And we’re back.

Wednesday, Florence.

From the Ponte Vecchio, we hiked over to Il Duomo, the central cathedral.

Known as Il Duomo (“The Dome”), the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore has become the symbol of Florence itself. Started in the 1200s, it wasn’t finished until Brunelleschi designed and constructed the dome in the 1400s.  If you don’t know the story of the design/construction of the dome, go read up.  It’s astounding.  It was the first octagonal dome in history to be built without scaffolding to hold it up while it was being built, and it remains the largest brick dome in the world.

The campanile was designed by Giotto…

… and the doors to the Baptistery (across the plaza) were designed by Ghiberti, who competed with Brunelleschi for the design of the dome.

Made of gilded bronze, they’re known as the “Gates of Paradise” due to their beauty:

The cathedral is decorated with polychromatic marble and is striking on the outside.

We were assured that the interior is actually a little disappointing after the exterior, plus the line to get in was four hours long, so we crossed that off our list for the afternoon free time.

Onward to the Academie, where we skipped what Ignazio called the “sad line,” i.e., those who were in line to buy tickets, and got into the “happy line,” those of us on guided tours.  More about that in a moment.

We were there to see the actual David. After getting through security — everywhere has security — we dawdled for a moment in the first room before being led into the next room:

Gotta say, this is a thing of beauty, incredible beauty. It’s not something you can shrug off. You gasp as you turn the corner into the hall, and there he is.

Along the way on either side are four of the “Slaves”: unfinished sculptures from the ill-fated tomb of Pope Julius II, Michelangelo’s patron/nemesis.  They all seem to be struggling to free themselves from the stone.

But that David.

He’s huge: 17 feet tall. Originally conceived as decoration for one of the churches, he was carved from a single block of marble that had been lying around Florence for 30 years; flawed, no one wanted to use it until Michelangelo selected it for this work. It took him two years to complete, and by that time the city fathers realized it was going to be impractical to hoist him to the top of the church, so they put him (after a lot of debate) in front of City Hall as a symbol of political defiance to the former Medici rulers.

So iconic has the image become that even us recovering Baptists forget that the David of the Old Testament was a shepherd boy, not a super hot 20-something.

The exhibitions of the Academie are not otherwise extensive, but there was a nice exhibit of musical instruments, from keyboards made by Cristofori (the inventor of the pianoforte) to the serpent:

After the Academie visit, we were free. Advised on the best places to lunch (and shop), we set out.  The LFW inquired at the info desk and found that timed tickets to the Uffizi could be bought at a ticket office across the street.  This is a definite pro tip: do not stand in line to by tickets anywhere.  Go to a ticket office and buy a timed ticket, because then you get to go in the happy line.

Lunch was the Open Stove, which advertised itself as an Irish pub but which was an Italian restaurant with nachos on the side. Food was not great, but the decor was primo.

On our way to the Uffizi:

The famous Italian temerarietà about traffic rules. (Later, in Rome, our guide Susanna pointed out a car parked in what looked like mid-turn at an intersection and commented sardonically, “Eh, it’s in the shade.”)

The Uffizi is the former office building of the city, hence the name:

It’s a huge U-shaped building, and it is full of the art collected by the Medici family over the years.  The last remaining heiress of the Medici donated all of it to Florence, and I can only say that if you are in Florence, this is a must. It’s like a greatest hits of your art history class.

I may have said this before, but even the best reproductions in our textbooks do not come close to the experience of the real thing. You see details, you see the individuality and even the personality of the people, you see the action and emotion in ways that a reproduction can not reproduce.

Remember, this was their city office building. Here’s the entrance hall.

The ceiling:

With limited time, we headed straight for the Renaissance rooms:

You’re immediately immersed in all those paintings you’ve seen your whole life.

Botticelli:

Cranach:

The Laocöon:

I forget what was in this small chamber, but the ceiling is a dome with embedded glass roundels:

View of the Ponte Vecchio:

And of Il Duomo:

Admidst all the Greco-Roman-Renaissance perfection, this sculpture stood out: Marsyas Flayed.

A close-up:

Marsyas lost a music contest to Apollo (spoiler alert: Apollo cheated), and as his punishment was flayed alive. Fans of the composer Arvo Pärt should find his Lamentate, a piece commissioned by the Tate in London to be performed in the same gargantuan room as Anish Kapoor’s gargantuan Marsyas.  (I do not link to the sculpture; Kapoor is a bit of a jerk.)

