Florence

 

Prologue

There follows, twelve pages of our holiday in Florence over New Year 1986. It is largely a description of Art Galleries and eating. Anyone on a diet or bored stiff by the Renaissance is advised to skip to page 19 where they will find a one page summary
Chapter 1

The Journey

Friday December 27th. After setting the alarm for 4-30AM. spent most of the night coughing, drinking glycerine and sucking throat pastilles. Felt very sorry for myself.
Meg rose at the appointed hour, I followed fifteen minutes later not feeling as bad as I had expected.
We breakfasted on coffee and toast and pinned a variety of farewell messages on the notice board for the slumbering offspring.
Removed a film of ice from the windscreen, watched by a disbelieving milkman, checked tickets for the umpteenth time and set off on a bright moonlit morning.
We motored down a near deserted M1 listening to the Italian language tape we really should have given more time to during the past month.
Forty minutes later approaching Leicester Forest East the tape ends without either of us seeing a blinding light as Paul did on the road to Damascus but we may have acquired two more words. The radio is receiving either farming today, or, news of terrorist attacks on Italian airports.
Meg drives into the Heathrow complex and we realise for the first time that there are a multiplicity of termini, four in fact. The signs are not helpful. We take a stab at terminal two and are correct. Meg makes a swift exit with tickets and passports, it is check in time. I set off to find the long stay car park. Meg finds she cannot check in without the luggage.
I find, The M4
The Post House
The main runway
Terminals 1, 2 & 3
The airport rescue services
The short stay car park
The M4 again

