The Rest of Florence

Alright, so I feel that perhaps I’ve procrastinated long enough with this blog post. And especially with it already being my fourth day of my internship today, I must forewarn you that this entry will not do the rest of my Italian voyage justice.

Before I continue, I would like you to know that I finally do have pictures slowly being uploaded to the Internet, and will soon provide links.

In the meantime, I believe I was still in Florence when I last left you. Indeed, last Wednesday was the day I would be leaving to meet up with Trevor and company in Rome. However, as I was not scheduled to leave until mid-afternoon, I ended up deciding to do a pre-Vatican City pilgrimage, by visiting different Florentine churches. My first stop was at Parrocchia Nostra Signora del Sacro Cuore, the church that was but a few minutes’ walk from the hostel. I followed that up with a brief stop at the Basilica Santuario della SS. Annunziata, where I participated in the second half of an all-Italian Mass service. In the basilica, I started to get the sense that my art history days at Albion were slowly coming back, particularly when I saw the relics preserved of Saint Giuliana Falconneri. After passing the Centro Linguistico di Ateneo, I ended up at the Parocchia del S. Ambrogio. After that stop, I finally made it to my way to the Church of Santa Croche (as per Alex’s suggestion). There, among the many memorials and various tombstones, I saw the tombstones or memorials of such ‘famous people’ as Michelangelo, da Vinci, Niccolini, Bartolini, Rossini, Marconi, Degli Albertin, Dante (in actuality, his remains really don’t exist there), and Enrico Fermi (yes, I’m the product of Science-O). On the same complex, I made a quick stop at the Scuoto del Cuoio (Leather School of Florence), before moving onto the Studio Teologico per Laici di Santa Croce, a printing exposition of original (1/15) prints by Pietro Parici. I then continued my voyage with stops at the Cappella de’ Pazzi and the Museo dell’Opera, before finally heading out. On my way to my last big tourist stop, I got some gelato at Antica Galateria del Corso (flavours: Signola? And Caco (Amsterdam)). I then had the choice of going to a horror museum that would be closing in a week and an exhibit focused on da Vinci’s work. I chose the latter and got to see replicas of da Vinci’s inventions, etc., based on his original journals and codices. It was a wonderfully interactive exhibit and for 7 €, I was able to get my ticket and end with a pizza and pop snack at Caffé Michelangiolo. It’s interesting that the two are associated with one another as, historically, the two were intense rivals. Finally, after my walk through Mercato Centrale, I boarded my train to Rome.

Good Thing I Wore My Tackies!

After another cardio session and a quick breakfast, I got ready to meet up with Alex, a classmate of mine from high school. I realised two things on my way to the train station, where we were planned to meet up: I am severely locked on French timing mode, as well as Parisian walking mode. (Coincidientally, Alex would later tell me that Italians are more or less very laid back.) In any case, I made it to the train station my expected 10 minutes late (though perhaps this may attributed to Albion time) and realised a third thing: trying to find Alex at a busy train & bus station (Santa Maria Novella, S.M.N.) without cell phones would be a pretty hectic task. However, Alex found me (as his bus is apparently the only one that arrives on other side of the bus drop-offs) and we were on our way.

Alex is currently studying about 20 minutes outside of Florence, taking classes in the villa and his classmates are staying at, and travelling in and out of Italy almost every weekend. Tough life for us off-campus students, yebo? With this said, he was an amazing tour guide and even though we found ourselves not where he quite expected, I wasn't any the wiser. Today, I think, was my first "wow, I'm a tourist" day.

Our first stop was to see David (the statue) and so we headed off to the Galleria dell'Academia. No photos allowed, so all I can really say (without even trying to do every piece of artwork justice) is that this Florentine art is some pretty amazing stuff. Wow, did I really relegate centuries of artwork to 'stuff'? In all sincerity, it was truly mind-boggling that people took all this time to paint or chisel, and their masterpieces were right there, right in front of me. For all my Parisian classmates and those who know about the term, beuf, I would also like to say that I have never seen more beuf poses and expressions in one museum at one time (and this was a pretty small one!). And, then, there he was: David. What many call the most perfect statue, I was in awe with how anyone could sculpt like that, let alone be the ones who were responsible for bringing this massive piece of artwork into the building. Of another interesting (though, random) note, I saw a lady cleaning one of the paintings. Her cleaning tool of choice?: a Swifter brush.

