honeymoon: florence

Made it to Florence with very little incident.  I (Jeanne, to be clear) set off just about every single alarm possible at the airport and had to be pat down — the French don’t do any of that “back of the hand” crap, I was straight up caressed, rubbed, and honked every which way to Egypt.  The lady even looked down my pants.  And then when I finally thought I was through free and clear, they found my camera extender stick, which admittedly looks like it could be a weapon.. an extendable weapon.  “C’est bizzarrrreeeeee….” the airport agents whispered to one another as they poked at the xray screen.  I tried to explain (in French) that it was for my camera but they looked at me like that was the stupidest thing anyone’s ever tried to suggest.  Oh well.  *shrug*  I’m an American.

Reading about Florence and all of the amazing artists and thinkers of history,  one imagines a city of grandeur, a metropolis of greatness.  It’s actually quite small as cities go — it can be walked end to end in about 30 minutes.  Or 20 minutes if you are a very tall American man with a loping stride.

I’d been here many years ago when the only thoughts in my young head were which shop sold gelato for 3000 lira instead of 6000 (yes I came before the euro was introduced, holy cow) and why Italians appeared to ahbor air conditioning….  I don’t know if it’s an age thing or what, but this time around my experience was much deeper.  Maybe it’s being here with someone I’m in love with.  Doug and I sat around thinking about the greatness of mankind and what our contribution to the world was going to be (true story).  More about that later.

And it’s not like we didn’t have gelato this time around either.  My god.  Cold weather be damned, we had gelato around the clock.

The norm here, as with most European cities, is to travel by moped… thousands and thousands of mopeds, with the occasional teeny-tiny car:

Although when Italians do choose to go with a regular-sized car, they do it with style.  They’re Italians, after all.  Btw, Doug has a pretty impressive wingspan, don’t you think?  I peeked into some of these tiny cars and found that several of them are not cars at all, but moped fitted with a shell.  You’d have to open a “car” door, then climb in a straddle your bike seat.  What the hell is that all about?  How is that practical?

Of course the thing to do in Florence, and really you can’t miss it even if you tried, is to see the Duomo.  Looking down just about every other street in Florence, we caught glimpses of it, slices of white green and pink marble, tantalizing glimpses of our lady who finally introduced herself to us in the golden setting of the sun.  God, she knows how to make an entrance.

Of course… the setting sun meant that the thing was closing and we only saw the inside for maybe a minute before we were shoo’d out by a line of very well-dressed polizia.  Undeterred, we went right next door and paid good money to climb the $)(%@ tower (wondering most of the way whether medical assistance could reach us before we died).  If you look at our picture gallery, you’ll see that we took way too many pictures — at each landing we reached we thought to ourselves “oh wow we made it!  well done!  wow what a view!” and took another dozen pictures, before realizing that yet another set of stairs awaited us.

If you ever visit though, don’t give up on the climb.  The top is to die for.  But not quite literally, they’ve hamster-caged the entire thing so you can’t really die up there (not by jumping at least, I’m sure you can think of a way to die up there if you are determined to.)  By the way, being IN a bell tower when the bells go off.. ones you can hear from anywhere in the city.. is quite the experience.  They don’t exactly give you any warning that it’s about to begin.  I may or may not have peed a little.

We also saw David (I almost called him Michael just now, whoops).  Got off a few pics before I was assaulted by the guards who were screaming shrilly at me in English FORBIDDEN FORBIDDEN!!!!  Ok ok lady, I got it, settle down.  Then I went around his backside and took some pictures of his butt.  The lesser known side of David.  In David’s defense, these aren’t great pictures — it’s hard to think about taking good pictures when you’re under the constant threat of being deported.  Journalism under fire.

