Pedestrian Area

The piazza around the Duomo and some attached streets are now pedestrian only.

     

Visitors

We had several visitors the past few weeks. First was Ben's friend Marc and his newly-wedded wife Kristine. After driving down to Florence from Germany, they toured Florence one day, then we all went together to San Gimignano and Pisa the next day. This way, they were able to cover four out of five goals of their trip: Seeing Michelangelo's David, eating real Italian pizza, seeing the leaning tower of Pisa and taking the standard tourist shots, and eating a bistecca alla fiorentina. The Colosseum in Rome will have to wait for another trip.
Next was another of Ben's friends, Martin, and his girlfriend Eva. The evening they arrived, we went to Piazzale Michelangelo to wait for the sunset. It was bridal rush hour -- we saw three brides take pictures in the hour we were there. Martin and Eva then toured Florence the next day before leaving for San Gimignano and Volterra.
The following weekend Kristen's parents visited. Since they had already seen Florence, Sienna, Pisa, and San Gimignano, we took them on a day trip to Bologna. Then Kristen went with them to Venice for a day. They stayed another day there, then went to Rome.

San Marco

There haven't been too many updates recently since Kristen is visiting her family. In the meantime, apart from working, reading and watching DVDs, I've only been downtown to go shopping. Today though, I decided to go visit the former convent of San Marco for my fix of religious art. The convent was home to the Dominican Fra Angelico, who painted frescoes throughout the building, particularly a cycle depicting the life of Jesus in each of the cells of the monks (the crucifixion seemed to be the most popular motif). His frescoes are (again) some of the earliest examples of perspective in art, and they show a good mastery of human expression. In addition, the church was the residence of the religious fanatic Girolamo Savonarola, who was the religious and worldly leader of Florence for a few years in the late 15th century. He is particularly known for his Bonfire of the Vanities, in which "beauty items" were burned along with countless books and priceless paintings. Strangely enough, he still seems to be quite revered in the convent.

Florence Baptistry

(note the depiction of hell bottom right)

Calcio storico

One of the perks of living in Florence, instead of just visiting for a few days, is that you can take advantage of the various events that happen throughout the year. Today, we went to a “calcio storico” game in Santa Croce square, a game dating back to the 16^th century. Even though calcio is the word for soccer in Italian, this sport was more like a cross between football and rugby, with some wrestling thrown in. The tournament pits the four quarters of the city against each other, the winner getting a live cow (or the equivalent in steaks, I’ve read different things). We were seated in the green section, though the San Giovanni quarter of the city didn’t end up being able to field a team, and so their team was replaced by a purple team of free agents. I guess their motivation was therefore not high enough, and “our” team ended up clearly losing to the red team from Santa Maria Novella. Before and after the game, there was a procession of people in historical costume, which was quite photogenic when combined with the backdrop of Santa Croce church.

Sunday Sightseeing

Kristen made it here on Tuesday, though one of her bags took a while longer. I’ll leave it to her to describe her process of getting used to Italy. Today was our first day of exploring and sightseeing together, and we wanted to go to the Rose Garden, which is only open for another week (and is located very close to the Iris Garden). We went there by bus and got off a stop early, at the church of San Miniato al Monte, an 11^th century Romanesque church located a little above the Piazzale Michelangelo. I really like this style of church for its simplicity, and this one boasted some nice frescoes as well, as well as a gilded mosaic above the altar. We’ll have to come back sometime to hear the monks chanting (apparently they do that every afternoon). We then walked down to the Piazzale Michelangelo, but didn’t linger for too long since it started lightly raining. Right there was the Rose Garden, which we walked through, but unfortunately it seems like it was a few weeks too late for roses – most of them had already bloomed. So we just walked back into the city, stopping to get gelato (ricotta & figs, and orange chocolate, among other flavors) on the way before taking the bus back to the apartment.

Later this afternoon, we went to Ikea for a couple of small things. It seemed like half of Florence was there – probably a consequence of it being one of the very few stores that are open on Sunday.

Medici villas and sightseeing

The weather has gotten warmer (no more jacket needed, not even a rain jacket), and I’ve mostly finished with organizing the apartment, so I decided to do some sightseeing today. I decided to visit two villas of the Medici located on the outskirts of town. These were originally country retreats, but are now situated in the suburbs (and importantly, close to bus lines). Also important, they didn’t charge admission. The first place I went was the Villa La Petraia, dating to the 16^th century. I guess nobody read the note in the Lonely Planet that “May is an exceptional time to visit,” since I was apparently the only person visiting. I wouldn’t call it exceptional, but the gardens were quite pleasant and offered a nice view of the city (and the airport), and plenty of shady benches on which to relax. The gardens could probably have used a little more care, but I guess that’s what you get for free admission. A short walk further was the Villa di Castello, also with quite a nice garden. A few more people had discovered this villa, but all in all it was still quite empty, which was a relief compared to the situation in downtown Florence.
I did venture into town afterwards, taking the bus back. First I visited the Duomo, which I hadn’t seen from the inside yet, if you can imagine that. I had been under the impression that it charged admission, but that’s only if you want to climb to the dome. I think the most impressive thing about the Duomo is it’s size (apparently the fourth-largest cathedral in the world), whereas the interior decoration is rather sparse. After a quick gelato at Grom (it takes a while to sample all the different gelato places that come recommended), I went into the Chiesa di Orsanmichele, which is located between the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio. The building was originally a grain market with an altar standing under the arcades. After a while, people decided to convert the building to a real church, walling in the altar, and creating the somewhat strange shape of the church. This church boasted more decoration, with several interesting frescoes.

In Firenze

After only a brief two-day stopover in Germany, I flew from Frankfurt to Florence in the afternoon. I checked in online the day before, but when I got on the plane, there was already someone seated in 4D, my seat. After asking the flight attendant, I sat one row back, where there were two free seats, but after phoning someone, she came back and put someone with crutches in that seat and me in 3D, which was in business class. Being a small plane, business class was not much different, though I did get a magazine and a better meal (Caesar's salad instead of a ham and cheese sandwich).
After a little more than an hour, we landed in Florence, and were taken from the plane to the terminal by bus (it's a small airport), even though the distance was maybe 20 m (about 20 yards for the metrically challenged). From there, I took the bus to the train station and then a city bus to the apartment where I had rented a room for a month. I had done this in advance over the internet, since I need a place to stay for a while while I find a more permanent apartment. The transfer there wasn't a problem, though I was carrying two suitcases and a laptop bag. Nevertheless, I made it and met Claudio and Sandro, temporary roommates. They seemed nice enough, though we didn't chat for too long, since I was tired and wanted some internet access (the apartment has wireless).