click the photo for the link to the photosAll the people...
So many people...
Two lines from a song by Blur, I think, that I sang the entire week I was in Florence with my mother. I have never seen it so crowded. This is my 8th or 9th trip to Florence so I've seen it change quite a bit over the years and I have to say, I don't like who she's become. And yet, I still love the city. I just don't love that it is so overrun with tourism, in all the bad ways. As the Professor said it, the city has a bad case of tourist influenza.
But, that said, it was a great trip. After my aunties left Dublin, I threw my mother on a plane and we flew to Italy. She didn't know where we were going until we got to the airport. I had given her a choice of 4 cities. Any one she picked was fine with me, she had only to choose and I'd make all the arrangements. She didn't pick so I chose and then refused to give her the details. I even got my aunts to throw out various cities to mess with her.
I booked the flights to Bologna and as we sat on the plane she was telling me the places she's always dreamed about going. Then she said the sweetest thing ever: And some day, I'd love to got to Florence.
Whee....
So we went to Florence. The taxi dropped us off at the apartment I'd booked, which was in the centre of town. Dead smack in the middle of town. On the main shopping street. A mere 2 minute walk to the Duomo, and 4 to the Ufizzi gallery. I figured it would be worth it for the location, even if it was a bit noisy at night. It wasn't noisy at night, it was noisy in the mornings. I've never stayed this close to the duomo and I didn't know the bells started pealing the hours at 7am. And since you could actually see the bell tower from our living room window, we got to hear a lot of those bells.
But the apartment was lovely and every time we walked out the front door, mom sort of giggled. Literally, out the door and onto the pedestrianized shopping street. It was brilliant and I would absolutely stay there again.
My agenda was to steep Mom in the classic art of Italy. She's an artist you see, and Florence is the centre of the Renaissance, which is amazingly enough, the story of art. So I whisked her off to see the David. When I saw him the first time, 10 years ago, I walked in off the street and found myself in a room with him alone. We hung out together for about an hour before I headed back out into the streets. In the last couple years, a line has developed to see him that stretches close to 2 hours. Unless you have reservations, which I'd booked. So we presented ourselves at the appointed time and were told to wait in a line. he was quite rude about it, but I'll just skip over him and fast forward the 40 minutes to our entry thru the metal detectors, over the crowds and into the hallway leading to David.
David has his own room, at the end of the hall, so you can see him as soon as you turn the corner. She didn't say anything, so I'm not sure what she was looking at. I pointed out the sculptures that line the hall to her. They are studies done by Michelangelo for the tomb of Julius II, which is in the Vatican. I find them fascinating. Sketches of sculpture, done in marble, 8 to 10 feet high, unfinished but discernible. I think of the sketches I do before I've got a firm idea of what I'm doing and then I do it 'for real'. These blocks of marble are the same thing, but 3 and 4 tons of rock instead of a bit of butter paper.
When we walked into David's room, I heard Mom whisper: wow.
And then nothing.
I was worried she didn't like it or was offended by the fact that you cannot escape his very naked penis, which is about the size of my head. We walked around him, and then sat down on a bench, located directly over the air conditioning vent (best bench to have) and she told me, voice dripping with awe, that she had no idea it was such a large statue.
David is 18' tall and stands on a 6' high podium. But since he's in a room alone, and always photographed alone, he's scaleless. And he's huge.
We looked around the gallery for about 90 minutes and then left, Mom remarking how large the canvases were and how she was intimidated by her canvas sizes. Well, when you paint an alterpiece, it has to be large enough to fill the church.
I remember a study a few years ago about the correlation of artist's canvas size and the size of their studios. Kandinsky has two sizes of paintings generally: pre and post Bauhaus. When he was in Russia, in a cramped studio, his canvases are poster sized. When he moved to the Bauhaus and had run of the place, his canvases were room sized. I wonder what my mother would do if she had an entire double height loft to work in?
The following day I took her to San Gimignano, perhaps the most touristy of the hill towns surrounding Florence, but I love it there and I knew she'd like it. The city is lined with small shops of artists, wine shops (hello!), olive oil products, or pottery. Shopping in the medieval twisty streets of a city once renown for hundreds of towers... it's just something you need to experience on your first trip to Tuscany.
