Getting Un-lost, to see the guidebooks' favorites

After a few minutes of genuine concern – good grief, how was I going to find the group if  I couldn’t even hear the guide over my headset? – I suddenly remembered that the other major sight we were to see was the main piazza.  And since the Duomo sits at the top of the town, I figured my best bet was to follow the meandering street we’d come up, down, and surely, at some point, there would be some indication of whence lay one of the most famous city squares in the world.

And sure enough, I hadn’t meandered long when I saw that, at a fork in the street, most of the people were going off to the right.  And I was pretty sure we’d come up that street on the left.  So I went right, with the crowd, and a couple of minutes later I could hear snippets of lecture coming over my headset.  And in another couple of minutes I came out into the bright sunshine pouring down into a vast open area full of people.  And over to my right, being lectured to, I spotted my group.  Oh, frabjous day, I was un-lost.



Piazza del Campo

But now that I knew where they were, I took a moment to take in the scene.  The main part of the Piazza del Campo is this huge shallow bowl, not circular-shaped, but rather (as my guidebook helpfully suggested) fan-shaped, the straight line of the opened fan running in front of the Palazzo Pubblico (City Hall).  The brick bowl slopes gently up from there, and people sit about here and there on the sloping bricks, even lie back to soak up the sun.  All around the rim of the plaza are cafes, restaurants, pizza shops, sidewalk vendors.



Palazzo Pubblico (City Hall), Siena

I have to say something about the City Hall building.  It is somewhat like the one in Florence, though not quite so awkward-looking.  The one in Florence, whose official name is the Palazzo Vecchio, dates from 1322, the one in Siena from 1342, which undoubtedly accounts for their similarity.  The one in Florence  is this big, flat-faced square building, topped with a crenelated roof,  in the middle of which stands a very tall bell tower, which I must say looks spectacularly phallic.  The Siena City Hall is wider, and lower; it’s proportions are more pleasing, and the bottom floor is saved from the blankness of the rest of the building by a line of white arches.  But its bell tower is very tall, and sits far to one side, completely negating those pleasing proportions.  I’m including pictures of both, so you can decide for yourself which is more attractive.  Much is made of both buildings, which were the center of civic life in the middle ages, and are still.  For me the most impressive thing about them is that they have been standing, and functional, for almost 700 years.

Palazzo Vecchio (City Hall), Florence

But as to Il Campo itself (its name, The Field, comes from the time when it really was a field, outside the city walls): its biggest claim to fame is the Palio, a horse race held there every July 2^nd and August 16^th.  Thousands of people crowd into this piazza, and spill over into the narrow side streets, to watch this race.  The riders ride bareback, around the embankment that circles the sunken piazza.  There’s a picture in my Eyewitness Travel guidebook, and I can’t believe all the people – it’s like Times Square on New Year’s Eve, but more concentrated.  Can’t see how most of those people could see the riders, never mind the horses.  And apparently those cheering fans can’t go to the bathroom, because someone said no outdoor facilities are provided.

And what does the winner of this spectacular event win?  A large banner (which is what “palio”means).

When I rejoined the group, I got a number of “There she is!” and Gianni assured me that as soon as he had dismissed everyone for lunch, he had planned to come looking for me (I really was the bane of his existence). Pat and I settled at an outside table at one of the cafes, and did a little people watching, while consuming a perfectly nice lunch – one of those moments that I said earlier we didn’t get enough of on the trip.  Then we went looking for a bank, as I was drastically low on cash, and it really is better to deal in that than in credit cards, especially in small shops and cafes.  I looked up how to say “bank” (una banca), and was directed up a kind of alley lined with shops to the narrow, hilly streets beyond, where we wandered for a while, trying to find that banca. When we did, we found we couldn’t get into the little vestibule where they had the ATMs, because you needed a card key to get inside.  When a lady came along and helpfully used her key to get us inside, we couldn’t get the ATM to give us any money.  A frustrating 15 minutes, especially since we both felt we should be exploring.

When we returned to the group it was time to go (off to the wine tasting, see Note of July 27, 2013), which did not set well with most of us in the group; we simply had not had enough time to explore this fascinating, ancient little city.  One should have at least a full day; we had about four hours.  A word to the wise.