Here is an interesting piece as well: DaVinci’s Adoration of the Magi.

It is completely unfinished, and you will read more about it over at Lichtenbergianism.com next week.

Somehow I didn’t get a single photo of the Caravaggio’s, which is a pity, because I was most struck with them.  Caravaggio was a weird SOB, and the characters in his paintings look out at you with a fleshy knowingness that is more than a little disconcerting, not to say arousing.

We headed back to the hotel, showered, rejoined the group, and loaded up the bus to head out to the country for a “typical” regional meal. I keep trying to imagine these kinds of tourist offerings in Newnan-Coweta County: busloads of Germans and Chinese and Russians ferried out to Dunaway Gardens for a good meal of chicken and waffles, or shrimp and grits, or pulled pork barbecue, while being serenaded by a blue grass band.  No?  Maybe not. We certainly don’t have the wines.

First, the view of Florence from across the river:

Here was our musical entertainment:

Lots of Amore and O sole mio and that sort of thing. The guitarist was quite good.

Here’s the venue:

Their food was good, their wine was so-so; their sparkling wine was grotesque.  On the way home Ignazio, riffing off the music portion of the evening, played disco on the bus; Carlos the bus driver obliged with disco lights, flashing the lights on and off as we careened through narrow streets.  Much hilarity was had by all.  (The group we are with are very funny and delightful.  No cranks in the crowd, thank goodness, or if there are, they are keeping to themselves.)

Back here on Monday, it’s cocktail time as I sit out on the porch and try to finish at least the Thursday post before the LFW makes it back from Capri.

My iPad tells me it’s Monday, September 10. I am choosing to believe it.

Once again, our travel has eaten so much of my time that I simply can’t get the blog posts done.  On the Danube last year, it was a matter of insufficient wifi; this year, the only time I have is on a bus, and writing on a bus is a sure way to bring on the nausea.

So today, Monday, September 10, my Lovely First Wife [LFW] has headed off to Capri, the lovely island of Capri.  I, knowing my limits, chose last week not to go on this excursion.  Instead, I am sitting on the dining patio of our hotel in Sorrento, finishing my third cup of caffe Americano and trying to catch up.

Wednesday we were in Florence at the San Gallo Palace Hotel. Our first stop of the day was the plaza in front of the Santa Croce cathedral, where we were treated to a couple of QVC infomercials for leather and gold jewelry, Florence’s two big products.

Pretty but really really unnecessary.

Here we see Mary Frances modeling a really nice leather coat (they pulled various types out to show off their wares):

I am not going to belabor the point, but Gate 1 Tours seems to focus a lot on shopping, and we tend to focus on art and architecture. (It would be great to focus on music as well, but there is absolutely no time for a concert.  What are you, a cultured snob or something?)

So while the group was exhorted to go shopping, we chose to visit Santa Croce instead:

(By the way, our iPads and iPhones are miracles, but doing this on an iPad and not my laptop is an incredible pain.  It takes me three times as long to insert a photo as it does to write a paragraph.  Lesson learned; next time, it’s the laptop, no matter how cumbersome it is.)

Santa Croce is an exquisite Romanesque cathedral, and there’s a crowd of greats buried there, definitely worth the visit.

The nave, looking back towards the entrance:

Looking toward the altar:

The altar:

The frescoes in the choir were stunning:

One of the transept chapels:

It was not open to tourists; it was reserved for prayer.  It’s often difficult to remember that these are still places of worship, not just architectural monuments. Imagine First Baptist with its doors open and busloads of tourists strolling through, snapping photos. Of course, First Baptist does not have multiple worship services every day.

A side chapel along the apse:

We think of these great churches as works of art, complete and perfect, but of course they—like all works of art—change as they grow. Here’s where a chapel used to be, with its frescoes on the wall, but it’s been replaced by a couple of memorials, and its frescoes are now just remnants.

Who all is buried here?

Rossini:

Machiavelli:

Dante:

Michelangelo:

Marconi:

Galileo:

That’s an impressive count of one-namers.

