There are more pictures of Florence between Leanna and I than I can handle...
I've been picking and choosing through hundreds of beautiful pictures trying to pull out a handful that will highlight our whirlwind Italy trip. I tried to put the pics in order with the story, but I kept remembering more and having to add things in at random intervals, so you'll just have to do your best to figure out which pictures go to which part of the tale...
In order to save a few hundred dollars between us, and to get the hotel we wanted, we opted for a layover en route to Florence...After a long long night spent in the Zurich airport trying to sleep off our 10 hour lay over, we got to at least see the Swiss alps.
We could see blue sky out the airplane window, and when we arrived in Florence, we're happy to find that unlike Amsterdam's blue sky, the blue sky here meant the air was a little warmer too. Our main reason for making the trip (aside from the pure fun of going to Italy for a few days because we could) was Leanna's familial connections. Her great-great-grandad was born there in the late 1800's. The family name Marraccini didn't pop into sight as often as the other Italian family name, Lippi. It graced a few streets we passed on the way from the tiny airport to the city center. That might be in part due to the renown
ed Italian Renaissance painter Filippo Lippi, who lived in and around Florence in the early to late 1400's and thrived there under the patronage of the Medici family, virtual royalty of the golden age of Florence, although most people seem to be more familiar with one of his famous pupils, Sandro Botticelli. If that name still doesn't ring any bells, think "the Birth of Venus", or "Primavera".
We walked from the train station to our hotel, a lovely family run place called Hotel Ariele. It was a bit out of the way if you want to be right in the center of things in Florence, but we thoroughly enjoyed the walk from there to town along the Arno River. If we had been in a hotel closer to the main tourist attractions of Florence, I don't think we would have seen half of the things that I enjoyed the most about our three days there. The room was gigantic, with huge white curtained windows stretching up almost all the way to the vaulted ceiling. After such a restless night in the Zurich airport, we both appreciated how completely black the wooden 
shutters and heavy exterior curtains made the room. Nothing like a nap at noon :). I took a picture of the print hanging above one of the beds and realized in hindsight that it looked almost exactly like this photo of the bridges over the Arno I took on our first day. I actually had to double check that I took it because it's so stinking picturesque. It doesn't look real to me still. I can only be sure it's mine because I have a tell tale smudge on my camera lens that shows up looking like a near vertical cloud in the upper right quadrant of every picture I take. The only thing that took getting used to in our room was our shower. The shower head was hand held instead of being attached to the wall above your head. It takes talent to not spray down the entire bathroom while you shower that way. Oh, and there was a much avoided bidet...
The walk along the Arno, if we meandered instead of walking like I traditionally do (like I'm on a mission from God, heh), took us about 20 minutes to get into the section of town with all the famous museums and famous piazzas and cathedrals. The locals seemed to treasure it as much as us tourists, and often sat sunning themselves on the various view spots that jut over the water. My personal favorite part of the walk had to be the bridges. We passed at least 2 bridges, sometimes 3, before banking left to enter the narrow high walled streets that criss-cross and tangle their way through piazza after piazza. My favorite bridge has to be one I didn't even know about until we cited it along the water,
the Ponte Vecchio, built in 1345. Actually, rebuilt in 1345. It seems that a bridge has been in that location at least since Roman times, and the design that stands there now is attributed to Taddeo Gaddi to replace one built in the 1100’s that had washed out. Shops still line both sides off the bridge like little brightly colored jewels. Fitting, I suppose, since it has been almost the sole dominion of gold merchants since the late 1500's.
