Ciao Tuscany

I’ve been trying to get this posted for the last week, but it turns out that being a tourist in rural Tuscany takes more more time and energy than Florence.

Here’s the last of Florence. We had a great time and will be delighted to go back some day. The main thing is seeing all the art—we felt like we’d skimmed the surface in a week of visiting one or two places a day. But there was time for resting and recovering, talking and reflecting, and, as usual, eating. The Uffizi museum’s treasures are seriously for real, though visiting is something of a hassle. More enjoyable as an experience was the Pitti Palace, an old Medici place, really sumptuous and also many great things. And for us the best art experiences for us were the frescoes in the churches. Many of them tell stories—these are from life of St. Peter.

Since our legs are not what they used to be, for getting to all these places it was a big help when we began to figure out the buses.

Needing some variety, on our last day we went out to Fiesole, a town outside Florence where lots of visitors like to stay.

Next day we picked up the car and without much trouble made it out of Florence. First stop was San Gimignano. There are many, many medieval hill towns, but S. G. is unique and famous for its towers.

Like all the hill towns, it has plenty of stuff for tourists.

The Tuscan food is so tasty (lots of garlic, salt, and oil, as well as goodies like fancy mushrooms and wonderful cheeses) that we, like many before us, were inspired to cook. Somehow the Italians are able to eat twice as much as us and stay thin! This is where we got garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, and basil for a feast.

Wine is the other big thing. Unfortunately, the actual farms where they make the wine were not open for tasting this time of the year. This is a place where you buy a card and insert it into one of these machines and get shots to taste. We got the cheapest card but since it was only lunchtime we had to put up with by tasting expensive wines so we could use it up without drinking too much.

Here’s the borgo where we stayed. A borgo is a “village,” but this one was just these few apartments, a wine bar/pasta place, and a church which didn’t seem to be having regular masses.

A lovely family runs the place, and they had lots of good advice for us. It’s on top of a hill, so there’s plenty of light and views.

The main activity is driving around looking at the scenery. Vineyards, olive groves, hill towns, and lots of soft sunshine. The effect is something like California before all the houses and freeways, though all the up-and-down hills reminded us of Vermont, but with the towns, at least the old ones, on top of the hills rather than in the valleys.

It’s a romantic place, with all the colors and art and history and foreignness. As it happened, I was reading A Farewell to Arms, which takes place in northern Italy. It’s all about idealized romance which you know is going to end in tragedy, juxtaposed with wartime horror. We certainly felt the romance. The closest thing to war we encountered was one evening when the Italian air force was playing white-on-blue tic-tac-toe with jet contrails in the sky.

We drove to Lake Trasimeno hoping for a hike, but it turned out to be rainy and we didn’t get much beyond the town. But a fun lunch at a Jolly’s bar in the old city, with loud Italian TV, lottery tickets, plain food, and a buzzy fly, but on the whole it was clean and bright and the customers were having a good time. At the end the waitress brought us tiramisu, pears, and chocolate sauce, on the house.

On the whole, there wasn’t much evidence of hiking and certainly no climbing. Quite a few serious bicyclists (you have to be serious to do the hills) dressed up in fancy outfits but without luggage. I’m not sure whether they were on tours with automotive support, or just out for rides. We didn’t really bird, though I was hoping to see a Hooded Crow, but did flush a pair of big pheasants on a country road.

Siena is amazing medieval city. Here’s the Campo, where in the summer they have the Palio horse race around the perimeter, with the middle jammed with spectators.

Siena has its own Duomo. With just an hour, Kathy and I had to hurry to experience it the mosaic floor, which is dramatic scenes mostly from the Bible, frescos all over the walls and ceilings, a statue of John the Baptist by Donatello, and the beautifully-frescoed library of giant choir books.

The biggest treat was meeting up with Danny for the last few days. He flew to Rome and took the train to Chiusi. He liked the hill towns and taking pictures, but we all enjoyed sitting in cafes hearing about the good time he’s having experiencing Egypt.