Leaving the cathedral, there’s a courtyard designed by Brunelleschi…

… as well as a chapel by Brunelleschi:

Finally, a third chapel, this one focused on the restoration efforts after the devastating flood of 1966.  The Arno River overflowed its banks to a high of 22 feet in the Santa Croce.  Millions of books and artworks were destroyed, and the city faced years of recovery.

At this time, we rejoined the tour in the plaza as we all assembled to meet Ignazio. We walked over to the Palazzo Vecchio, i.e., the town hall. Florence vacillated between being a republic and a duchy for years, the Medici family being the main contenders for leadership.

To the left of the Palazzo, a fountain with Neptune (under restoration) which the Florentines call ‘the big white thing.” (They haven’t been fans for 450  years, apparently.)

And of course, standing at the entrance, Michelangelo’s David, albeit a copy:

To the right of the square, a loggia with equally famous works:

Including a copy of Donatello’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa:

Ignazio led us over to the Ponte Vecchio. It was built as part of a private passageway leading from the Palazzo Vecchio across the river to the top of the next hill, to the Palazzo Pitti. This passageway goes from the Palazzo Vecchio, through the Uffizi, down the street, across the river, through private residences, and on to the new palace built by the Medici duke’s wife who decided she didn’t want to live in the Vecchio and had a new palace built across the river—but wanted to be able to get back to town without getting her feet wet.

And here we see a gentleman sunning himself on the greensward.  Clearly a member of 3 Old Men, even if he doesn’t realize it.

Now we’ll take a break and come back in a moment to Il Duomo and the Uffizi.

 

Tuesday: We’re on our way to Florence. For lunch we stopped at a small winery near Collodi.

Why yes, that is Pinocchio, created by Carlo Collodi right here.

Il Poggio is a small winery, catering to the likes of us.

We were greeted by Pamela and two floppy Pyrenees dogs, one of whom was shameless in his/her readiness to be loved. (We were told that they were cuddly, but also had a bad habit of going to the next farm over and eating the chickens.)

Pamela was one of those women who seem effortlessly chic and lovely.  She was also cheerful and friendly.

Pamela led us up the slope to talk about olives, grapes, and the wine and olive oil they make.

Behind me were some oak trees that had this curious growth on them:

Very alien looking, and they were as sticky as they look.  I have no clue what they are, and neither did anyone at the farm.  Anyone have any suggestions?

Back down at the farm, we had a hearty lunch—there is no other kind of meal in Italy—with good enough wine that we ordered some to be shipped home.

Back on the bus, and onward through the Tuscany countryside.  How do you know it’s Tuscany?  The cypress trees:

Here’s the thing, though: in the rest of Italy, cypress trees are associated with cemeteries and graveyards.  While Tuscany has decided they look pretty and has planted them all over the place, the rest of Italy thinks they look a bit creepy.

Pisa.

Too many photos, so I shall put them in an slideshow and you just click through.

[slideshow_deploy id=’7339′]

[I chose not to bring my laptop on this trip because toting the MacBook was just too much, but the iPad won’t allow me to add comments; check back next week after I’m back home to hear what I thought.]

tl;dr: the Baptistery was beautiful, the church was gorgeous, and we didn’t even really walk over to the Campanile, which I understand is famous for not being upright. Truly, if your time is limited, skip the Campanile and see the church.  And do not embarrass us by posing for a photo of you “holding up” the tower.  Oy.

Often on this trip the bus could not pull up and disgorge us at the destination. We either had to walk, or in this case ride a little tram which usually transports elementary children to school.

Finally we reached Florence and were on our own for dinner.  We had been advised to check out a new plaza with restaurants, but on the way down a shady-looking street…

… we came across the Trattoria Tito’s.  Wait, cried the LFW, and she riffled through her Top Ten book.  This was in fact a highly recommended little restaurant, good food, and “theatrical,” whatever that meant.  We went in.

Great food, delightful waiters, and not expensive at all! We were asked if we had reservations; no, we didn’t.  There was a table open, but we’d have to clear out before 9:30. No problem, we said, we’re Americans; eating a meal in an hour and a half was not a problem.

And then we stayed until 11:00.  No one ever came to ask us to leave.  In fact, we even asked for our check at 9:20–the response was, and I quote, “No! Now we drink!” We then worked our way through shot glasses of homemade lemoncello and an amaro (bitter digestiv).