The bus drops tourists off at the main city gate. From there, it is a short walk up the street to the main piazza. And by up, I mean up. This is not called a hill town for nothing. San Gimi is hard walking sometimes and that first hill gets everyone. Usually in the same place. The last 1/4 of a block is a definite steepening of the hill. Amazingly, there is a small mini-piazza there, because it is where everyone stops to catch their breath. Then it's just a 30 second walk to the main piazza.
We had lunch in Piazza Cisterna, which is where the city's cistern is located. Very important thing to have in a city. Since all the Tuscan cities were warring in the Renaissance, being under seige was a common thing. A city can last significantly longer under seige with a fresh water supply. San Gimignano was one of the few hilltowns to withstand the capture by surrounding factions thru the ages.
After lunch we wandered over to the church, which I'm growing more and more fond of as I visit. This time it was my turn to wear the disposable blue modesty skirt. I wrapped it around my bare legs and we entered the very dim, very frescoed medieval church. Mom was immediately dizzy so we sat until she felt better. She gets thrown off balance in tall rooms we discovered. Not a great country to visit if that's the case.
I looked at the mural Hippie and I were discussing last time I was there, and then we exited, leaving my lovely frock behind. We sat on the steps for a bit, resting and undizzied, watching kids and pigeons and people take photos. Then we just wandered the city; in and out of shops, down the streets, out the city gate and into the hills beyond. The view from outside the city gates is amazing. Being on a hill offers many advantages and scenery is but one. We photographed and wandered a bit and then decided to head back inside the city walls.
I bought some gifts, she bought some gifts, we stopped for pastries and prosecco. The surrounding hills yield grapes and olives, so I was drinking a local champagne. It's hard to go wrong with bubbly in such an atmospheric surrounding. And San Gimi is steeped in atmosphere.
We shopped our way back to the bus stop and watched the sun set over the hills. By the time we got back to Florence, it was time for dinner. So I took her to a family favorite, Giannino in San Lorenzo.
This is a local restaurant my sister and I found on our trip to Florence. She was living in Zurich then so I went to visit and dragged her to Italy for a few days before Mom and our aunt arrived in Switzerland. We were the only ones in the restaurant that night and were having a grand time. As we waited for our bill to arrive, a waiter arrived, placed a bottle of vin Santo in the middle of the table and then put a sheet of paper and a pen on the table.
Please, I'm in a band and we need the words to this song.
My sister dutifully scribbled the words to Tears in Heaven for him, we had our vin santo and coffee and Fabrizzio got an eyeful of my sister, which was the whole point anyway.
After she left, I went back in one night for dinner. He waited on me and then changed my life forever. At the end of dinner he set a frozen stemmed shot glass on my table and poured me my first limoncello. I went back a lot after that.
When I arrived with Melanie and Hippie, I took them there for dinner one night. It's really good food but I was delighted to see the diplomas of Fabrizzio decorating the wall behind the bar. He had been studying restaurant and hotel management when we met him and he'd graduated by the time I was back. When I saw my sister the following week, I told her and we were so stupidly proud. But it was like running into an old friend.
So I took my mother there for dinner. And when we walked in, who was standing there but Fabrizzio himself. He's now the manager.
The following day I had reservations for the Ufizzi Galleries, something I've visited in all my trips. Unfortunately, I had in my mind that our reservations were for 4pm. They were actually for 10am. Crap. So we bolted over to the ticket office, prayed we were granted some mercy and then pushed my reservation form to the clerk. She didn't even bat an eye. We had our tickets and two minutes later were checking our bags and getting the audio tour headset.
I like the Ufizzi.
We wandered the galleries and I have to say, it wasn't what I expected. This is a world famous gallery, on par with the Lourve and the Met and frankly, it left us both underwhelmed. The most exciting things to see were the Botticellis, which I've never seen before. They are magnificent, I have to say. but if you aren't well versed in pre-, high, and post Renaissance Italian art, it's all just a bit obscure. But the building is quite nice. And the views over the Arno from the landing are worth the price of admission.
