This is my diary of ten days in Florence in June 2002. At the time,
Tuscany was sizzling in a heatwave -- high thirties instead of the
expected high twenties. That's why you may detect a preoccupation with
the temperatures or keeping cool. I tended to write up my diary each
day, usually before going out each evening, so you may find the use of
past, present and future tenses a bit erratic.
Tuesday:
No probs with travel. Even
the 4-hour wait in Stansted was tolerable. The bus through Bologna was
slow, but I got the train I predicted. I bought the train ticket from
one of the many auto machines (big queues at the manned desks). Very
clever system - it booked my specific seat too. (While the train was en
route from Milano.)
I arrived at SMN in Florence and began to walk to the apartment. It was
very, very hot. And crowded. And a bit scruffy. I was thinking to
myself: "Oh dear. Here I am in Florence and it's not wonderful yet."
It's OK. That came later.
I was shown the apartment by Mrs Bacci, who knows as little English as
I do Italian, but we had no problems. It's compact: being fitted right
into the roof space (you can feel the underside of the roof tiles. They
get hot on the sunny side.). The bed is squeezed onto a gallery above
the living room.
I went out for a walk and bought some
supplies: water and wine. Then around half-eight I went looking for
something to eat. Piazza Santo Spirito is about a hundred metres away
and has several restaurants. I recognised one from a previous visit, so
I picked it. I had the pasta course and a main course with a bottle of
wine. The chicken of the main course seemed a little underdone, so I
didn't finish it, but see later.
For some reason I was unable to understand, a large, brightly-lit bar
had been erected in the middle of the square, while a projection screen
was set up at one end. Families were watching what seemed to be an
Italian "Lassie" film. Meanwhile, most of the square was filled with
people, mostly young, having a good time. I sat nursing one beer for
quite a long time (I'd alread had the wine) just enjoying the ambience,
and then made my weary way home.
The night was very hot, and I'd gone out without making a point of
working out the air conditioning, so sleep was a bit disturbed. Then,
in
the morning I woke up feeling sick, and within a short time was sick.
In
the toilet. I'll bet it was the chicken.
Wednesday:
[p.s. massive air
travel disruption today due to strikes]
I put the aircon on full and went back to
bed, feeling a bit better. Didn't get up until about ten. I left the
apartment and walked up the steep and winding road to Piazzale
Michelangelo, for that panoramic view of Florence. There was almost
no-one around: just one pretty redhead. I took that as a good omen.
I carried on up to San Miniato al Monte. Still not too many tourists. I
spent the hottest part of the day sitting on the steps of the church,
in
its shade, and then in the early afternoon headed for the city centre.
Two more long rest stops: in the cathedral, which was blissfully cool;
then San Lorenzo cloister, my favourite.
I explored a bit on the way back (despite having walked a lot for one
day already) and returned home for a late siesta before going out for a
meal. I bought some pasta and sauce so that I can do my own "light"
dinner some night. However, this night I felt like a pizza (sort of
crispy round the edges) so I went into town.
After a bit of exploration, I ended up in an expensive, touristy joint
on the Piazza della Signoria. They do have one advantage I'd remembered
from before: huge (presumably one litre) goblet of beer. After the
meal,
and some sitting around in the square, I headed for home. I was quite
tired and thought an early night would be good. But as I crossed the
bridge to "my" side of the river, I realised that there were throngs of
people converging on somewhere, so I followed.
It turned out that they were heading for the Palazzo Pitti, and the
huge square was packed with people. After a short wait, loud
avant-garde
music began to blast out and there began what I can only describe as a
vertical dance extravaganza, with dancers flying on wires, harnesses,
slides; all against the face of the Palazzo. Then there were the
enormous egg-timers, each with a gyrating body inside, high on the two
palace wings. And the light show. And the fireworks.
It was only a short walk home and I was in bed by midnight.
Thursday:
The plan was to do
the Pitti Palace (just clearing up after last night), then the Boboli
Gardens. One of my guide books says of the gallery in the Pitti that
the
pictures are badly lit and badly arranged, which is quite true, but
it's
still very interesting. There was a small visiting Islamic-world
exhibition which I enjoyed; then the Royal Apartments -- how the other
half lived -- and then into the gardens.