The whole place by the time we left was full of families, groups of friends, and one bunch of high-spirited high school boys who were a lot of fun to be next to.  When we told them we were from where The Walking Dead was filmed, they lit up with excitement. (They were offered their lemoncello at the front on their way out; they obviously had places to be and couldn’t dawdle all night at the table.)

Several of the other tables ordered what looked like a Huge Pile o’ Meat, but we learned the following day this was actually a Florentine specialty: a T-bone steak about three inches thick, cooked very rare, and then chunked up on a platter to be shared.

Bedtime, and tomorrow: FIORENZE!

 

Here’s a fun thing to do: have a couple of Aperol Spritzes at lunch, plus a Negroni at Harry’s Bar, then hop on a water bus to cross the street to get to the Guggenheim Collection in time to watch them lock the front door.  But more about that later.

Venice has always seemed an odd place to me in theory, and it is no less odd in practice. I get it that living on islands surrounded by shallow, mucky lagoons would offer some protection, but once you had some money, wouldn’t you move to the mainland instead of building huge palazzos and cathedrals on sinking ground? ^[1]

Venice is as beautiful as the photos make it look. There are no complaints there.

We are on a tour, with some scheduled times and with some free time. Today, the morning was chock full of moving around, starting with getting on a boat and heading out to Murano, the island where the tremendously gaudy glass is made. We were treated to a glass-blowing demonstration, and that’s always interesting, and then we strolled through room after room of glass items that I have chosen to describe as ‘exuberant.’

Quick history lesson: Venice started producing glass 1,000 years years ago, and for much of that time had a carefully guarded  monopoly on the process. When the business really got going, the Doge decided that the risk of fires from the glass furnaces was too much and “redistricted” the glass-blowers to Murano, and so there’s a bit of cachet to the hand-blown glass of Venice.

However, and I am being blunt here, most of what we saw was not creative at all.  It may not have been machine-made, but it was repetitive and standardized. It was also, as I’ve said, exuberant, which is a nice way of saying ‘gaudy.’

It was also expensive. I did find some cocktail coupes that were simple and elegant; they were also €150 and up—each. I love glassware, but the idea of serving cocktails in a glass that cost as much as a bottle of brilliant single malt scotch was off-putting.

Back in Venice, we were introduced to Carlo, our tour guide for the morning. We were treated to the Museo Correr, which started well enough with the restored rooms from the Napoleonic era, including a lovely ballroom, but it degenerated into an endless stream of facts, dates, and names from poor Carlo, who seemed to think that we needed to know every single detail about whatever was in front of us.  When he started giving us dates on the model of the large gilded galley used by the Doge, including the  last time it was used, how the superstructure was stripped and burned and the ashes shipped to somewhere and processed to reclaim for the gold and then the galley itself was used as a prison for a couple of decades and finally dismantled in 1837… I took my earphone out and enjoyed the silence.

Sidebar: Canova was the famous 19th-c. Venetian sculptor, and as Carlo was telling us the entire myth of Daedalus and Icarus, I was reminded that I have an opera to finish.

I continued to enjoy the silence as we spent some time in St. Mark’s, a stunningly Byzantine basilica: every surface covered in gold mosaics. It’s a beautiful church, but of course wherever you go there are all these tourists in your way. (In general one is not allowed to take photos inside the churches.)^[2]

Finally our tour guide led us out, we told him Grazie, and sent him on his way.

Here’s a thing you need to know about Italy: they do not eat lunch until after 1:00, and dinner may not be until 7:30 or later. We were starving at that point, so we wandered aimlessly until we found a canal-side establishment and scarfed down a pizza.

The trattoria was next to the Rialto Bridge, which you know from Merchant of Venice…

…and here’s a shot from the Rialto Bridge.

This was where we had multiple Aperol Spritzes. I had forgotten that third ingredient was prosecco, so by the time we wandered back into St. Mark’s Square to find Harry’s Bar — to follow in the footsteps of Hemingway, of course — we did not need that third cocktail that we all had.

On the way back to Piazza San Marco, here’s the Dad of the Week, who has dressed like his daughter, which I thought was just adorable.

Also on the walk back, there was a t-shirt which sums up how to get around Venice:

These are the signs you see on buildings as you thread your way through the rabbit warren of streets in Venice, and as long as you can orient your hotel to one of the major landmarks, you really can’t get lost.  Plus, as Ignazio said, you’re on an island.