I think, however, our favorite part of the day was having lunch on the terrace, at the base of the tower for Plazzzo della Signoria, which was the city hall for centuries. (it's now an art museum) The food was just ok, but the view was amazing. And the entertainment was priceless.
Mom was seated next to a topiary that we discovered was home to a rather large bunch of sparrows. I know they're a mean bird, but I like sparrows; they're fun to watch. What we couldn't have anticipated was Mom feeding the sparrows out of her hand. Those are some tame buggers, I'll tell ya. She tore bits of her bread off and held it near the branches of the topiary. The birds would hop, hop, hop over to her and then grab the bread and disappear in the tree. We sat there for probably 30 minutes, hand feeding the birds. all that art below us and we're marvelling at unnatural nature.
It was a good day.
We spent the rest of our time in Florence wandering and shopping. I took her to my favorite shoe store where we both bought shoes. I told her the story of Florence as we wandered through the streets. We looked at every street artist on display. And then as we were returning from Oltrarno, happily fed, delightedly shod, a police car whizzed by on the street, lights and siren blaring. Not that exceptional until the following car whizzed by; a convertible with 3 Italian beauty queens sitting and waving at we the gawkers. It was very odd. Then another police car, and a minute later the bikers. There was a bike race thru the streets of Florence, ending very near by. So we watched and cheered as they zipped thru and then continued on our way.
You just never know what you're gonna get in Florence. I think it's part of the charm, tourists and all.
The next morning, we woke early and made our way to the street to wait for the taxi. It was still dark and the streets were empty. I'd left most of my paycheck in the shops and mom left with a beautiful watercolor from San Gimi. On the train back to Bologna, she photographed the countryside and I read an Italian newspaper. She just kept saying, the entire trip really, that she couldn't believe she was there, seeing those things, doing all of this. I think I overwhelmed her. I'd been aiming to thrill her.
Mission accomplished.
So many people...
Two lines from a song by Blur, I think, that I sang the entire week I was in Florence with my mother. I have never seen it so crowded. This is my 8th or 9th trip to Florence so I've seen it change quite a bit over the years and I have to say, I don't like who she's become. And yet, I still love the city. I just don't love that it is so overrun with tourism, in all the bad ways. As the Professor said it, the city has a bad case of tourist influenza.
But, that said, it was a great trip. After my aunties left Dublin, I threw my mother on a plane and we flew to Italy. She didn't know where we were going until we got to the airport. I had given her a choice of 4 cities. Any one she picked was fine with me, she had only to choose and I'd make all the arrangements. She didn't pick so I chose and then refused to give her the details. I even got my aunts to throw out various cities to mess with her.
I booked the flights to Bologna and as we sat on the plane she was telling me the places she's always dreamed about going. Then she said the sweetest thing ever: And some day, I'd love to got to Florence.
Whee....
So we went to Florence. The taxi dropped us off at the apartment I'd booked, which was in the centre of town. Dead smack in the middle of town. On the main shopping street. A mere 2 minute walk to the Duomo, and 4 to the Ufizzi gallery. I figured it would be worth it for the location, even if it was a bit noisy at night. It wasn't noisy at night, it was noisy in the mornings. I've never stayed this close to the duomo and I didn't know the bells started pealing the hours at 7am. And since you could actually see the bell tower from our living room window, we got to hear a lot of those bells.
But the apartment was lovely and every time we walked out the front door, mom sort of giggled. Literally, out the door and onto the pedestrianized shopping street. It was brilliant and I would absolutely stay there again.
My agenda was to steep Mom in the classic art of Italy. She's an artist you see, and Florence is the centre of the Renaissance, which is amazingly enough, the story of art. So I whisked her off to see the David. When I saw him the first time, 10 years ago, I walked in off the street and found myself in a room with him alone. We hung out together for about an hour before I headed back out into the streets. In the last couple years, a line has developed to see him that stretches close to 2 hours. Unless you have reservations, which I'd booked. So we presented ourselves at the appointed time and were told to wait in a line. he was quite rude about it, but I'll just skip over him and fast forward the 40 minutes to our entry thru the metal detectors, over the crowds and into the hallway leading to David.
