount of crowding depends on the time of year. Until after Easter, it shouldn't be very crowded at the Uffizi. Two hours aren't sufficient to see the museum in depth. My daughter and I spent seven hours at the Uffizi last year, over a two-day period, and still had to skip a few things we had wanted to see. This was in January, and there were no crowds at all, and we just walked right up to the ticket desk with no queue at all.

sandralist

My choice would be 4pm because I stay up late in Italy and rarely get up early, or if I do, I prefer to go for a morning walk than into a museum right away. Also, by the end of the day more people will be leaving than coming in, so if I wanted to linger, I think it would only get nicer, rather than feeling I was getting crowded out by more people.

But other people have different inner clocks.

cathies

I know I'm the exception to the rule and bvlenci may have a heart attack upon reading my comments but here goes. With the exception on a couple of rooms the collection in the uffizi left me cold. My memory is of lots of violent, religious art that I had absolutely zero interest in. I couldn't imagine spending seven hours there! But each to their own. I spent about eight hours in The Louvre which lots of people wouldn't do.

Book the morning time slot if you can.

bvlenci

I wonder why you went to the Uffizi Gallery. Any decent guidebook could have told you enough about it to give you a clue that you wouldn't enjoy it.

A lot of people have that reaction to the Uffizi. Your vacation is supposed to be a pleasure, and you shouldn't bother with seeing things on somebody else's top 10 list, any more than you'd allow a perfect stranger to choose your wardrobe. You're not going to be punished if you don't see the Sistine Chapel in Rome and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. This same daughter has been to Rome multiple times and hasn't once seen the Sistine Chapel, and makes no apologies for that oversight.

At the Uffizi, my daughter and I were comparing painting techniques of various artists, and looking for signs on their influence on one another, and going back and forth between rooms the better to make our comparisons, and to see if a certain painting by X preceded or followed a painting by Y.

If you're not interested at that level, I don't think the Uffizi is the best place to get a taste of Renaissance art. It's a very highly specialized collection, that one person described as "one Madonna after another". I would instead recommend San Marco, or the Brancacci chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, or the Museum of the Opera del Duomo (which is closed now, I think, for renovations), or Santa Maria Novella. Or maybe none of the above.

annhig

lots of views above, Scootoir!

if you're still intent on going, I'd take the 9am - then you will have the rest of the day to spend as you will, whether it's 2 hours you spend in the gallery or seven.

We found that when we got to the end of the first limb of the gallery, we needed a break so we went straight to the cafe and had a late breakfast, which gave us the energy we needed to see the rest.

There are no right or wrong ways to see art galleries, and no compunction to see them at all. with all due respect to bvl, it is not necessary to have her interest in and knowledge of art in order to enjoy the experience of the Uffizi - I and my family are proof of that. I think that if you are in Florence, it would be a pity to miss one of the great galleries of the world, but if you feel that its not for you, that's fine too. and if you only want to spend 2 hours there, simply admiring what catches your eye and reading a little more about it, that is your perogative.

joannyc

Everyone has their own opinion obviously.... Mine would be the 4pm slot. Not as many people as you are visiting at the end of the day. And, there is a magnificent view of the Ponte Vecchio after you finish the first wing and cross the hallway before beginning the second. Lighting at the end of the day makes for a much better photo op!

I'd say 2 hours or so is enough for the average person who is not interested in studying each piece.

Ackislander

My interest was like that of bvlenci. The Uffizi is the history of Italian art, and because everything is in an historical context, suddenly things made sense that had not before. I never enjoyed Botticelli (yeah, I know, I know) until I saw it between what came before and what came after. I gave myself a mental dope slap and said " So that's what they mean!"

But what I like may leave you cold. That's the way it goes!

sandralist

I spend most of my travel time in Europe and especially in Italy looking at art, in particular at painting, and going to museums.

I rank the Uffizi as among the very worst museum experiences one can have in Italy and Europe.

It really is not right to tell other people who didn't have an enjoyable experiences inside the Uffizi they are insufficiently interested in art and to ask a dumb question like °Why didn't you read a guidebook and not go?° One could just as easily ask of bvlenci why she and her daughter didn't just study the guidebook (instead of bothering other museumgoers with their incessant, ignorant chatter and prancing around. since a guidebook to the museum will tell you which paintings pre-date others).

The Uffizi museum itself defeats -- even from bvlienci's own description -- an emotional, sensual engagement with the art. Art is actually not meant to be studies and analyzed. It is supposed to move one deeply at a non-intellectual level. The failure of the Uffizi to do that is due in large a large part the unfortunate legacy of the bombing and putting the paintings behind thick glass. A great many art scholars, art lovers and museum curators lament many aspects of the current state of museumgoing at the Uffizi and hope they will change in the future.

And I certainly don't get why when bvlienci's daughter -- who presumably has seen at least one photo of the Sistine Chapel -- chooses not to go to the Sistine Chapel that is an "oversight" but when someone else goes to the Uffizi and doesn't like it they are told they should have read guidebooks and made a choice not to go!

muskoka

When I visit the great museums of Europe, I do so with a specific list of those pieces that have most meaning to me, e.g., The Botticellis at the Uffizi, Bathsheba at Her Bath at the Louvre, David at the Accademia, etc. I wouldn't' spend more than 2-3 hr. at the Uffizi, but I might pass an entire afternoon, when the crowds have thinned, at D'Orsay or Rodin.

Everyone has an idea of what they have come so far to experience. I agree with sandralist.

kja

Another opinion: I spent the day in the Uffizi. I wish I could have spent more time there. YMMV.

cathies

Well bvlenci, thanks for the insults. Even if I'd read a guidebook I doubt I'd have realised exact details about the collection. I enjoy art immensely but not in the elitist way that you have described.

I should have also have said that while the building itself is beautiful, I didn't find it user friendly as far as galleries go.

Sandralist, thank you for the support.

DebitNM

FWIW - we were just there last week. We did a 9 am entrance and used Rick Steve's audio guide with printed map. We enjoyed our time. We spent around 3 hours there and while no one should tell you what to do, see etc, it's good to ask questions here.