Katie and Tommy: Around the World

After a short setback involving a broken bottle of wine and some seriously stained luggage, we headed out in our rental car on our way to Florence: me, Tommy, and my parents. Apparently Easter Monday is the day that Romans take off and flock to the small towns in the neighboring countryside to visit churches, sightsee, and have picnics. We thought this sounded like a lovely idea, so we did basically the same thing, joining the throngs of Italians driving through the picturesque countryside. Unfortunately, we didn’t take into account the added traffic on narrow country roads and town streets (or a spontaneous light snowstorm). We drove to Assisi and found it filled with visitors. Still, we managed to squeeze our oversized Fiat into a parking lot of SmartCars, grip our much-used umbrellas against the falling snow, and walk into the city walls. Our first stop was the Basilica of St. Francis, a really beautiful church built of simple, stark white stone with a red tile roof, perched on a hillside overlooking rolling green hills and vineyards. Below the newer basilica is a smaller one that was built just after the death of St. Francis and houses his tomb. From there we wanted to see the monastery and the original church St. Francis built himself, as well as the church of St. Clare, but the streets were growing more and more crowded, and after one attempt to steer our Fiat through the winding town streets and find parking, we realized it was getting late and we ought to head on to Florence.While the distance to Florence is not great, the roads are small and winding, and Italian street signs are not intuitively understood, at least not by us Americans. Signs indicating to go straight appear to say to turn; signs saying to turn are positioned anywhere in relation to the indicated turn except where one would expect, right before it; roundabouts are painfully common; and signs often point to the next town, and not to the major roads or cities. The roads into Florence were clogged with traffic, and we began to grow concerned about making it to our hotel before reception closed at nine. Finally we entered the city proper–only to be stumped at every turn by one-way streets and dead ends. We were basically entirely lost when suddenly we came upon a huge, black and white marble building. “Um, I think that’s the Duomo,” Tommy realized. One glance at a map and we realized that we were somehow miraculously a short two blocks from our hotel. We checked in, managed to drop off our rental car, and finished the day with a delicious Italian dinner right down the street.Due to our location and the walkability of just about everything in the city, we took to Florence immediately. Mom and I had come to the city with a long list of Rennaissance art to see, and we began checking them off first thing with a visit to the Baptistry in front of the Duomo where Ghiberti designed the “Gates of Paradise,” a set of reliefs for the doors. Copies are kept out in the weather now. We went in the Duomo and were surprised by its starkly bare interior in contrast with its elaborate and lovely exterior. We did recognize a painting of Dante on the walls that we had seen in books many times. Even though he was exiled from Florence the city still holds him as one of their biggest celebrities. Ravenna, where he spent his exile, seems to see this as unfair, and so refuses to move his tomb to Florence. He was one of the reasons Mom was particularly excited to go in the Baptistry, where he supposedly broke the baptismal font to rescue a dying infant.After some really wonderful hot chocolate (Switzerland needs to get some advice from Italy on the hot chocolate front) we went in the Museo Opera del Duomo, which houses many of the sculptures that previously adorned the cathedral before its many rennovations. Ghiberti’s original doors are there, in special nitrogen-heavy air chambers, as well as an unfinished Pieta by Michelangelo and some works by Donatello. There was some information on how Brunelleschi built his huge dome (before his design, no one could construct something big enough to cover the overly-ambitious cathedral) although we opted not to go up in it because of the line. Florence, perhaps because it is smaller, seemed significantly more crowded with tourists than Rome.We walked north next to the Palazzo Medici, the architecture of which I had studied in my art history class. In fact, just about every Renaissance piece I studied in my art history class is in Florence, so I was having a very good time. We went next to the church of San Lorenzo, which houses the Medici Chapel. Whatever the word “chapel” brings to mind, strike that and multiply its size by about twenty times. The upper chapel was a huge, high-ceilinged, octagonal room covered in green marble and elaborate decoration. On each wall was a Medici tomb: a large stone sarcophagus and a sculpture of its occupant standing above. Unfortunately half of the room was covered in scaffolding; however, perhaps for this reason, entry was free. Besides, what I really wanted to see was two more tombs, in the lower chapel. This room is much smaller and plainer, but it was designed by Michelangeo, and contains some of his spectacular sculptures. The church itself was also lovely and filled with art.By that time it was after five, and most other churches and museums were closed. We rested a while and then took a night walk. The streets were still very much alive. We passed through the Piazza della Repubblica, where musicians were performing, saw the statues of Orsanmichele (another art class destination), and went to the Piazza della Signoria to be greeted by the Palazzo Vecchio and the many statues surrounding it, including a copy of David in the place where the original stood until 1873. We ate dinner at a Fodor’s-recommended trattoria called Cibreo, which was far and away the best Italian food we had sampled so far (perhaps because it shares its kitchen with a pricey ristorante of the same name). We wandered back to our hotel via he Piazza del Duomo, full and happy.Day 2 began with a visit to the Casa di Dante, a museum with information about the poet and Florence during his time. It was small but informative. Mom bought a print of a portrait of Dante that the saleswoman (who did not speak English) seemed to indicate was by Giotto and housed in the Bargello. A quick glance at the map said it was nearby, and the museum was free to enter. (We would later find out it was some kind of week during which all the major national museums were free.) We were also surprised that we hadn’t planned on going there in the first place; inside we saw Donatello’s David (albeit on his back in the midst of restoration) and the panels by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi which were entered in the contest to design the Baptistry doors. There are also countless other Donatello and Michelangelo pieces. It was a nice museum–the only thing we didn’t see was the Dante portrait, which one of the museum employees told us was in the Uffizi.Then we visted the church of Santa Croce, which contains the tombs of such greats as Machiavelli, Galileo, Michelangelo, and Ghiberti. There was a big monument to Dante and some smaller ones to other Italians, including Enrico Fermi. We walked along the river to the Museum of Science, which was mostly under rennovation, but we did get to see the exhibit on Galileo and the invention of his telescope. From there we walked across the Ponte Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti and hen over to the church of Santa Maria del Carmine to see the Brancacci Chapel, fantastically decorated with frescoes by Masaccio which were revolutionary when they were painted. To finish off this busy day, we caught a train to Pisa to see the leaning tower.First thing Thursday morning, we went to the church of Santa Maria Novella. Since it was right by our hotel, we had neglected to visit yet, but I was very eager to see Masaccio’s fresco the Trinity inside, considered the first painting to demonstrate perspective. After that, we had two museum reservations to keep, the first of which was at the Galleria dell’Accademia, where we saw Michelangelo’s David and unfinished Prisoners. After lunch at the central market, we went to the Uffizi Gallery, which contained so many famous works it would be dificult to list them all. The two that draw the biggest crowds are Boticelli’s Primavera and Birth of Venus.After that we picked up our luggage and headed to the train station. We ate a small feast of food we had picked up at the central market earlier: bread, cheese, salami, pesto, and wine. Two trains and one waterbus later, we were in Venice.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 9:02 pm and is filed under Italy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.