Florence Diary

Got here last Saturday morning after the usual overnight experience. The main adventure was Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. We had to go from terminal 2E to 2G, which turned out to be about 20 minutes of riding escalators, a train, more escalators and stairs, some big concourses, passport control, more concourses, and then standing on a crowded bus for the 10 minute ride to the other terminal where there were some more ups and downs and the need to get boarding passes and then go through security again. We almost missed our plane.

Florence is much more relaxed. Caffe latte as we waited for the public bus to take us into town, then a 15 minute walk to meet our landlord at the apartment, which is large and well-furnished in a building that was a monastery from the 14th century til WWII. The light in Florence is amazing. Here's the view from our balcony.

In our neighborhood, there are always people wheeling suitcases down the narrow sidewalks, or in the streets, dodging motorscooters and racing buses. There are small hotels and rental apartments like ours. The people seem to be mostly Italian, with quite a few student types. A number of small art operations—boutique printing, and a guy who makes rugs and other fabric out of strange materials,

We've been art-tourists. That first evening it was the walk of the sleep-deprived to the Ospedale delgi Innocenti and the Accademia. The Ospedale is said to to be noteworthy for architecture, but we were more struck by the story of the world’s first orphanage, with its rotating depository for the anonymous abandonment of infants. Most of the abandonees were girls, so it eventually became more of a convent, and a home for the “secretly expecting,” unwed mothers who were required to stay for a year and serve as wet-nurses for the abandoned ones. We got to the Accademia shortly before it closed, and by the time we left there was nobody around the Michelangelo's magnificent David, huge, imposing, beautiful details of veins and muscles. Fear and determination in his eyes and face like he is expecting an attack, from Goliath or from God. To me it was ambiguous whether he’d already thrown the rock or was getting ready to.

Here's Kath in front of about the lower third of the Dumo.

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And the Piazza della Signoria with its statues.

Also plenty of unexpecteds, like this display of cut-outs in stone outside a huge Renaissance fortress now used for exhibitions.

One the way back from a pre-dinner stroll we saw a sign inviting us into a little sculpture shop. Yvonne di Palma from Philadelphia, with her late husband, an Italian sculptor, has for thirty-five years been creating figures from various cultures and political movements using classical Florentine techniques of terra cotta and costuming and exhibiting them to further world peace. It’s both political and spiritual, and she was most generous with her time.

Yesterday we wandered into the leathermaking school in the monastery of Santa Croce to observe the meticulous pressing of gold trim into fine leather for purses, jackets, briefcases, etc. Very pricey.

The streets are busy and there usually something going on.

Last night it was a large and boistrous group of American high school students hollering as they scampered down the sidewalk waving their bottles of beer. We followed a pair of girls, one of whom was being led and supported by the other.

Food has been fun. The second night was a bit more dramatic than we planned. We found a restaurant that got three out of five forks in a guidebook, but we couldn't get the prices. Lots of fidgeting and a few recriminating glances as studied the menu and sipped the free starting wine. After ascertaining they took credit cards, we had a great and subtle meal.

That splurge has led to a marked dialback on the flow of euros. We've had a couple of fine meals from the Mercato Centrale, where you can find all sorts of meat, pasta, olive oil, vegetables, mushrooms, and cheese, as well as chianti of course.

The other night we headed for a trattoria Kathy found in the neighborhood. It was closed, but a few doors down was an inconspicuous sign for Ristorante Il Vegetariano. So we followed a thin young woman through a room with rustic tables and down a corridor to a couple more rooms where an American woman, a customer, explained how to get your food. We ordered way too much, but it was very tasty and lovingly flavored.

I'm going to have to stop for now. We're going to try to find the right bus to take us across the river to the Pitti Palace, where there's some more art to look at.

Here's the sunset view from the balacony.