I climbed (in the heat) to near the highest point and treated myself to
a cold beer in the Kaffeehaus (standing at the bar: it's cheaper).
Great
views over the city from here. My camera was showing "dead battery",
but
continued to work until I was at the statue of "Plenty". I sat in the
cool of the statue pediment for quite a long time. Then a pretty French
woman came and sat on the adjoining side of the pediment and I decided
to use her blonde hair as a "compositional element" to frame a photo,
and it was then that the camera stopped working. I had to enjoy the
rest
of the gardens without photos. What a hardship.
I returned to the city centre and found a camera shop where I got a new
battery and made my way to Santa Croce. I like to go and pay my
respects
to Galileo, Leonardo, Fermi and Marconi (and all the other dead people)
but this time I wanted to see the cloisters and Brunelleschi's chapel,
which, unaccountably, I'd never visited. It was well worth it, and no
tourists to speak of. (Mr B designed the big dome of the cathedral too,
of course).
Then I returned to the railway station to reconnoitre. They have those
wonderful clever ticket machines. However, my choices for Lucca
tomorrow
are 0943 or 1138. I'll try to get the early one. I went home and made
my
own meal. There's something big happening in Piazza della Signoria
(sound and light rigs) so I'm going out for a look around ten.
It was "more of the same" as last night -- the same company,
presumably, but this time with more action above the heads of the
crowd.
Oh, and two enormous inflated balls that rolled across the Piazza, each
with a dancer suspended inside. And a big helium balloon with a girl
dangling below. Vertical ballet down the face of the town hall by
abseilers. No fireworks this time, but definitely a real "spettacola".
Friday:
I had to get up early to get the train to Lucca. Well, it was scheduled
for 0943, and I had to get my ticket and find the right platform and so
on. OK, so it wasn't that early, but I was on holiday. The train left
20
minutes late and was a stop-at-every-station one, but apart from that
the journey was fine. In fact, I was well impressed by Italian
railways.
The train was modern and comfortable and my fare for the one hour
journey was under four euros each way.
Stupidly, I hadn't brought my map of Lucca and Lucca without a map was
strangely confusing (shades of "lost in Santa Croce without a
Baedeker")
even on my third trip. After a while a nice girl in the town hall
tourist office gave me a free map, and that helped a lot.
There was only time to look around, and sit around, and have lunch, and
sit around some more. And have an ice cream. I got the six o'clock
train
back. On the way through Montecatini Terme, I saw the gates of the Park
Hotel Le Sorgenti, where I stayed last year (and can never go back).
After a quick freshen-up at the apartment, I went out and had dinner at
the main square. Last night's performance, it seemed, was just a dress
rehearsal. Or rather a dressed
rehearsal. The dancers on the vertical stage were wearing less --
lovely
long, bare legs. And that was just the boys. This time, expenses ran to
two big helium balloons hoisting dancers high in the air, and timing
and
execution were all a bit tighter.
I came home via Piazza Santo Spirito again, and I understand now. The
square is a pub. As simple as
that. I stayed for a quick one.
Saturday:
I'd prebooked my Uffizi ticket (on the Internet, of course), and
although there wasn't a huge queue, it was nice to get the VIP
treatment.
With so many paintings to compare, you can actually see why the famous
names rate so highly, although there were some artists I'd never heard
of who seemed pretty good to me. Can't remember their names now, of
course. There was one big Leonardo, an "Annuciation", where he was
showing off his technical brilliance, but I thought that there was a
lack of feeling. And something about the detail of the perspective
looked suspect. He really should have invented that camera.
One thing that struck me was that many artists, say up to about the end
of the sixteenth Century, had trouble with the female figure. You'd
have, say, Adam looking anatomically normal, but Eve with no hips and a
muscular torso. I can hardly imaging that they never had a nude life
model, and anyway, there were all those classical statues being dug up,
but there you are. (Look at Ammanati's sculpture of Leda and the Swan
in
the Bargello Museum, for example. She looks like a body builder. And
not
necessarily a female one.)