We wandered in circles around the Duomo, with it's towering 
Campanile looming 276 feet above the square, just a tad shorter than the cathedral dome. Although the interior is as much of a masterpiece as the exterior, that didn't rank very high on our to do list for the 2 and a half days we had to tour. We took a few self portraits in front of tourist favorites, ever wary of seemingly thoughtful locals trying to sell us knick knacks and offering to take our picture for us... goodbye camera.... Perhaps we were over cautious, but after hearing warning after warning about pick pockets and bag snatchers, we went with better safe than sorry. In fact, the winter was a great time to visit, because it's off tourist high season, and therefore much easier to walk around minus the press of crowds where thieves have easy pickings. We weren't bothered at all. I think the only “scam” we came across was me buying a 5 Euro print from a street vendor who had his product laid out on the side walk. His asking price of 20 euros shrank quickly as we slowly turned to walk away. I thought I was doing great, and getting close to the base price he could sell for by accepting 5 euros as the price. You know, you pay whatever it’s worth to you. But he went even lower when Leanna tried to walk away without buying anything. Her print (same size as mine) was offered at a mere 3 euros.... the guy seemed not to hear me when I told him he owed me 2 euro back ;)
Our first order of business after arrival Wednesday afternoon (post nap) was to get to the San Lorenzo Basilica, where Leanna had hopes of finding her 
great grandfather's name in the archives. On the way, we slowed down to browse the stalls of the famous San Lorenzo market. Although neither one of us was expecting to buy anything, we both walked away with ties and scarves of beautiful Italian design to both keep and give as gifts. piazzas and cathedrals. The locals seemed to treasure it as much as us tourists, and often sat sunning themselves on the various view spots that jut over the water. My personal favorite part of the walk had to be the bridges. We passed at least 2 bridges, sometimes 3, before banking left to enter the narrow high walled streets that criss-cross and tangle their way through piazza after piazza. My favorite bridge has to be one I didn't even know about until we cited it along the water, the Ponte Vecchio, built in 1345. Actually, rebuilt in 1345. It seems that a bridge has been in that location at least since Roman times, and the design that stands there now is attributed to Taddeo Gaddi to replace one built in the 1100’s that had washed out. Shops still line both sides off the bridge like little brightly colored jewels. Fitting, I suppose, since it has been almost the sole dominion of gold merchants since the late 1500's. I love this picture with Leanna being primped by one of the merchants. He got our business basically by leaving us alone while we looked at his wares. The other stall workers cat called and harangued us if we even turned our heads their direction.
Eventually, we got to the Basilica. Since it was so late, we just took 
a look around the cloister green (with a lovely orange tree in the center) and decided to come back the next day, fresh and relaxed. On the walk through town, we window shopped, and people watched, and got crimps in our necks from gazing up at the incessant grandeur of Italy. Some where along the way I surrendered to impulse, and went from window shopper to customer. Ever since high school I have wanted shoes from Italy. A girl a few grades ahead of me wore a pair of shoes from travels in Italy practically everyday, and the sees was planted. The shoes in this shop didn’t grab me, but a long purple lined brown shirt that hangs almost to my knees did…and the fact that it was on sale.
As the sun descended, the afternoon turned to evening, and we wandered. As we walked through the Piazza della Republica nightlife was just winding up with families and friends out enjoying the beautiful evening. Musicians playing classical guitar, selling their work on the sidewalk, a carousel spinning with laughter, a balloon hawker looming over squirming children, and hundreds of people each with their own important place to be waltzing 
past each other in a seamless flow. Amazingly, most of them walking nearby noticed me hunched protectively over my short tripod on the ground, and walked well out of the way, or just paused until the long exposure closed, and I stood up.
We walked back towards the hotel through different streets yet, and had our first slices of true Italian pizza for dinner (mine had anchovies) followed up by gelato that made me dance it was so good. I think we overwhelmed the old guy behind the counter a little bit with our juvenile excitement. Leanna had pistachio, while I dug into Nutella. We found our way to the Piazza della Signora, but it was too dark to take good pictures so we came back the next day the same way. But the night blue sky did give us some great pictures of the Arno and it's 
beautiful and plentiful bridges.
Thursday morning, after a quiet hotel breakfast, we made our way back to Piazza della Signora, via the bustling Arno, of course. The sunny sky made for much better photography, as we walked along the corridor to the piazza we could now see the details on the full size statue portraits of men such as Galileo, DaVinci, Macchiavelli, Amerigo Vespucci, and Michelangelo and more standing like guards as they lined the way. The original David stood here too, and it’s still home to Ammanate's bigger than life Neptune and friends. Too bad for us the David replacement replica was under cover for restoration. Good thing we had scheduled afternoon time for the real deal :) My favorite part of the morning had to be meeting the artist in this picture who tried with routine bitterness to get me not to take a picture of her pictures. She didn't expect me to want to buy anything from her. On the contrary, I couldn't choose out of her beautiful water colors highlighted with ink. I ended up with two lovely pieces, one of the skyline of Florence, and one of a twisted alleyway staggered with arches and walkways stretching across from one side to the other. She lovingly wrapped them for transport and then happily took pictures with us.
We returned to San Lorenzo Basilica and found a sweet and helpful lady named Teresa. Being hampered by our total lack of Italian, and her limited English, we switched to Spanish, and gathered that we should talk with the Monsignor of San Lorenzo. At 94 years old (although we were assured in good health), he was napping when we came. So, we were instructed to return after 4 pm, the period post naptime, and pre dinnertime. In the meantime, we toured the Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenzia, upstairs from where we met Teresa. She was actually working, (door duty) at the crypt under the Basilica, which I did want to see, but we never got back to. We also forwent the interior of the Basilica, designed by Michelangelo, in favor of other works of his (yeah, David again).