A final note: as we were walking back to the bus – here, as elsewhere, tour buses must park a good way outside the historic areas to be visited – I spotted an ATM on the outside wall of una banca.   I rushed over to use it, and right behind me was another member of the group, who had also not been able to locate an ATM earlier.  The group just kept going, which annoyed us both.  Ben, the fellow with me, a big, bluff  man who had appointed himself class clown -- and often was quite amusing, in his blank-faced way -- was not amused now, especially since the group had waited for one of our members while she slipped into a sweet shop to buy some candy.  He grouchily muttered “For her they could wait," while I was looking over my shoulder, and seeing with relief that Doug, a tall fellow from Texas who always wore a baseball cap, was waving it in the air as he walked on, so that we could see to follow.  The group really had gotten good about looking out for one another.

Yes, another church, but with a difference

After Pat and I finished our excellent meal at Ristorante Boccadama, Pat decided to check out some of the shops around the Piazza di Santa Croce.  I, as usual, needed to find a bathroom.  And, no, I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to use the restroom in the restaurant.  I think it was actually a matter of standing there at the little leather goods kiosk next to the restaurant while Pat decided on a billfold to buy her son, and then our standing there trying to decide what to do next, and it suddenly hitting me that I needed to go.  Since I wasn’t interested in shopping at all (I never am), we agreed to meet at the large statue on the steps of the church, as we had been instructed by Gianni.  I then made a beeline for the church – whose façade looks like the Duomo on a small scale, and is almost as beautiful – figuring I could surely use the toilets there.  But alas, unlike at the Basilica of Saint Anthony in Padua, at Santa Croce you had to pay to get into the church, to get at the restrooms.  So I forked up six Euros, to go to the bathroom.



However, when I took a look at the little booklet I’d picked up at a table by the ticket

Michelangelo's Tomb

booth, I was glad I’d paid my six Euros.  Because one of the claims to fame of this church is that it contains the tombs of a number of celebrated personages, including Michelangelo, and Galileo.  I mean, oh, wow.  To be looking at the tombs of one of the greatest artists in the world, and one of the greatest scientists.  Many people are not impressed by tombs, but I am.  Because this is the closest you can get to someone who is dead.  It’s why I have trouble with the concept of being cremated, and having your ashes dumped out into the wind on a mountain top, or at sea.  Where do people go later to feel close to you, and in some way, commune with you?  With a tomb – whether it’s an elegant sarcophagus, surrounded by elaborate sculpture, as in these cases, or a simple stone in the grass – you have a concrete place to focus on.



Galileo's Tomb

The church itself is less stark and bare than the Duomo, with a handsome dark wood ceiling, and narrow, sort of brownish-green columns holding up the graceful arches along the nave.  But it’s the apse, at the far end of the church, that is flat-out gorgeous.  I could tell this, despite all the scaffolding covering it up (it helped to later see a picture of it in my Florence guide book).  The usual rich colors, covering every inch of wall, a gorgeous gold alter, and windows full of deeply colored stained glass (at last, beautiful stained glass!)  They were obviously doing some restoration work on all those frescos of saints climbing both the outside and the inside of the huge arch that led to the apse.  I found it rather fascinating, watching the men and women up there in their white coats, looking like miniature people, dwarfed by the elaborate scaffolding, and the architecture surrounding them.  I thought, what a fascinating, if tedious, job, restoring all that beautiful artwork.

So I got my quick view of Santa Croce – would have wandered a bit more, but nature was screaming – went out to the cloister, where les toilettes always seem to be located – found I couldn’t figure out how to keep the door to the stall locked, so the lady at the front of the line kindly held it closed for me, and finally made my way out to the statue where we were all supposed to meet.

Only to discover that when Gianni kept referring to the “Pantheon” earlier, telling us we would be visiting it after lunch, he was talking about this church. Due to all the famous people buried there.  So the place I had just paid 6 Euros to visit on the run, the rest of the group was to get into for free.

Ah, well.  Since Gianni had also said our next stop would be some museum, and I was pretty museumed out, I took this opportunity to return to see the interior of the Duomo (See Note of August 6, 2013) .  When I exited there I boldly asked the guard at the door “Dove’ un taxi?”  I didn’t understand his answer, but I understood the pointing well enough.  I made my way out beyond the pedestrians-only streets to where the traffic plowed by (often interrupted by pedestrians) and was lucky enough to spot an empty cab stopped for a red light.  I went up and tapped on the window, the driver looked over at me and nodded.  When I got in I told him exactly what Gianni had told me to say: ”Hotel Villa Maid’-ee-chee, per favore’.”  And then watched as the driver made his way with great panache through the crowded, narrow streets, full of scooters and bicycles that zipped in and out amongst the other traffic.  And finally I ventured to ask “Parla englesee?”  He glanced back at me and said “un po,” which is what they all say.  So I said, “I think you must be very brave to drive a taxi in Florence.”  He laughed, gave a very Italian shrug and said “It is nor-mal”.  A ride in a taxi with a real Italian driver, how cool is that?