I had a beer and a small sandwich for lunch, at a breathtaking eleven
euros, on the roof of the Loggia dei Lanzi. I'd wondered what was up
there. A couple were having wedding photos taken.
There was a new extra exhibition in the museum on the myth of Europa,
its portrayal in European art, and its relationship to the political
environment through time. Hmmm.
I stayed for an astounding 5½ hours, then exited to sit around
in the aforementioned Loggia for a while. I headed for home and called
in to see Santo Spirito church (designed by Brunelleschi). If it was on
the other side of the Arno, it would be bunged with tourists, but there
were only a few. One thing I found interesting was that the church
continued to be patronised by the rich (for example the Antinori and
Frescobaldi) and some of the earlier and better paintings got displaced
by newer ones in the 1600s and 1700s. The "old junk" is now in the
world's great museums in London, Belin, Washington etc.
I'd decided to go local for a meal in Piazza Santo Spirito. But not in
the place that poisoned me. I happened to pick the trendiest place -
Borgo Antico - and happened on a time when I actually got a seat.
Air-con indoors or sticky out: I wanted outside. This incidentally
meant
that I got the free floor show of watching the trendy people waiting
for
a table. There was one girl with a Betty Boop hair cut, halter dress
and
killer high-heel boots... [at some point, I'm going to do an insightful
insert on Italian women. Look out for it.]
Also, the waitress was cute: a face fit for any Uffizi painting; and a
miniskirt illegal in most jurisdictions. It was probably the best meal
I've had in Florence so far, and I had a bottle of Frescobaldi rosso to
celebrate.
Sunday:
is a day of rest. My plan was to get up late and take a picnic lunch to
Le Cascine park. I made formaggi e pomodori sandwiches and took a
bottle
of wine, and one of water, packed my novel to read, and off I went. The
park is so big I only wandered through one corner of it. I passed the
busy lido and found a park bench, where I parked myself. I was quite
near a football pitch which hosted a couple of matches while I was
there. I don't know how they do it in that heat. I was under the shady
trees.
Across at the opposite corner of the pitch, someone was
playing samba-type music very loud over a PA. The people near me
watching the match were all very dark-skinned, although speaking
Italian. Still, I began to think I'd accidentally crossed over into
Latin America.
At one point an evangelical with an amplifier (the worst sort)
demonstrated that she could speak rapidly for twenty minutes without
breathing. It would probably have been more annoying if I'd understood
what she was saying, but I was able to filter it out.
On the way back, I came across a weird pyramid tomb, gloomy among the
trees. It's not in my guidebooks!
A quiet evening in tonght. No, not even out to the "local" in Piazza
Santo Spirito.
Monday San Giovanni
Battista:
Today was a day with no objectives other than catching some of the St.
John's day pagentry. Still, the achievement of even this modest aim
was,
at best, qualified.
First of all, not being an early riser, I arrived in the Piazza della
Signoria just as the drums and tambours of the parade were leaving
earshot. I had to head them off at the pass, and then caught them again
entering the Baptistery. I got some good photos -- even, eventually, of
the flag-jugglers flags in mid air. The "football" teams, at the end of
the procession, looked tough: shaven heads, earrings, tattoos, bulging
muscles.
San
Giovanni Picture Page
I'd just learned from Dava Sobel's book "Galileo's
Daughter" that Suor Marie Celeste seemed to have been interred with her
beloved father Galileo (once the Church could stomach giving him a
proper burial, a couple of generations after his death), so I had to go
back to Santa Croce and see the tomb again, and standing at it, I
quietly murmured her name. What a life she might have had if she's been
born in my century.
Some years ago, it had been possible to sneak a look at the medieval
football game - the "Calcio in Costume" - because although access to
the
grandstands in Piazza Santa Croce was by ticket, you could still peer
in
at the corners. This year, police had closed off all roads for a
hundred
metres in every direction from the Piazza. I know: I walked all the way
round. It would have been possible to get a ticket for the non-reserved
stand, but I'd have been in the direct sun, so I thought I'd leave it
to
those who cared about the results.