I got pretty good at taking pictures in places that don’t allow cameras though, our “dopey tourist” look worked to our benefit in this regard.  Took a bunch in the Medici Chapel, which is this ridiculously beautiful place that could easily pass for some important government building or an art museum or something, but it was built to be the tomb of one the Medici and seven or eight of his favorite cousins — of course he made his own tomb look practically like a shrine, with lots of spots for candles to be lit and flowers to be placed.  I’m probably going to be cursed by the Medici gods for laughing but I thought the whole place was hilarious.  I mean really, who do you think is going to come and worship your tomb?  You’re so vain!  You probably think this tomb is about you, don’t you don’t you????

Anyway!  Enough of my social commentary.  What else… we went across the river to climb a hill, Piazzale Michelangelo, that gives a wonderful view of the city.

Looking back at the pictures, I also found this one:

Good gravy, what is wrong with that lady standing next to us???? I hadn’t even noticed her while we were there.  Hope she’s okay.  Maybe she’s devastated by the view.

And speaking of going across the river, we did go see the famous Ponte Vecchio (“old bridge”), the only bridge not destroyed by Hitler’s army during his retreat out of Florence.  I’ll be honest, we saw it because we had to see it, found it “neat” and not much more… it was lined with jewelry shops which I really have no interest in.  BUT.  We happened to be there while the shops were closing for the night and I was completely enamoured with how they did it… the front of the stores were completely encased in polished wood and steel panels which the owners lock into place piece-by-piece by hand, and secured with padlocks so that the stores themselves resembled treasure chests.  Each treasure chest looked different than the one next to it.  This was a real glimpse into the medieval roots of the place.  I must have stood there transfixed for at least an hour watching this happen, until Doug reminded me that I was probably being monitored on a security camera somewhere as a potential jewel thief.

And only a few people will understand this, but I caption this next picture “Kiran”

Before I wrap up, I have to share one of our more profound experiences of the trip.  We went to the Basilica of Santa Croce, which is really gorgeous in its own right.  Inside of it are many many tombs (lots right in the floor itself, which I felt pretty “argh” about walking across.)  In clockwise order from top left, these are the tombs of Machiavelli, Galileo, Dante, and Michelangelo…

… in one room.   It’s not like I’m under any delusion that our world today is as it was in the 16th century.  But for a moment, just a moment, it was really blowing my mind that these men and many other notable names walked the same Florentine roads as one another and perhaps even shared meals and ideas and philosophies.  Doug and I sat in the church for a really long time talking about our contribution to the world and our legacy.  We talked about our world today, the technology renaissance of our times,  and whether our technology gamechangers will live on in the history books that “those that changed the world.”  We agreed that Steve Jobs was such a person.  I’m still filled with immense sadness at his passing.  This is somewhat unrelated, but a while ago I wanted to post this in memoriam of Steve but never got around to doing it:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
– Rudyard Kipling -

Thanks for giving of yourself, dude.  You will be missed.

ANYWAY.  More serious stuff was talked about and pondered over many pieces of artwork.  Perhaps that is the magic of Florence, that it inspires a person think and feel and wonder.  If any of you would like to join me on some book readings and discussions about it, I’ve picked up a few great books about some Renaisasance folks and I’m really looking forward to studying the time period and the people in it some more.  I know, nerd alert.  :)  Loving it though.

Oh and here is a picture of Doug pointing out the only entry point into the Duomo in Assassin’s Creed!  If you don’t know what Assassin’s Creed is, seriously don’t worry about this.  I have also not yet mentioned the two things Doug and I love the most about Italy, and Florence was no exception.  Pizza and cappuccino.  Bam.

Eventually we had to leave and head on to other parts of Italy…. arrivederci, Firenze!  Until we meet again!

Thanks for reading such a long post.  If you’d like to see our full picture collection from Florence, you can do so here.  I started to caption the pictures but then got lazy and …didn’t.  You’ll have to imagine where we are (hint: it’s Florence.)  Otherwise, we’ll probably break for some holiday-related stuff and then will be back soon to blog about our next stop, Venice!  Happy holidays to everyone — safe travels and good eats

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