David has his own room, at the end of the hall, so you can see him as soon as you turn the corner. She didn't say anything, so I'm not sure what she was looking at. I pointed out the sculptures that line the hall to her. They are studies done by Michelangelo for the tomb of Julius II, which is in the Vatican. I find them fascinating. Sketches of sculpture, done in marble, 8 to 10 feet high, unfinished but discernible. I think of the sketches I do before I've got a firm idea of what I'm doing and then I do it 'for real'. These blocks of marble are the same thing, but 3 and 4 tons of rock instead of a bit of butter paper.
When we walked into David's room, I heard Mom whisper: wow.
And then nothing.
I was worried she didn't like it or was offended by the fact that you cannot escape his very naked penis, which is about the size of my head. We walked around him, and then sat down on a bench, located directly over the air conditioning vent (best bench to have) and she told me, voice dripping with awe, that she had no idea it was such a large statue.
David is 18' tall and stands on a 6' high podium. But since he's in a room alone, and always photographed alone, he's scaleless. And he's huge.
We looked around the gallery for about 90 minutes and then left, Mom remarking how large the canvases were and how she was intimidated by her canvas sizes. Well, when you paint an alterpiece, it has to be large enough to fill the church.
I remember a study a few years ago about the correlation of artist's canvas size and the size of their studios. Kandinsky has two sizes of paintings generally: pre and post Bauhaus. When he was in Russia, in a cramped studio, his canvases are poster sized. When he moved to the Bauhaus and had run of the place, his canvases were room sized. I wonder what my mother would do if she had an entire double height loft to work in?
The following day I took her to San Gimignano, perhaps the most touristy of the hill towns surrounding Florence, but I love it there and I knew she'd like it. The city is lined with small shops of artists, wine shops (hello!), olive oil products, or pottery. Shopping in the medieval twisty streets of a city once renown for hundreds of towers... it's just something you need to experience on your first trip to Tuscany.
The bus drops tourists off at the main city gate. From there, it is a short walk up the street to the main piazza. And by up, I mean up. This is not called a hill town for nothing. San Gimi is hard walking sometimes and that first hill gets everyone. Usually in the same place. The last 1/4 of a block is a definite steepening of the hill. Amazingly, there is a small mini-piazza there, because it is where everyone stops to catch their breath. Then it's just a 30 second walk to the main piazza.
We had lunch in Piazza Cisterna, which is where the city's cistern is located. Very important thing to have in a city. Since all the Tuscan cities were warring in the Renaissance, being under seige was a common thing. A city can last significantly longer under seige with a fresh water supply. San Gimignano was one of the few hilltowns to withstand the capture by surrounding factions thru the ages.
After lunch we wandered over to the church, which I'm growing more and more fond of as I visit. This time it was my turn to wear the disposable blue modesty skirt. I wrapped it around my bare legs and we entered the very dim, very frescoed medieval church. Mom was immediately dizzy so we sat until she felt better. She gets thrown off balance in tall rooms we discovered. Not a great country to visit if that's the case.
I looked at the mural Hippie and I were discussing last time I was there, and then we exited, leaving my lovely frock behind. We sat on the steps for a bit, resting and undizzied, watching kids and pigeons and people take photos. Then we just wandered the city; in and out of shops, down the streets, out the city gate and into the hills beyond. The view from outside the city gates is amazing. Being on a hill offers many advantages and scenery is but one. We photographed and wandered a bit and then decided to head back inside the city walls.
I bought some gifts, she bought some gifts, we stopped for pastries and prosecco. The surrounding hills yield grapes and olives, so I was drinking a local champagne. It's hard to go wrong with bubbly in such an atmospheric surrounding. And San Gimi is steeped in atmosphere.
We shopped our way back to the bus stop and watched the sun set over the hills. By the time we got back to Florence, it was time for dinner. So I took her to a family favorite, Giannino in San Lorenzo.