Here’s a fun fact about Harry’s Bar: it’s boring. The décor is stark without being lovely. They have all the usual wines and stuff, but their cocktail list is completely unimaginative, nothing more than standard stuff. It is well-made standard stuff, but it is merely standard stuff, and it is expensive.

As is my custom, I check out the backbar to see what they have and what they could make if I asked them.  One of our party wanted a Bijou, which I assured her they could make, since they had gin, sweet vermouth, and green Chartreuse.

But the waiter returned and said, alas, they could not make a Bijou. Whether they were lying or ignorant or lazy, I have no idea, but you can strike Harry’s Bar off your list of cocktail meccas.

The LFW is mistress of the Top 10 travel books, and one of her goals was make it to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. We checked the map, and we were practically right across the canal from it. “Practically” is probably the wrong word, since to get there would be a 40-minute walk along the canal, across a bridge, and back, and we really only had 40 minutes or so until the museum closed.

So we took a water bus.

We have learned in our travels not to be afraid of public transport, and just because Venice’s happens to be boats was no reason to flinch now. We went to the nearest stop, bought tickets, hopped on, and were taken to the next stop, nearly directly across the canal and a hop skip and a jump to the museum.

We got there just in time to see them lock the door at 5:30, when their ticket sales ceased.

We went back to the museum gift shop and assuaged our sorrow with purchases.

Then we began the long trek back to the hotel, stopping to peek into an Anglican church that was not only open but having a service. It was a bit odd to see a Laotian congregation having an Anglican Church service in English, complete with projected responses and hymns, but there we were.

There were a couple of other churches we stopped in—no memory of their names—and they were variously Romanesque or Baroque and empty.

Finally, our feet were sore and it looked like rain, so Marc calculated that we should just hop another water bus and go straight to the hotel rather than walking the very long way around. And so we did.

Dinner was at a great little trattoria around the corner on a cross canal, and by far the best dessert I’ve had in a long time: a chocolate ice cream wrapped around a vanilla ice cream that was this good:

And finally we slept.

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^[1] My theory is supported by the fact that as soon as they built a bridge to the mainland, the population dropped precipitously. Venice now has the same population as Newnan.  Of course, it’s still Venice.

^[2] Our tour manager Ignazio told us that they did a study back in the 70s and determined that the optimal number of tourists was about 7 million. Last year, there were 33 million.

Air travel is miserable — that goes without saying these days — and rarely is it more so than on a 9-hour flight to Venice. Even worse, making the trip on what appears to be an antique 767: table trays that are broken; seats that do not recline; and there are no USB ports — what is this, a Conestoga wagon even?

Yes, we’re off again, this time to Italy. “Where in Italy?,” you might ask if you’ve never met my lovely first wife [LFW], because the answer is invariably “All of it, Katie,” and we’re starting in Venice. ^[1]

We started packing yesterday.  In what is now the Cutest Photograph on the Internet™, Cecil the Pest helped by packing his elephant:

He is An Goofball.

The flight was long, of course, but there were Alps:

Hartsfield-Atlanta may be efficient and huge, but does it have water taxis?

The ride into town, so to speak, was fun, zipping along in the boat, bouncing off waves and wakes. We arrived at the Grand Canal, and yes, it’s grand.

We are traveling with Gate 1, our first time with this group.  (You may recall that last spring we did the Danube with Viking River Cruises.) We have been put up at the Hotel Bellini, on the Grand Canal.

We strolled along our street, had lunch at Trattoria Pedrocchi, and strolled around some more along the Grand Canal and some side streets.  I was greeted warmly by a lovely long-hair black cat, who plopped for a belly scratch. I did not get a photo of him/her, but around the corner was this regal beast:

She deigned to sniff my hand.

We headed back to check into our rooms, whereupon we crashed until the official 6:00 meeting with Ignazio, our tour manager.  A lovely dinner at the hotel restaurant, and one last passeggiata along the canal.

Tomorrow: Murano and its appalling glass, plus San Marco Square and Harry’s Bar maybe!

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^[1] This is our standard warning that we have four almost fully functioning adults living our house, so to those among my readers who are compulsive burglars—as my LFW seems to think you are—you can give that idea right up as a bad deal all round.