Since I couldn't take any photos of David, we headed off to find one of the replicas located elsewhere in Florence. We passed through either Piazzalo Degli Uffiso or Palazzo Vecchio, I think (thanks to me not having anything to write on, once again), then stopped for a wonderful view of from the Ponte Vecchio (including the interesting shade of green of the river). We continued on to the site of a church, where supposedly one of the best views of Florence can be found. Lo, and behold, Alex demonstrated his vast (and dare I say random?) wealth of Florentine knowledge, pointing out Aspen trees and sharing some of his study abroad stories as we climbed up (and down) the wrong hill, and finally up the right one. The second hill consisted of a stepped path (as opposed to the slightly steep one, reminiscent of my Québec voyage two winters ago), and we finally made it to the top (I told Alex I probably shouldn't have done that cardio earlier in the morning). It wasn't the church, but the lookout point nevertheless offerred a great look over Florence. Then, after taking photos of David (oh yeah, that's where an iron(?) replica of David was located), Alex had the brilliant idea of walking up the stairs to the church he had been thinking about, the Church of San Miniato al Monte; did I mention this idea was brilliant? I got an even better shot of Florence, and also happened to notice that a large group to my right were all French. We went inside the church, I took more photos (many of which will be on-line soon enough), and then we headed back down.

Hungry by this point, I suggested we have lunch and so we stopped in a little bistro and per Alex's suggestion, tried a panini sandwich which consisted of lettuce, fresh mozzarella and prosciutto. And it was amazing! (Though, I still think the French win in the bread category.)

At this point now filled a bit, Florence decided to make us burn some of that off by giving us wonderful weather (I'm quite surprised with how much I'm enjoying the weather here) and many a mini-hill to climb in the Boboli Gardens, the background of the Pitit Palace. (ps/ I'd compare the Church of San Miniato al Monte closest to Montmartre, and these gardens as closest to those of Versailles.) If I'm not mistaken, all of the statues were Pompei-inspired or, at the very least, old. The most interesting pieces, however, were two modern statues that seemed to have been randomly dropped there. One of them reminded me of the face one can find in Tuilleries, and the other reminded us of a (white) blood cell. On our way out of the gardens, I saw a giant obelisk supported on the shells of four turtle (figures) and perhaps the world’s largest ‘bathtub’ (at least, that’s what it looked like).

As we were now nearing the time that Alex had to leave (since he has his Italian language course in the evenings), I asked him where the best gelato in Florence is. Like the great Florentine student he is, he knew of a place to go, and en route also stumbled upon the leather market he had mentioned hours beforehand (the name of which is the Piazza del Mercato Nuovo). We ended up going to Grom, where I got limone and cioccolata extranoir gelato in a grande (though, in American terms was a small or, just barely, a medium) cup.

We finally split off at S.M.N. Alex went to the right, and still having some tourist left in me, went left. I decided to take the underground system in place under the intersection (which can get extremely hectic) by S.M.N. and found many a shop (didn’t buy anything!) and the exit to the other side of the street. Once on the other side, I went into the Church of Santa Maria Novella. I first prayed for a bit in one of the chapels then went to the main church (i.e., the tourist part) and once again unable to take photos, toured the open space and the Florentine artwork adorning the walls, as well as the main altar.

At the end of my tour, I made my way to S.M.N. to check if a price difference existed between using a Fast Ticket machine and buying a ticket directly from those at the ticket window. I didn’t get a direct answer, but I definitely bought my ticket to Rome for a lot less than I had expected to pay! Great luck in hand, I headed back to the hostel and took a very long nap. I eventually woke up and had dinner (Ravioli al pomadoro—spinach and ricotta filled—and pineapple juice, 4,80 €) in the hostel restaurant. The pasta was a bit too al dente for my liking, so perhaps I’ll have my best pasta ever, in Rome. Following dinner, I watched Lucky Number Slevin, then returned to my room to look through photos and eventually fall asleep.

Speaking of photos, I would like to offer the day's "True Life" statement. True life: I have taken 430 photos and 1 little video since I arrived in Italy, took 157 during my Florentine tour with Alex, including 4 different panoramic sets, have 447 files on my card in total, and have only 245 left. True life, part 2: I still have 4 days in Italy.