A gospel choir was singing outside the Palazzo Vecchio in the early
evening. I caught their last number. The one that goes: A-men.
A-A-A-men. A-men. etc. OK, maybe not very imaginative lyrics, but it
kind of works.
Then, because of slow service at the restaurant I'd chosen, I missed
the first half of the fireworks. Rushing to get a good view, I ran into
a solid wall of humanity at the river arch of the Uffizi. I lost more
time struggling back out to get across the Ponte Vecchio and up the far
side of the Arno to near the Ponte alle Grazie for the optimum view of
the finale.
I decided to take the "scenic" route back, crossing the bridge and
going back for a look at life in the Piazza della Signoria. Huge number
of people and scooters blocked all ways. That was enough for one night:
I made my way home.
Tuesday:
At first I thought the fates were conspiring against me today. I got a
card in the letterbox to say that the electricity was to be off from 8
to 11, and I didn't need to be out until 9. Then I realised that no
workmen in the world would be so prompt, and especially not in Italy. I
was right, though the power was shut off some time during the day when
I
was out.
Navigation has become not simply the business of getting from A to B,
but of choosing the route that is most shady. The only river crossing
with shade, for example, is the Ponte Vecchio; the other bridges are
very long and exposed. Taking a brief rest on the steps of the Duomo
(in
its shade!) I saw two beggar women working the passers by. They were
using the old "sick husband" scam, with a touching photo of the poor
man
in hospital, surrounded by his worried children. The effect was
diminshed by the fact that both women had the same husband and photo. I
think one of them mistook my knowing look for use of the "evil eye":
she
carefully spat sideways when passing me. She'd have known all about it
if I'd cursed her and meant it.
I made my way to the Accademia, where I had a reservation
for 10:00. Of course I had a reservation. What sort of peasant do you
take me for? Unfortunately the queue of non-peasants was hundreds of
metres long. (Scarecely shorter than the no-res queue.) I suppose a
coupe of booked tours had arrived at once.
I decided to abandon the whole idea, and my pre-paid entrance fee, and
go to nearby Ss. Annunziata church, which I'd intended to visit later
anyway. But mass was starting at 10:00, and I didn't want to intrude.
(Being a heathen & capable of casting curses and all that.) After
sitting under the arches for a moment, I thought I'd check the queue
again. Twenty people or so! So I reverted to Plan A and went to see the
galleries.
Most tourists are content to see "David" and leave it at that. In fact
just leave. But there
are other interesting things, like Michelangelo's other "Prisoners"
scuptures. When I visited, they also had an additional exhibition of
historical musical instruments - with multimedia. Unfortunately, you
couldn't touch the real instuments.
After the Accademia, and the return to Santissima Annunziata
(miraculous painting indeed. pah! Pretty little entrace courtyard
though.), I decided to fit in a tour of the Pallazo Vecchio. To me it's
the symbol of republican government in Florence, crudely stamped with
the power of the returning authoritarian Grand Duke. Portrayed as
inheritors of the Roman gods. Very subtle. (not). Bring back Savonarola!
The best bit is the gallery or loggia that runs right round the top of
the main block (you aren't allowed into the tower). Cool breezes and
great views. The mechanism for lowering one of the aerobatic dancers
was
still attached. She'd been suspended face-down and spreadeagled high
above the very hard pavement of the piazza. Even the thought of it
makes
me nervous.
I'm eating a la casa tonight to use up my food. Tomorrow is my last
full day!
Wednesday:
I can't believe it's my last day before travelling tomorrow. I'd walked
about 20 paces up the street this morning before realising that it was
overcast and reasonably cool. What a relief! It stayed that way until
mid-afternoon, and then it got hot again.
There was only one more museum I wanted to visit on this trip: the
Bargello. Although the original town hall of the early Commune
government, it soon became Police Headquarters, and then a prison. My
guidebook says a rough translation of the name might be "The Screws".
Interesting things: a few Michelangelos; Donatellos; loads of della
Robbias (there was a whole clan of them: they all did polychrome
ceramics, some very large. Gaudy, but striking.)