The library was beautiful, although most of the books are put out of harms way, the windows, tile floors, and bench/shelves are still in great condition and show the titles and order of the library as set and designed by Michelangelo in 1524. That led us into a museum displaying the life's work of a philosopher monk whose name completely left my memory since I wasn't allowed
to take pictures... He had a collection of hundreds of books hand copied by himself, and his devotees meticulously written out on vellum in black and red lettering, decorated with vivid blues, reds and greens, highlighted with gold leaf. He had 25 Bibles attributed to his collection, but none of them were on display. I think the copies of medicinal texts were particularly beautiful. There's something mesmerizing about trying to read someone's 600 year old handwriting, expressing the thoughts and cares of the greats, so carefully penned between hair follicles and crinkles and whirls of
whatever animal skin they stretched into vellum for the pages. There were works from Seneca, Plato, and even Ovid among the monk’s own treaties on ethics and morals. The collection would have been priceless in an age where one volume of pages would have cost the average man a years wages in one go. Now, I suppose it's still priceless.
Next up, we made out way to the Galleria Della Academia, aka: home of Michelangelo’s original David. We passed through graffiti strewn alleys and art students working on their own masterpieces. We even passed a bakery named "Sabrina", but they were slammed, and we were on a mission. We sat, stood, and stared at length, captivated by Michelangelo’ crowning achievement. Honestly I don’t have much memory of the other works of genius we looked at on the way to the David’s room. I kept having to pinch myself mentally, and remind myself that I really was here in Italy looking with my own eyes on the very real chunk of marble carved into David that I’ve been looking at in pictures most of my life. “The prisoners” made an impression, but not much else. We were surprised by how many people, one after the other, got chastised by the security attendants for ignoring the multiple posted signs forbidding photo taking. Some tried to be subtle, some walked right up and stuck their best Davidic pose. Frankly I was just as surprised that I didn’t try to 
take one…
Somewhere on the walk back to San Lorenzo, we stopped into a shop just to ask them if they'd seen an article in the Awake! magazine in the last few months that featured their work (Masterpieces “Painted” With Stones, or Capolavori “dipinti” con pietre). They make and sell stone paintings. According to the woman who welcomed us into the shop, there are only 3 people left in all of Italy who practice this dying craft. She was amazed to hear that we had read of them in an article written by a Florentine author in the Awake! magazine. I knew from that article that I wouldn't in good conscience be able to give any pretense of being a potential customer. And we were proven correct. The smallest piece she had to offer us (about a thumb nail size floral pendant) was still 100 euros. If anyone has an extra, I'm still searching for a December 2008 Awake to send them :) I have the text from online, but I really want to show them the pictures.
We came back to talk to San Lorenzo's Monsignor Priori, we were saved the interview by another woman was there to help. She and Teresa asked yet another woman who seemed to be in charge, what to do, and she went into ask the Monsignor his advice. We were then directed us to a different archive because all of the records before 1900 were stored at the San Giovanni Basilica. So, they gave us addresses and directions, and even emails to follow up on. We could have pushed on and tried for that evening, but as the afternoon turned to dark, we decided to come back in the daylight.
Here’s an odd fact about Italy: it’s illegal for anyone to sell postage stamps unless they are licensed tobacco seller. So, the street vendors we bought our postcards from couldn’t help us mail our missives. 
We killed the last of the daylight by trying to hunt down a tobacco shop. We stopped along the way at the Landucci café for a few sweets (a fruit and cream confection called a mignon, and another pine nut topped cream cup called a varie) and a café americano. We people watched, and sat looking at the narrow street until the light turned from yellow to gray. Our salt and pepper pony-tailed waiter talked, and we talked back, and I don’t think either one of us really had a clue what was transpiring. I think the only actual communication was that the bill got paid, and we all smiled for the pictures.
Since we were in the right neighborhood, we checked the address for the San Giovanni archives that we planned to come to in the morning. It wasn’t hard to find, and as we walked, the inviting lights and store front of an English bookstore called to us. Actually, it was called the “Anglo-American Paperback Exchange”. It always gives me goose-bumps to see that pairing still in use…Even though we already had more books than we needed, and hard to carry, I found myself buying a piece of historical fiction based on the life of Leonardo DaVinci’s mother.
Full dark found us heading in the general direction of home, and sussing out other hotels until we found one with internet access (for a price of course) so I could email Matt to let him know what we were up to. We realized the day we left our hotel that they did indeed have internet access, but it was disguised in a closet reminiscent of a confessional. The hotel we got online at had one of the coolest bathrooms I have ever seen. It had pedals under the sink for the water instead of handles over the sink; one for hot, and one for cold water. It was done in an underwater theme, which could have gone so very very wrong, but they pulled off with elegance. Even with seashells glued to the walls...