And when she got home, after a very long day, Patricia collapsed onto her bed and declared, “The stupid museum was the Gucci Museum.  With a gift shop, of course.  A total waste of time.”

The place with the big red dome

The famous Duomo (cathedral), which we visited after we left the Accademia Gallery, is first of all huge.  We came upon it from the side, and looking down its length, it seemed to go on forever.  It is even more magnificent on the outside than pictures of it suggest.  (The inside is less so, but more about that in a moment).  Particularly the façade: the multicolored marble – did I mention that everything in Italy seems to be made of marble? – is so striking, so different from the grey stone I was accustomed to seeing in French cathedrals.  When you’re standing looking up at it, it seems to be striped, but that’s a trick of the eye, caused by the long white marble panels trimmed in green marble.  These panels running up the sides, the front of the building, one atop the other, form green and white stripes. And there is also some rose-colored marble mixed in there, especially in the tall, square camponile (bell tower) that stands next to the church.

At the same time that you’re marveling at all that color, you are almost blinded by the whiteness of the vast central entrance, the two smaller arched entrances to either side.  And there are white niches containing sculptured figures on each side of the arches, and just below the roof. The large round windows above the pointed side arches, and the even larger window above the central arch, give a wonderful symmetry to the whole.   

Interestingly, though the church was built over a 140 year period (1296-1436), the marble facing on the façade (which is so gorgeous) was re-done in the late 1800s.  Can't help wondering what it looked like all those years. 

So I was busy snapping pictures, like everyone else, but oh, those crowds.  Losing one’s group was a real fear, and a real possibility.  At one point, when our guide was going on and on, as he had about David, I took the opportunity to sit down on a step of the church and finish the sandwich I had started eating when we were at the Palazzo Davanzati (as I’ve said, my need to eat frequently was a constant pain).  I heard the guide switch from the Duomo to the Baptistry, which is a few steps from the church, and is the place where babies in days of old had to be baptized before they could enter the church.  The most famous feature of this small, octagonal-shaped building are the double doors carved by the artist Ghiberti, over a 27-year period (these artistic masterpieces took a long time to produce!)  The doors are made up of 10 gilded panels beautifully carved with stories from the Old Testament. Most of us who took art history in college have studied these doors, and it was nice to be able to see them in the flesh, so to speak.  But as a matter of fact it was difficult to see them because of…you guessed it… the crowds.  Every picture I tried to take was obscured by heads, bodies, some group leader holding up a sign with a number on it so his group would know where he was.

I would have loved to be able to patiently wait until those pressed up against the gold-painted bars

Ghiberti's famous doors, completed 1452

that protect the doors from the hordes (and possible vandalism) had moved away, so that I could inch my way up to that barrier, and actually study the panels for a few minutes.  But alas, I was losing the guide’s voice – it was fading in and out on my little headphones (which I now had, thanks to Gianni coming equipped with a couple of spare ones) – and looking around, I couldn’t see a single member of my group.  Yikes!  Had they gone into the Baptistry?  I circled the place, searching for the entrance; when I finally found it, saw that there was a 5 Euro entrance fee.  No, surely they hadn’t gone in there.  So I returned to where I had started and there, praise the lord, was Gianni, looking around for me, waving when he saw me (and not for the last time). 

But wait, the group was moving off down the street.  I ran up to Gianni and exclaimed (literally exclaimed) “Gianni, we aren’t going into the Duomo?!”  No, he said, “There isn’t time.”  This absolutely flumoxed me.  How could you take people to see one of the most famous churches in the world, and not take them inside.  When I said this to Gianni he agreed with me, and said that when I got the email from Perillo asking how I had liked the tour, I should mention this.  “Because they won’t listen to us,” he said, meaning the guides. 

Alas, I never received such an email, never got the chance to voice my dismay at this egregious omission.  Perhaps if the guide hadn’t spent so much time on David, there would have been time.  Listen up, Perillo Tours.

I later went back by myself.  I was pleasantly surprised at how minimal the crowds were, how non-existent the line to get inside, and not for the first time I wondered, “Why do all the tour groups descend on these famous sites at the same time?”  Instead of everybody showing up  9-11 a.m., why don’t some of them go 2-4 p.m.?