Then I changed a few old lire notes I had. I asked in a "normal" bank
(well, Banco Ambrosiano, actually!) and was told to go to Banca
d'Italia. I'd guessed that this might be the case and had looked up its
location - there is only one branch in Florence - and I got my money
changed, but what else they do there was a bit of a mystery. I suppose
the Bank of England might look the same. And they don't have provincial
branches at all.
It suddenly struck me that since I was having a slight Galileo theme
this holiday, I might as well have a look at the History of Science
museum. It's not too big, and you do get to see some of his things,
like
his books, telescopes, lenses and right middle finger. I think the
latter is his enduring message to the Church.
They're doing their best, but to be honest, the rest of the museum is a
bit dull, even to a scientist. Just loads of old scientific
instruments.
Although you should see the size of Duke Leopold's chemistry set.
Traveller's tip: handy clean toilets in the basement, and if you're
quick you can slip past the ticket-seller to use them.
Final night: out for a
meal in the city centre. I might have a look at the options in Piazza
della Republica, although it's supposed to be in the tourist-fleecing
business.
Thursday:
There are trains every hour to Bologna. I'd decided to go early and
spend a few hours having a look round. Mrs. Bacci came round and I
handed back the keys, with an attack of the bad linguistics hitting me.
I really will have to put in more practice with the Italian before next
time. When she asked "Tutto bene?" with a smile, it was all I could do
to nod vigorously. Yes, everything was great.
The apartment had been
fine. Big enough for a couple (hey, I'm still hoping) but even with the
two sofa beds in the main room, it would be a bit claustrophobic for a
family. The air-conditioning had been a godsend in the heatwave: I'd
taken to running it low while I was out for the evening, so that the
flat was deliciously cool when I returned. Look, it even appears on the city maps. It's the
little attic bit sticking out of the top.
You can also see on the map how close I was to the 'nightlife' of
Piazza Santo Spirito. The black blob is the "You are here." mark,
because the piazza was where I took the photograph of the map. They're
all over the city - obviously for the tourists - but I think they look
great.
Bye-bye Via de' Serragli
There was a little confusion at the station over the platform number
for the train. It's the Eurostar from Rome to Milan (or vice versa) and
stops only at Florence and Bologna. Luxurious, clean, quiet and
laughably cheap. That's the way to do railways.
In Bologna station, I found the
left luggage office and deposited my bag. Then at the station bookshop,
I bought their one English guidebook for the city, which had a nice
map.
(I discovered later that it was mis-bound, and had pages 73-96
duplicated, and no 49-72, but it has a nice map) I only had three hours
to spend, so it was only a taster for Bologna.
First impressions: a town for the shopaholic. While Florence does have
all the big names, Bologna has them and more. If Italian style is what
you're after, then it could be the place. I've never been to Milan
(yet), but I imagine it's even more stylish.
Even better for the shopper, almost every street in the city centre has
covered loggias or porticos for pavements, so in the heat of summer, or
the rain of winter you're protected from the elements.
The loggias vary in
style and date, from the 19th Century back to Medieval, as do the
buildings of the city. The landmark buildings are a pair of early
towers, called, with striking originality, "le Due Torri". Equally inventively,
the fine, large square in the centre is called "Piazza Maggiore".
The Piazza is
surrounded by beautiful Renaissance buildings, and has a Neptune
fountain. In the next block Westwards is the Palazzo d'Accursio - "Palace of the
Accursed", I thought, but apparently not. It was named after an early
resident, Francesco d'Accursio, a professor of law. It has a wall with
memorials to the anti-fascist partisans killed, in combat, or by
execution, during the Second World War.
I had a nice time in Bologna, though I never had a chance to sample
much of the famous cuisine. Mind you, just don't ask how they make
proper mortadella. I'd go back, perhaps not for as long as the ten days
in Florence, unless it was as a base for wider exploration.
But this time, I had to get back to the station to collect my case,
catch the airport bus, and head for home. Everything was on time, so I
was able to catch an earlier plane from Stansted to Belfast, and was
home well before bedtime.
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