We dithered and dallied and couldn’t decide what to do for dinner, our wallets and our appetites battling for supremacy.We restaurant shopped, lamented the euro to dollar ratio, and almost decided on pizza again, a most agreeable second fiddle. As a last resort, we remembered a restaurant on the corner by our hotel, but by the time we arrived it had closed. By that time, we were really and truly hungry, and the snacks left over from the plane ride wouldn’t suffice. We took a last hopeful look around, and landed on a glimmering gem called Trattoria Baldini just across the main thoroughfare from home. The menu looked varied and reasonable (although we veered sharply away from the ox tail and cow brains), and an adorable 
older Italian gentleman ushered us in with an affable smile and guarantee that we’d be happy with his restaurant. Instead of sitting us amidst the many families chattering in Italian over steaming plates, he sat us at a table close to the kitchen window, and close to his table. We shared the room with 2 other older gents, one of whom obviously makes a regular appearance, same seat every night kid of thing, and another who surprised us by knowing both of our streets in Walnut Creek well, having spent time there frequently on business. We started with a marinated vegetable appetizer, and a single glass of Chianti, which arrived in the form of a wine glass and a giant wicker wrapped bottle that the waiter left open on our table as a hospitable temptation. We mused over our trip, our lives, made the acquaintance of the chef, the staff, and the regulars over piping hot mushroom risotto and olive oil drenched pasta carbonara. We left for our beds with a warm glow of contentment.
Our last day in Florence came all too soon, and we still tried to pack as much in as we could. Our flight didn’t depart until late afternoon, and although we didn’t relish the idea of packing our luggage around the city with us, our hotel didn’t provide much better options. Basically, when we asked if we could stow our luggage with themfor the day, the desk clerk in nicely accented English pointed towards the table in the hallway and told us they don’t have room for storing baggage, but we’re more than
welcome to leave our things under the table. I might have done so had I not walked into the hotel repeatedly over the last 2 days and seen people’s backpacks and luggage sitting there like an invitation with no one at the front desk, and the door temptingly wide open to the bustling street. So, in stead, we dragged our carry-on’s behind us over uneven paving stones down the Arno and back into the heart of Firenze.
We got a laugh on the way overhearing some locals as we walked past. I had my sunglasses on, and carrying all of my things, had generated some heat walking and walking to our destination. I took off my jacket, and bared my arms to the sum gladly. As we walked I heard Leanna laugh behind me on the narrow sidewalk. I asked her what got her laughing. She had heard two ladies as I walked past say disdainfully “LA” followed by a baffled huff indicating the lunacy of walking in short sleeves and sunglasses like it’s mid summer not mid winter. Can I help that the sun was out? I had to hand it to them though, out of the all far-flung world, they did nail it in guessing we came from California.
The last item on our must do list was the Galleria degli Uffizi. Museum of Museum, and art gallery
of art galleries…. The Medici’s really knew what’s what when it came to collecting. I cannot do it justice here. I can’t begin to describe the inundation of culture and history we waded through that Friday. I bought a book about the Medici’s because I just can’t keep all of them straight. Founding father Cosomo Medici began the Uffizi’s collection in 1560, more as a hub of governing the city (“Uffizi” meaning “Offices”) than a gallery, but the family collections were opened to the public in the mid 1700’s. It’s fame has only grown. One of the ways Cosimo kept a finger on the pulse of world government was by requisitioning portraits of heads of state and country the world round. I was quite surprised to see a portrait of First Emperor Qin of China hanging in one of the long hallways. Besides his contemporaries, Cosomo sought to learn from famous rulers of the past also.
Our real goal however was to find the
room showcasing Fillipo Lippi, great ancestor to Leanna. After learning of his influence on Sandro Botticeli, the similarities became obvious. Both used the same kind of floral components, and angelic glowing faces. We joked that after the Uffizi tour, we had now seen work from all 4 teenage mutant ninja turtles: Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael. I know, that’s kind of a cheeky way of looking at things…but a good memory tool nonetheless. I was entertained by finding a small collection of Dutch artists there, and it took us back to our visit to the Rijksmuseum here in Amsterdam.
One more long night spent in Zurich airport, and we made our way back to Amsterdam. Italian adventures safely stowed in the overhead storage (lame reference to memory…heh).
Oh yeah, and I did find a pair of black leather boots to buy too…on sale of course.
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