Facade of Duomo, Florence

 


Side of Duomo, dome & a chapel in bkgrd

 At any rate, once inside I admit to finding myself mildly disappointed, as I had been with San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice.  Here, too, the word ‘austere’ probably sums it up best.  What you mainly notice about the place is that it is vast, vast and empty, no pews or chairs, practically no decoration, just great blank walls reaching up and up.  The few narrow stained glass windows are so high on those walls, they make practically no impression at all.  The one thing that is truly impressive is the inside of the great dome, which is as spectacular as the outside.  It’s so very high it’s hard to see the figures, the scenes clearly, but it is a wonderful swirl of rich color.  Worth going into the church…as long as there’s no line.

Art: Food for the soul

Our next stop was the Accademia Gallery (AG), for a look at the famous David.  This most famous work by Michelangelo Buonaroti (and how many of you knew ol’ Michelangelo had a last name?) was begun when the artist was only 26, and took him three years to finish. This puts me in mind of Mozart, writing all those symphonies and other works before he was 20.  A genius is a genius, what can one say.  David originally stood in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, which we were to visit later, and which really is one’s idea of a palace.  Today it houses the city government of Florence, and has an imitation David out front, as in 1875 the original was moved to the AG.

At the AG there were the usual long lines, coming from both directions along the narrow sidewalk on the narrow street.  As a group we were whisked to the front of one of the lines (there are definitely advantages to being a group!), ‘though we still had to wait a bit.  Once inside we were led by our guide to the Gallery of the Slaves, which leads to the statue of David, standing by itself in the center of its own well-lit rotunda.  In the dimly-lit GoftheS, it’s easy to be distracted by that big, beautiful man-child up there on his pedestal. I tried to pay attention to what the guide was saying about the Slaves, but unfortunately I had left my headphones at the hotel, and even standing near him didn’t help much, as the place was so noisy – a high-ceilinged, echoing room full of other guides talking to other groups – so I finally gave up, and just went to look at each of the slaves.

These are not crack-the-whip slaves, but rather slaves of the marble, trying to come out.  For that was Michelangelo’s belief: that sculptures lurked within the marble, and just needed the artist’s help to reveal themselves.  There are four of them, and they are in various stages of being revealed (or, one might say, finished).  Two of them especially look very crude, very unfinished.  To me they demonstrate that a “work in progress” might be intellectually interesting – and provide guides with lots to talk about – but emotional satisfaction comes from the finished product.

As to David, whom I ventured to visit next, while our guide was still pontificating on the Slaves, he is absolutely amazing.  The subtle muscles, the knees, the abs, the perfect buttocks, and that calm,

smooth, boyish face.  I’ve long held that the Mona Lisa, that millions also flock to see, is way overrated, but Michel-angelo’s David is not.  To see the real thing, not a picture in a book, is a deep pleasure.

By the time our guide had moved the group into the David room, I had moved on, to the two galleries that lie on either side.  These are taken up with those overblown paintings that I’ve mentioned I’m not crazy about: swirling robes, voluptuous women, chunky cherubim on fat clouds, everybody looking some degree of pained.  But what was interesting about these paintings was that they had all been restored, and there were small pictures below them, that showed what they had looked like before the restorers (or “cleaners”) went to work.  What a difference!  What a fascinating, but painstaking, job that must be.

I found fascinating the room at the far end of one of these galleries, called the 19^th Century Room.  Here are lot of busts of regular folks who (nonetheless) could afford to have busts made of themselves.  These are not the austere, essentially interchangeable busts (and in some cases full figures) of classical Rome and Greece, but pictures in plaster cast (from which the final marble statues were made) that actually show what the sitter looked like, capturing not only dress and hairstyles, but expression, suggestions of personality.  It made me want to rush out and have a bust made of myself, although I really should have had that done before the days of a fattened face and drooping jowls were upon me.

Mary Magdalene by unknown artist, 1280-1285

I also visited two small galleries that contained beautiful examples of 14^th century art – wood panels with gold leaf backgrounds, rich colors, Madonnas with ugly baby Jesuses who looked like miniature grown men, story-telling squares surrounding the main figure, halos around the saints, the angels, the Madonnas, almost a total lack of depth perception.  These are not realistic paintings, but serene religious commentaries, meant to inspire and instruct.  

And while I was enjoying all of this, the rest of the group were still standing around David, while the guide went on and on.  Pat said he eventually got to where he was telling them about other groups he had led, which included famous sport and entertainment celebrities who made amazingly stupid comments about the statues.  Perillo Tours, I think perhaps this part of your Marco Polo Tour could be improved upon.

