slowly she turned

Saturday, 14 ottobre 2006

While in the Mercato Centrale, I picked up several items to bring home with me, including a bottle of limoncello, Toscanelli and Borlotti beans, dried porcini mushrooms, and a couple of different varieties of dried pasta.

On the way back to the Hotel, we walked through the huge street market that surrounds the San Lorenzo church area and shopped a bit. Many of the vendors were selling the same merchandise – mostly leather goods and a lot of fake cashmere/silk scarves. I ended up buying an red cloth mirrored shoulder bag made in India, but I liked it better than the fancy leather bags and it was practical. You are expected to negotiate, which I don’t care for, and I am a terrible skeptic about anyone trying to sell me anything so shopping in these markets was not my cup of tea.

One thing I noticed about Florence was that anywhere that catered to tourists was penis-crazy, due to all the nude statues. There were lots of aprons and boxer shorts that had prints of just David’s torso or genitalia and even bags of penis-shaped pasta. This got old quickly and I found myself silently telling everybody to grow up. I’m not a prude, but reducing David to a penis joke at every corner was not so funny after seeing the real thing.

At the Hotel San Giovanni, we were joined by Shirley and Teresa for an afternoon of strolling around Firenze. Some of the others were spending their day seeing the famous museums, and Rosemary opted for a walk in the Boboli Gardens. Our plan was to find a certain street that Charlie recommended and have lunch at a rosticceria there. On the way, we stopped in the Piazza dell Signoria, which was the next best place to go if you were missing the museums, to get our bearings and to take in the crowds. Two sets of brides and grooms came to the Loggia di Lanzi to get their photographs made. I didn’t notice the bride, who looks like she’s getting ready to throw her bouquet, in the photo above until I got home.

Then Sandino insisted that we pose with Cupid, one of the living statues in the Uffizi courtyard, for a photo.

Rosticceria di Fedra e Daniele was very small and there were no seats available, which was a problem for me with my foot misery. Teresa bugged out because she only had one day in Firenze and was eager to explore and shop on her own (I would’ve done the same!). Just after she left, a table became free and we had a great, inexpensive lunch. The rosticceria has a display case like a deli – you pick out what you want and they bring it to the table. Sandino and I both had pesce (fish) with a tomato sauce – I had carciofi (artichokes) and he had peas and potatoes for sides. Deb was thrilled with her porcini mushrooms, which she discovered were flavored with an herb called nepitelle from friendly Fedra. Later we would find that this herb grew wild all over Spannocchia. Across the street (Via di’ Neri) they operate All’antico Vinaio, when you can sample wine for two euros per glass.

We wandered over the Ponte Vecchio to the Pitti Palazzo, where we ate our overpriced pistachio gelati sitting on the low wall next to the street, and headed back by way of Santa Croce. By this time I was truly suffering and begged everyone to leave me behind, but they wouldn’t! When we stopped at a thrift store on a back street, there was a little shoe store next door, and I went in and bought a pair of walking shoes. I was embarrassed that I had been reduced to wearing my ratty old sneakers that I brought to wear on the farm, since I’ve read that Americans are immediately identified by their athletic shoes and their weight in Italy. These 25 euro shoes turned out to be my favorite purchase in Italy. With a couple of heel inserts, I had much less pain, and I felt less self-conscious. I don’t know what I was thinking to bring only clogs and sandals.

I stopped at a glass and crystal artist’s shop on the way back, and broke my rule about buying any more little glass birds. I used to collect glass paperweights, and stopped in my effort to simplify and collect less dust. Funny, I like birds when they are glass, or at least five feet away from me.

That evening with Deb and Randy, we went out to Trattoria di Botticello, one of the outdoor trattorias that we passed the night before. This place had an English tourist menu that included a primi, secondo, and side dish with a few Americanized dishes for twelve euros. The waiter here seemed to understand and accommodate Americans without being condescending. I went off the tourist menu, wanting a more authentic Italian experience, and they ended up charging me the same lower price. It balanced out some of our more negative food bill experiences, and I was grateful for that. Plus, the ravioli con neci (with nut cream sauce) and scallopini di porcini (veal with porcini mushrooms) was delicious! So now I can tell Dr. Melton that I had the veal. There was a little trio of accordion, violin, and saxophone playing on the square and it seemed so…Italian.