This is a local restaurant my sister and I found on our trip to Florence. She was living in Zurich then so I went to visit and dragged her to Italy for a few days before Mom and our aunt arrived in Switzerland. We were the only ones in the restaurant that night and were having a grand time. As we waited for our bill to arrive, a waiter arrived, placed a bottle of vin Santo in the middle of the table and then put a sheet of paper and a pen on the table.
Please, I'm in a band and we need the words to this song.
My sister dutifully scribbled the words to Tears in Heaven for him, we had our vin santo and coffee and Fabrizzio got an eyeful of my sister, which was the whole point anyway.
After she left, I went back in one night for dinner. He waited on me and then changed my life forever. At the end of dinner he set a frozen stemmed shot glass on my table and poured me my first limoncello. I went back a lot after that.
When I arrived with Melanie and Hippie, I took them there for dinner one night. It's really good food but I was delighted to see the diplomas of Fabrizzio decorating the wall behind the bar. He had been studying restaurant and hotel management when we met him and he'd graduated by the time I was back. When I saw my sister the following week, I told her and we were so stupidly proud. But it was like running into an old friend.
So I took my mother there for dinner. And when we walked in, who was standing there but Fabrizzio himself. He's now the manager.
The following day I had reservations for the Ufizzi Galleries, something I've visited in all my trips. Unfortunately, I had in my mind that our reservations were for 4pm. They were actually for 10am. Crap. So we bolted over to the ticket office, prayed we were granted some mercy and then pushed my reservation form to the clerk. She didn't even bat an eye. We had our tickets and two minutes later were checking our bags and getting the audio tour headset.
I like the Ufizzi.
We wandered the galleries and I have to say, it wasn't what I expected. This is a world famous gallery, on par with the Lourve and the Met and frankly, it left us both underwhelmed. The most exciting things to see were the Botticellis, which I've never seen before. They are magnificent, I have to say. but if you aren't well versed in pre-, high, and post Renaissance Italian art, it's all just a bit obscure. But the building is quite nice. And the views over the Arno from the landing are worth the price of admission.
I think, however, our favorite part of the day was having lunch on the terrace, at the base of the tower for Plazzzo della Signoria, which was the city hall for centuries. (it's now an art museum) The food was just ok, but the view was amazing. And the entertainment was priceless.
Mom was seated next to a topiary that we discovered was home to a rather large bunch of sparrows. I know they're a mean bird, but I like sparrows; they're fun to watch. What we couldn't have anticipated was Mom feeding the sparrows out of her hand. Those are some tame buggers, I'll tell ya. She tore bits of her bread off and held it near the branches of the topiary. The birds would hop, hop, hop over to her and then grab the bread and disappear in the tree. We sat there for probably 30 minutes, hand feeding the birds. all that art below us and we're marvelling at unnatural nature.
It was a good day.
We spent the rest of our time in Florence wandering and shopping. I took her to my favorite shoe store where we both bought shoes. I told her the story of Florence as we wandered through the streets. We looked at every street artist on display. And then as we were returning from Oltrarno, happily fed, delightedly shod, a police car whizzed by on the street, lights and siren blaring. Not that exceptional until the following car whizzed by; a convertible with 3 Italian beauty queens sitting and waving at we the gawkers. It was very odd. Then another police car, and a minute later the bikers. There was a bike race thru the streets of Florence, ending very near by. So we watched and cheered as they zipped thru and then continued on our way.
You just never know what you're gonna get in Florence. I think it's part of the charm, tourists and all.
The next morning, we woke early and made our way to the street to wait for the taxi. It was still dark and the streets were empty. I'd left most of my paycheck in the shops and mom left with a beautiful watercolor from San Gimi. On the train back to Bologna, she photographed the countryside and I read an Italian newspaper. She just kept saying, the entire trip really, that she couldn't believe she was there, seeing those things, doing all of this. I think I overwhelmed her. I'd been aiming to thrill her.
Mission accomplished.
1 comment:
Italy was the best vacation we'd ever had (2001), with Tuscany being the highlight. San Gimignano....well, you're right, you just have to experience it. Next time, TAKE ME!!!
-Luke
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