The first thing I should mention about Florence is that Google maps does not work there. Like much of the rest of Europe, street signage is nonexistent or extremely hard to locate. So whenever we were trying to locate a street, it would never be found. So when we arrived in Florence at 5 am after driving from La Toussuire, we spent an hour driving down unnamed streets looking for our hotel. There were one way streets that never ended or turned around, but seemed to continue forever into another time and place. This was at 5 am when no one else was awake, and the empty streets really helped this feeling. Of course we were both exhausted and upset at the time, but we finally found our hotel's street by chance, and then finally found our hotel. Three hours of sleep later I woke up to figure life out, including where the Internet was (broken at the hotel) and how I could print ticket reservations off to see museums later in the day. I finally figured it all out and went back to the hotel at about noon to wake Kitz up.
After a fairly frustrating morning, the rest of the day made up for it. We wandered around Florence and went to the Uffizi. Art just relaxes me and it did again. By the time I left, I wanted to think about life and wander the streets forever. But Kitz wanted to have good Italian food, so we found a nice restaurant with pizza. After seeing a Michelangelo, a Donatello, some Leonardos, and many Raphaels, I decided this was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles day. Splinter would be proud. But that was a nice day after all the confusion and getting lost and figuring out buses.
The next day we were up earlier to get to the Galleria Del'Acedemia to see David by our ticket time for 11 am with menthe and Coke granitas for breakfast to cool us down. With all this heat there come the inevitable mosquitos. I have never had more bites even when hiking and camping in the deep woods as I got in Milan two days later. Florence was not as bad and only had a few. After seeing and being amazed by David, we wandered. David is something that has been appropriated by pop culture for the most part, but the statue itself is amazing to behold. While at first I considered the head to be too large in proportion to the body, I eventually realized despite that fault, this was one of the most perfect statues I had seen. I have seen many statues, but my real love is painting/ two-dimensional art forms. I have not studied many statues with the time and intensity I thought David deserved. It was reminiscent of the ancient Roman and Greek statues' musculature but the balance and the preserved perfection of the statue is what makes it memorable. Just like the Mona Lisa, I think it has had a bit too much hype, but it still is beautiful.
Our wandering took us to Santa Croce, the oldest Franciscan Abbey in Florence. After marveling at that, we wandered over to the home of Michelangelo. The best part about that hot and stuffy house was the complete lack of people. There were three or four other tourists at most in the whole house. More people worked there. After that we did a bit of shopping then found another cafe just before the 20 minute rain shower. The same accordion player who was near our cafe last night was far too close tonight and talking was hard without raising our voices.
When we first decided to go to Florence, I couldn't help thinking about the movie & novel of A Room With A View by E. M. Forster. This may seem a bit strange but I love this movie. It may not be a very serious film but it is Merchant and Ivory at their best. But I didn't see anything from the movie in Florence, though my mind kept playing the soundtrack. The Florence from a movie is very different from a modern Florence, but still lovable in it's own way. It wasn't the winding narrow streets or getting honked at by Italian guys when I was looking scrubby in cut offs and an old t-shirt I had divested of collar (though these helped) that made me like Florence. It was the difference from France. I had been in France and northern Europe for so long, Italy seemed like another world and I liked the heat and the otherness as I adjusted to excellent waiters, hot weather, and a dream-like haze of antiquity.
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about small things, nothings and the somethings in between
1 comment:
I KNEW you'd like Florence if you gave it a chance! Here are a couple of things about the David: It was sculpted from a piece of marble that at least one other sculptor had already carved into, so it was flawed to begin with. Michelangelo took the challenge. It was also originally mounted on a much taller pedestal, so the screwy perspective is actually dead on from a certain height. When you remember those things, the work itself is that much more astounding. :)
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