I slept fitfully that night, and when I slept I dreamt of packing. So I rose early, packed, and Sandy and I ordered breakfast in our room – croissants, coffee and orange juice. We went back to the San Lorenzo Market again, for Sandy to buy a chess set and I bought a couple of scarves for presents. (There was one very important thing that I forgot to buy while I was in Florence – guess what it was.) Then eight of the nine San Giovanni Gang members left for the airport together in two taxis, where we would meet our bus for Spannocchia. The second taxi passed the first, and charged its passengers 10 euros more than ours. We figured that was why he wanted to get there first, so he’d be leaving by the time we compared fares.

The airport food was the opposite of Greensboro airport food – actually quite good and reasonably priced. You could get a panini sandwich with prosciutto and formaggio for less than 4 euros. A plain hot dog, however, was offered starting at 4.50 and more for condiments, for those who missed outrageous U.S. airport cuisine, I guess.

We wouldn’t have to worry much about what to eat for the next week though…

To be continued…

This was one of my favorite places, as you might imagine. Deb and Randy, who are organic farmers on Randy’s grandfather’s farm, a Greensboro farm that is surrounded by subdivisions, accompanied us to Florence’s most famous food market. There are others that the locals frequent, I hear, and those will have to wait for the next time I visit Firenze.

We arose with dismay (at least in my case) at 10 a.m. The next time I travel, I’m definitely packing an alarm clock. But Deb and Randy had a breakfast delivered to their room and they were fine with our slow start to the day.

The Mercato Centrale is in a large building with more permanent vendors and cafes on the first floor and farmers on the second floor. This is the kind of market we hope to have in Greensboro one day, and Deb and Randy are ready to plan for it! We had a bite to eat at a cafe there, and I wandered around in bliss, snapping as many photos as I could. I could have easily spent several more hours in this market, and if it was not for worrying about refrigeration and customs, I could have gone deeply into debt.

Shall we go in?

You could buy all kinds of fresh seafood at the Mercato Centrale.

If I could have taken this cheese through my trip and then home, I would have emptied my bank account.

That is not somebody’s laundry in the case. It’s tripe.

I think that there must have been every kind of dried fruit imaginable here.

Real whole food.

Pasta and baked goods at a booth in the Mercato Centrale.

My memories are haunted by the cheese I left behind…

Clementines from Spain.

From the top floor of the Uffizi – a hallway leading to the bathroom had an open window with this view.

Friday, 13 ottobre 2006

The second day began with a knock on the door at 7 a.m., because we had a reservation for the Accademia at 8:15. We met another American couple in line and compared notes. We were beginning to realize that every other person in Florence was an American, or it seemed that way!

I was there mainly to see The Prisoners, a group of unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo. He worked on a slab of marble from front to back without drawing anything out, freeing the spirit from the stone, so to speak. I was fascinated to see these in transition – but I wasn’t ready for the power of David, which before my visit I considered to be just another thing to tick off a list. I was wrong. You can see the copy in the Piazza dell Signoria for free, but the original David is not to be missed. Framed by an arched dome, he radiates strength and courage as he considers the task before him. If we could only elect a leader with the spirit of David in 2008!

We went to our first Italian coffee shop (bar), and we picked a good one because we weren’t charged extra to sit down and the proprietor was friendly. I was bold enough to order “due caffe latte per favore” and he responded in Italian, at which I was baffled. He laughed in a nice way and switched to English, and we picked out a couple of pastries for breakfast. I think it was good to get away from the area flooded with tourists.

Then we meandered over to the Museo Archeologico, where Sandy’s main interest lay. They had a large Egyptian collection on the second floor, where we were surprised by some mummies in a darkened room that reminded me of the back room of an old country store. Except, you know, with sarcophagi and stuff like that. As we moved into the Etruscan exhibits, I got yelled at for taking this photo of this bronze Chimera (forgot to turn off the flash), which was turned up in a Tuscan farmer’s field. The Chimera has the body of a lion, and the heads of a lion, goat, and snake. Very little is known about the Etruscan civilization except that it was destroyed by the Romans, but its art was beautiful. The third floor, surprisingly, had been remodeled and looked like a modern museum, with many English translations in the exhibits. It moved from Etruscan to Roman and Greek displays, mostly pre-medieval statuary, ceramics, and metalwork. There was a courtyard garden that looked inviting but it was only open on Saturday mornings.

If you ever go to Florence, get reservations for the Accademia and the Uffizi way ahead of time. We barely made it by reserving them through our hotel on Monday afternoon for Friday. By that time we had the choice of only one time for each. I guess that the tour groups book them ahead of time so you could check with them. But the last thing you want to do is stand in line with for hours with a bunch of frustrated tourists, when you’ll be spending more hours on your feet inside. By getting a reserved ticket, we walked right in the “special” line.

