I recently returned from a great European adventure which took me to grand capitols, remote villages, and everywhere in between. Adventure was had, maidens were rescued, dragons slain, and everywhere I went they sung songs of my great deeds. I will, over the next several days, regale you with a city by city account of my heroic actions.
FlorenceEverything about Florence seems to be colored with a mild violet, like diluted wine. - Henry James
We, that is to say Maverick, Lena, and myself, embarked for Florence from Munich at the end of March. They say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. For us March went out like a trio of obnoxious drunks in our rail car. We boarded the train and went to our cabin, only to be greeted by three toasted passengers informing us the cabin was "full up!" We were too dumbstruck to respond right away so they then ask, we're in Munich mind you, "Para Ingles?" Not wanting to sit with them, we found a different cabin with only one guy in it, who left after a few stops.
After a very restless night which involved me sleeping a spell on the floor of the cabin in order to facilitate the stretching out of legs and laying in a horizontal position, we arrived in Florence, Italy, capitol of Tuscany and home of some of the world's greatest works of art.
I suppose here as a good a point as any to outline one of the charming little quirks of our trip. Lena, evidently preparing for the worst, packed what I can only assume were all her earthly belongings into a large suitcase, large bag, small bag, and purse. The combined weight of these wares was not able to be calculated with the crude methods we had at our disposal, but I imagine it would have been, well, a lot. The fun part about all this was that Lena was not capable of moving with all of these bags at the same time, forcing Maverick and I into the role of
porters. If I were to describe my feelings whenever I was charged with moving one of these bags up or down a flight of stairs, pleasure would not be the first word to come to mind. Indeed, the ordeal normally began with frustration which slowly morphed into furious anger and then collapsed in defeat as I realized leaving the suitcase, or Lena, behind were not realistic options. Below I have constructed a graph, with some scientific accuracy, of the terribleness of carrying Lena's gargantuan suitcase.
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But on to happier things. Our hostel in Florence was actually a room in this giant apartment. The room was large, we had a view of the street and music flowed in from the performers below every afternoon. It was marvelous. Nearby was a little restaurant where we would get breakfast called La Badia. At first our attempts at Italian were quite poor. Maverick, in fact, actually ordered "La Badia," the restaurant itself, mistaking it for the sandwich he wanted. The man, however, spoke English and all was well. Eventually Maverick and I ordered from a woman there entirely in Italian and so she charged us less. That was awesome. It was only made sweeter when Lena came by later and had to pay full price for her hot chocolate.
As to the sites in Florence, we saw the Duomo and explored the crypt underneath. We also climbed the Campanile next door and went into the Bapistry. Great Renaissance art and architecture. Ghiberti's Doors of Paradise were awesome.
We visited the Uffizi Gallerly and saw lots of art, including a few da Vinci's. The highlight for me, though, was the room of Botticellis, including
Primavera and
The Birth of Venus.
After several botched attempts due to our not wanting to wait in line, we got into the Academy and viewed
Michelangelo's David, which you might have heard of.
We visited the Medici palace (not the Pitti palace), saw the sculptures at Orsanmichele, walked across the Ponte Vecchio, saw the Massacio frescoes in Cappella Brancacci (amazing!), and saw the outside of a number of other churches and palaces which we did not have time to explore in greater detail.
On our last day we walked up near Forte Belvedere on the south side of the Arno and then across towards Piazzale Michelangelo through some less developed, really beautiful areas. It was a great walk. Before we climbed up to the Piazzale, we stopped to get some bread, cheese, and a bottle of wine. The wine selected was a random bottle of rosé; the selection at this shop was not large. The man told us it was sweet, which we took to mean not dry, which was fine by us. Something a little sweeter was fine for our afternoon in the park. Had he spoken better English, or we better Italian, I'm sure he would have not used the word sweet, but instead 16% alcohol by volume cough syrup. We finished it anyway, but it was a mighty struggle.
That evening, our final in Florence, we went out for gelato. We went into the store and I, in a very scoops-of-ice-cream frame of reference, pointed to the middle sized bowl the had available, told her the flavor I wanted (pistachio, baby!) and waited for my tasty treat. She then, using both arms, heaved the most heaping bowl of gelato I had ever seen over the counter. I couldn't have eaten this in two sittings if I had tried. It was to normal gelato what Lena's bags were to normal bags, if that gives you an idea. I turned to Maverick, who hadn't ordered yet, and asked him to help me eat it. He looked at me, turned, and ordered a chocolate for himself. Claims there was a delayed reaction, but I think he just wanted to see me suffer. I go to the counter to pay: 10 Euros. Fuck! I was too stunned to make any daring escape. In retrospect I probably would have told them I wanted to snag a water too and then just bolted out of the store. I finished about a third of it before throwing it away, a single tear running down my cheek. That event certainly made the parting with Florence a little easier.
Next up, Rome.
Florence pictures here.Current Mood: 
good
Current Music: The Hysterics - Uptight Staircase
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