Next Stop: Firenze

The countryside beyond Padua gradually became more hilly, and beyond Bologna, which we just drove past on the highway, the northern end of the Apennine Mountains, which run up the middle of the Italian boot, rose on our left.  These are friendly mountains, as opposed to majestic ones.  We were soon deep in the mountains’ lushly green foot hills, going up and down, and around curves.  In little valleys you could see farms, with their ocher-colored, red-tile-roofed  farmhouses.  And eventually the traffic slowed noticeably – ah, yes, the famous terrible Italian traffic, which we had not had to deal with up to now.

By the time we rolled into Florence it was raining, and coming on to evening, so Gianni made the decision to wait on the planned trip to Michelangelo Square, to view the city.  And we were glad he did, since instead we visited there on our last day, when it was partly sunny and dry; much better for viewing, and picture-taking.  We now went straight to our hotel, Grand Hotel Villa Medici.  Like the hotel in Venice this one was elegant and well-maintained, although more sleekly contemporary in its interior decoration.  There are “testimonials” in one of the lounge areas from famous folk like Luciano Pavarotti calling the hotel an “oasis” in the heart of Florence.   The beautifully landscaped swimming pool to be seen beyond large windows and modern French doors certainly looked like an oasis; indeed, I regretted that we simply did not have the time to sit out there and relax for an hour or so.  (See Note of May 18, 2013)

Grand Hotel Villa Medici

The most disconcerting aspect of the hotel was the way the main elevator kept going on the fritz.  There was another elevator, just across the lobby from the main one, but it came out in a place that left you confused as to where you were.  And we never knew when the elevator would be out of commission, so everybody spent a lot of time wandering around upstairs, trying to figure out which elevator to take.

The best thing about the hotel was that our room, while considerably smaller than the room in Venice, had a balcony.  Pat especially appreciated this feature, since she could smoke without having to go downstairs and outside.  And I delighted in looking over the waist-high wall and watching the life on a Florence street: people going in and out of the small shops, the apartment buildings, the light traffic on the street: buzzing motor scooters, the small cars, the occasional tourist bus.  I discovered, when I went out looking for food later, that down a couple of blocks to the left there were numerous hotels and small restaurants, as well as a mini-mart that was able to supply me with my standby ham-and-cheese sandwiches (and was staffed by someone of obvious mid-eastern ancestry: shades of New York/Boston/ and many other large cities).  And we watched an absolutely gorgeous sunset from that balcony, while listening to swooping, whistling birds, that someone told us were swallows.

Sunset from our balcony

The next day we began our touring by visiting the Palazzo Davanzati, one of the few residential buildings in Florence dating from the medieval period.  We tend to have a Cinderella-ish idea of what a palace is, but among the Italians of old a palazzo could be simply, as this building was, the large home of a rich family.   From the front it is unprepossessing: a very flat – no protruding balconies, shutters, or even window sills – plain, brown building, four stories high.  Our guide pointed out that something the façade did have were iron sconces, to hold torches, and flags.  Medieval Italian city states, like Florence, were torn by internal factions, often a matter of guilds, who had their own flags.   Whatever group you belonged to, you flew their flag.  Even today, flag waving is very big in Italy.

There are also lots of iron hooks, curved upwards, called erri.  These were used to hang baskets of flowers from, or banners, on festive days, or to leash little pet dogs or moneys.  So presumably the façade was often much less drab than it appears today.

Inside, I immediately felt I had stepped back into Romeo and Juliet’s day.  The ground floor is actually a stone-floored courtyard, though it seems less like one now, because there is a roof four floors above, rather than the awning that would originally have been there, which could be rolled back to let in air, or rolled into place to keep out rain.  The wide double doors leading out to the street would have been left open during the day, and people would have entered and left at will.  Off this courtyard is, among other rooms, the room where banking transactions would have taken place, for the Davizzis, who built the house in the early 1300s , were wealthy merchants and bankers.  There is a stone stairway leading up to the first floor, where the family’s private rooms were located.  Halfway up this staircase is a heavy door, that would have been manned by a guard, to keep out the riff-raff.

Upstairs, on each floor, a gallery runs around three sides of the house, and looks down on the courtyard.  I could just imagine the young girls of the house, peering over the stone balustrade at some dashing young fellow in striped tights below.  The rooms open off of this galley – the Great Hall, where special guests would have been entertained, bedrooms – one of which had been painted to look like the walls are covered with beautiful tiles, the other of which seems to have beautiful fabric wall hangings, also painted on.  There’s even a toilet.  In most of the rooms a few beautiful, elaborately carved wooden chairs, tables, chests.  I saw why there were no shutters to be seen on the outside of the building – the heavy wooden shutters are inside, and fold up accordion fashion when you open them.

 

I loved the place.  Pat hated all the stone stairs.

Beautifully decorated building in Florence