We went all the way up the stairs and stepped into Renaissance art heaven. I was especially eager to see Sandro Botticelli’s work, because I have always loved The Birth of Venus. It was so refreshing to see some work that did not have a biblical theme! The Birth of Venus was actually a bit disappointing – it seemed a little washed out to me and maybe I built it up in my head too much. But his other paintings – La Primavera and Pallas and the Centaur knocked me out. We were also able to see the Annunciation by da Vinci and the Madonna of the Goldfinch by Raphael, as well as a self-portrait of Rembrandt that I remembered copying in an art class at some point in my education.

Now, I love art, but I have to admit here that Sandy outshone me in the Uffizi. By the time I got to the end, I was whining and needed a time-out. Museumed out, I guess. After a while, it was “madonna, madonna, madonna, crucifixion, madonna, annunciation, madonna…” then “painting, painting, painting, statue, where’s a bench?” Just being brutally honest here. But the Uffizi is an amazing, overwhelming repository of beauty. Looking up, there were frescoes on every ceiling and statues and paintings lining every wall. One room’s frescoes depicted smiths and craftsmen working, which pleased me amid all the depictions of wealth. On one end, the wall is made up of windows that overlook the Arno and the other side of Florence. It is worth the price of a ticket for the views from the Uffizi, if nothing else.

So I was grateful to get off my aching feet on the terrace overlooking the heart of Firenze, where we overpaid for a couple of drinks and some truly awful food, and fed little sparrows at our table. Actually Sandy fed the bold little buggers while I had paranoid visions of Alfred Hitchcock. One of them actually sat on his finger and pecked at it. But I was able to take some awesome photographs from this high vantage point.

To be continued…

Gulp. Gack.

I never knew what the evil eye was until I took this photo on the Ponte Vecchio in Firenze.

Sandy and I were wandering the streets of Florence on a Friday morning between museum visits and happened across this fountain in a nearly empty piazza. It was a residential part of the city, but I don’t remember the name of the piazza or street.

(Later, reader Brandyn provided this information in a comment: “This fountain is in front of the Ospedale degli Innocenti at the Piazza SS. Annunziata. You might have seen the Fontana del Porcellino at the Mercato Nuovo, the pig whose nose you rub for luck? Well, the same artist designed both the boar and the fountain you took a picture of.”)

Thursday, 12 ottobre 2006

Sandy and I were pretty beat but we had been strongly advised to try to get on the Italian schedule as quickly as possible and not to crash until around 9 p.m. We decided to walk around without any real agenda except to find something simple to eat.

One of the first places we wandered into was the Mercato Nuovo, one of several street markets in Firenze that mostly sells leather, scarves, and souvenirs. It was originally a silk and straw market, and is covered (a loggia). Rick Steves noted that there is a “circled X in the center [of the ceiling], marking the spot where people hit after being hoisted up to the top and dropped as punishment for bankruptcy.” I didn’t see that, but I did rub the snout of Porcellino, a bronze statue that tourists rub in order to ensure that they return to Florence one day. This was the only time that I saw it when it was not mobbed with tourists.

We continued down to the Arno River, then we found ourselves right smack in the middle of one of Firenze’s hotspots – Ponte Vecchio, the Piazza dell Signoria, and the Uffizi. There are many statues here, including a copy of David. The original David was moved to the Accademia to protect it. We walked through the Uffizi courtyard, where there are street artists and living statues, as well as the ubiquitous sunglasses and handbag knock-off street sellers, displaying their wares on sheets and cardboard that can be quickly scooped up when the authorities come around.

Learning about Eating Out in Italy

I was getting cranky from pain and hunger (I had problems with what is probably a heel spur during this trip) and this was a nice place to people-watch, so we decided to try getting a bite to eat at one of the outdoor restaurants. Nope – the kitchen was closed because it was mid-afternoon. I felt overwhelmed and so we headed back closer to the hotel and found a place to eat in the Piazza dell Repubblica near this carousel. This was, in retrospect, a dumb decision. They were clearly recruiting exhausted, naive tourists.

Sandy was too tired to order anything fancy so he just ordered pasta with meat sauce and a beer. I ordered prosciutto e melone (ham and cantaloupe), a glass of wine, and water. “Naturale o gassata?” It was the first of many times I would hear this – Italians drink lots of bottled mineral water, with or without carbonation. I’m used to drinking free tap water at meals – it’s one of the ways I save money eating out. But I enjoyed drinking the fizzy acqua minerale at almost every meal here.

Another lesson – it is considered rude for waiters to bring your check before you ask for it. The idea is to let you linger and enjoy your food as long as you like.

Once you get the check, you need to look it over carefully. This waiter added the bottle of water that he did not bring us, and the bill was around 40 euros – that translates to around $50 – for a very small and simple meal with two drinks. Almost every place we went charged us for an extra (large) bottle of water. Sometimes there is a 15% gratuity added (there was in this case, and the service and food was not good). More often we encountered a “cover charge,” basically a fee per person for sitting at a table. And, if you sit down at a table for coffee instead of drinking it standing up at the bar, you can expect the price to be much higher. Waiters in Italian restaurants are paid salaries that don’t depend on tips and tipping is not expected, but we generally tipped for good service anyway. It is hard to get out of that habit and Sandy and I are the masters of self-imposed guilt anyway.

We crashed at the hotel despite our best intentions, then got up at 9 p.m. and went to the Osteria dell Agnolo, just around the corner, for Birre Moretti (beer) and calzoni capriccosi (calzone with ham, olives, artichokes, and mushrooms) and finally I felt relaxed. We enjoyed this place – we needed a spot that was casual so that we could kick back. I tried out a little Italian on the busy waiter and he put up with me! By this time, I had consulted my Rick Steve’s guide and understood how the restaurant billing worked a little better.

Then we walked around the Hotel San Giovanni to collapse.

to be continued…

A ghostly view of San Lorenzo Cathedral, late at night.

I’ve never been comfortable with flying, and at times I’ve had a full-blown, knee-gripping, catatonia-inducing phobia about it. I did okay the last time I flew. That would be the time that I unknowingly flew through Greensboro and Charlotte airports with a box-cutter in my purse. It was taken away from me in Orlando on the way back – let’s hear it for Florida security!

Anyway, I haven’t flown since before 9/11, and other than a few hours in Tijuana when I was thirteen, I’ve never been abroad. I am a recovering agoraphobic. A few years ago, going anywhere other than work and the grocery store was difficult for me. Agoraphobia is a behavioral response to panic, and there isn’t an easy cure. There is no pill. You first have to recognize it (I didn’t until I was well entrenched in my routine) and then you have to be vigilant and fight hard against your most basic instincts. I’ve come a long way back towards a normal life in the last four years, but although I love the idea of world travel, the reality is that I don’t even like to travel across town.

So this trip to Italy was a bigger deal on a more internal level than most people knew. That’s why I must begin with leaving home.

First mistake – I didn’t buy Dramamine for the trip. The last time I took it it knocked me out, and the last time I flew I was okay without it, so I decided it wasn’t necessary. We had a somewhat turbulent first leg of the plane trip to Philly, and I was suffering from a mild case of motion-sickness. No problem, I figured. I’ll buy some at the next airport. Wrong.

There was a power outage in Philadelphia that put us in a holding pattern. When we got out, we had to run to make the connection. We got on the plane, only to sit for another hour. Which cut our time between flights in Paris.

Charles de Gaulle Airport is a horrible, hectic place to need help. The nice people gave us wrong directions. It was the sneering clerk at the Air France desk who finally steered us in the right direction. When we made it to the check-in desk, it was departure time. The clerk there demanded baggage claim tickets that we couldn’t find, since we didn’t think we would need them after being told that the luggage was checked through, and she gave us the choice of claiming and re-checking our luggage or making the connecting flight. We decided to ditch the luggage and run for the plane. We barely made the bus and when we got to the plane, there was my old yeller suitcase on the pavement next to it. It may be a dinosaur, but by God you can spot it a mile away. We made the right decision.

But I didn’t have time to buy the Dramamine. So on the crowded flight from Paris to Florence, I mostly slept with my complimentary croissant in front of me, occasionally sipping a cup of hot tea. I was too airsick to look out the windows as we descended into Florence, but I glanced back at Sandy, who was several rows away, to find him looking at me, then out again, then looking at me and nodding.

We took a taxi to the Hotel San Giovanni and found that we had one of the rooms with a frescoed ceiling. Charlie told us later that the hotel had once been the home of the bishop of Firenze. We had an amazing view of the Duomo and Baptista and the busy crowds and traffic three stories below. The room itself was very simple and had no TV, phone, or even a clock. We shared a bathroom in the hallway. For campers and misers like us, just having a bathroom in the same building is actually a step up for our vacation digs. The bed was ultra comfortable and hey, there’s a FRESCO on the CEILING.

To be continued…