And eventually, the long stay car park- but nowhere to park. There are twenty or thirty cars cruising round looking for a space. It's like a Sargasso sea of Escorts, Cavaliers, Metros and V.W's. I consider going home but on following the exit signs can't find the exit. I do however find a space. Then I find a courtesy bus stop inhabited by a lot of very miserable people. Hadn't been a bus for ages. Probably stuck in the seaweed I remark. they look blank as well as miserable.
The bus takes me to terminal two via most of the places I visited en route, though one visit to the M4 was sufficient.
Meg is trying to prevent the ALITALIA man from having a nervous breakdown. She has been expecting Colonel Gadaffi's men any second.
We check in. purchase film, only 100 ASA available, ideal for bright sunlight in the middle of summer, throat pastilles and kleenex.
Just time for a coffee. A machine in the cafeteria dispenses a brown fluid that is absolutely vile.
Our flight is called to gate 33 and by 9-15AM we are strapped into the smoking section ( because of my parking ) of a DC9 The plane and the hostess's are all green.
The flight is bumpy and the food is ropey, but the flight is short and we know that better food is at hand.
We land at Galilio airport Pisa. Customs and baggage retrieval are straight forward. We met Zaira, our courier. Italian women come in two types, (A) Variations on Sophia Loren, all curves and rather chubby. Very attractive but probably the sister of someone in the mafia
(B) Small, dark very thin narrow eyes with a hostile look. Probably already high ranking in the mafia.
Zaira is type (b) She tells us we are going to Florence by coach instead of train. Nobody argues. She tells us of Chamber music, concerts, ballet and theatre we will be able to see during our stay. They are clearly a very cultured lot and she seems to think that we might be. En route to Firenze we catch a glimpse of the leaning tower, trees bearing strange red fruits, distant hills and flat sodden fields.
After one and a half hours we reach the outskirts of Florence which looks like Troyes or Manchester or Swansea. Our hotel is by the river Arno which is filthy. The Hotel is full. No room for us. One of our party risks Zaria's mafia connections and create a fuss. No men carrying violin cases turn up. They are modernising the hotel which has reduced the number of rooms available but have booked us into another hotel. Do we mind? The fuss maker does, long and loud and is eventually found a room. As far as I am concerned, it all depends on the other hotel. "it is very good, right near the station"
"I'm trying to give up stations, post offices and fruit markets as sleeping companions !!"
We climb back aboard the bus and after ten minutes driving through the centre of Florence, very attractive, we arrive at our new residence.
Well now, I am impressed. We are ushered in with great ceremony to" camera quatro quatro nove", ( room 449 ). It is furnished in leather. there are two bathrooms, a TV, a drinks cabinet. On the walls which are in a tasteful grey-green there is a print by Degas. From the window we can see the cathedral, but neither see nor hear the station.
There is a knock on the door and we are presented with a basket of fruit , compliments of the hotel that could not accommodate us. We really feel that we should be sending them a gift as this is at least two stars better than our package entitles us to.
We rest for a couple of hours then set off to find our bearings and have our first meal. The streets are lined with stalls selling, leather, jewellery and woollies. The restaurants are empty. The guide book explains that the Italians don't eat until eight P.M. Bad news, we are hungry. We spend another one and a half hours window shopping and reading mouthwatering menus. They all sound very expensive. I thought the Italians were supposed to be poor?
By eight o'clock we are starving and the cost of correcting this is immaterial. We choose well and have an excellent meal. Tortellini. Tagliatelle, Langoustines, pork, washed down with chianti classico. The stroll back to the hotel is punctuated by the occasional thunder flash and it's still only the 28th. New Years eve will be quite noisy.
We discover one flaw in the hotel, the heating is on gas mark five. Even with the windows open. The TV has twelve channels, one shows continuous pop videos, several are for cartoons. There is one with a three hour commercial for carpets. I don't expect it makes the ratings very often.
The night is spent coughing and trying to cool down. Breakfast, had we been paying for it separately, would have cost us #7-50 for orange juice coffee and croissant.
We set off for the Uffizzi and are almost there when I loose my bearings. Time to test the Italian learnt yesterday.
"Scusi Signora, dove l'Uffizzi"
It works, It works!! First right brings us into a square dominated by a huge statue of Neptune which the Florentines call "the big white lump".
Other statues in bronze and marble are scattered around in gay abandon. We enter the Uffizzi and are stunned.
I expected the thirteenth and fourteenth centaury paintings I had previously seen in art books to be cracked and faded. Interesting mainly from the point of view of their place in the history of art. Don't you believe it. The colours are amazing. Gold, blue, red green, all vivid and bright. The pictures you are familiar with, Botticelli's Venus, Raphael's Madonna and Child are even more impressive than you dared hope and there are a whole series of delightful surprises. Botticelli's women are so very feminine. Fillipo Lippi's paintings are great. Then there's that Corregio and the Titians and... what's that bell? they're closing!!! but we are not half way round and we've been practically running.
People dive for the exits as though they torture the last ones out. We leave muttering about itineraries needing major surgery. We flip through the postcards and posters on sale outside looking for our favourites without success and so buy a book which costs only half a breakfast.
Our 400 ASA film is nearly finished and we have only outdoor film B%AAfter forty minutes we set off back down the four hundred steps. these are arranged in sections, some of which are straight and relatively wide, others are narrow and twisty. As was the case on the way up we only meet people coming on the opposite direction on the twisty bits. Inside the Cathedral there are one or two interesting items but the painted dome is screened off and the building is best seen from the outside. We have just got time in the fading light to glimpse the Baptistry doors.
After due consideration I have decided not to describe the doors, Michaelangelo said when he first saw them "they would grace the entrance to Paradise". They are the most fantastic castings. Make sure you go to Florence on day.
Dinner tonight was cheaper and nothing like as good. That's enlightening. I ordered risotto for starters and got rice pudding. I expected the rice to be fried, it was boiled For the rest the pork, beans, lasagne and veal were all O.K. but no more. On the way home we make a reservation at last nights restaurant for San Sylvestri as they call New Year's Eve. We were warned by Zaria that all Italy will eat out and eat late. Back at the fiery furnace we arrange an early call for our trip to Sienna.
Rising early in the morning we are at the bus stop ten minutes early, the bus is about the same margin late. It is siling down. We pile into two buses leaving one seat empty on each and two people who want to sit together.
The Italian solution to this problem is thirty minutes argument followed by five other people leaving the bus and demanding their money back. We feel sure the optimum solution has been missed.
there are four young women from America sitting in front of us who sound as if they intend the trip to be lively. The one in front of Meg, is the little pretty one who wears her coat over her head and never stops eating. Her neighbour is a long legged rastafarian who needs acres of room. The next one is fair, fat and definitely a stirrer. the fourth is small, dark, curly and totally quiet.
Daniella (type A) our courier for today issues us with our instructions in English, Francais, Deutsch and Italiano as we negotiate the hour of Italian drizzle. As we disembark the drizzle changes to steady rain.
Sienna is old, tall and narrow. It is built on four less hills than Rome. We park on one but it's no the one we want to visit, so off we trudge following a microscopic guide supplied by Daniella. Type A's do not go out in the rain. We pass interesting shops, Palaces, the oldest modern bank,we are told of cakes, bankers, Dukes and artists, and , in a short time arrive at the cathedral. This nearly qualifies for the same treatment as the Baptistry doors. The outside is done in a variety of marbles. The black and white alternate layers of the bell tower create the world's biggest liquorice allsort. The facade is more decorated than Chatres. Although the building is huge, it was originally intended as the transept of a much larger church but eighty percent of the population were wiped out by the plague in the fourteenth centaury and hence the need for a larger building. Inside the decoration continues. Three naves divided by twenty six pairs of liquorice allsort pillars, The floor is completely covered by fifty graffitti. These are large pictures, some in mosaic and the others by inlaying marble then scratching grooves and filling the grooves with pitch. The walls are painted, the dome is bright blue with gold stars. We enter a side chapel. there's a magnificent painting of the flight into Egypt on the wall. It's stunning. Why don't I remember seeing pictures of it? It must be a Raphael!
No it's a Carlo Maratta and it's not even a painting, it's another mosaic. Well, Well done Carlo. The rest of the party depart leaving me open mouthed. I catch up with them in front of St John the Baptist by Donatello.
The library is next, ten huge frescos by Pinturicchio who is supposed to have used sketches by Raphael. The guide tells us that the frescos have never been restored, the colours are as painted in 1505. Wish they were available to do our kitchen. She then plays her ace by saying she has saved the cathedral's greatest artistic work till last. The pulpit by Nicola Pisano, you could look at it all day. It's importance apart from it's sheer beauty is that he made the hundreds of carved figures look like real people instead of stylized characters which had been the custom. In 1266 this was very daring and original. Painting and sculpture was never the same again. You are by now no doubt feeling that you are getting more art than is reasonable. Meg and I admired a fair bit more before returning to the square.
We can't make sufficient time to change the itinerary again this trip, but Sienna is going to get a trip of it's own one day.
We had been detached from our tour for some time, as they had gone for a meal scheduled to take one and a half hours. Meg had exclaimed that" she had not come to Italy to stuff herself with pasta" I take a sideways glance at the pretty Yank as she does so, her expression is unchanged.
The square is more of a round and is the scene of the annual horse race in costume between the districts of Sienna. Meg tries to photograph a gymnastic pigeon that drinks from the fountain by standing on it's head. People keep disturbing the poor bird. We have a taste of coffee and a toastie then set off back to the coach pausing only to buy some famous cake called Paneforte which sounds like it means strong bread but tastes more like a piano. We drink yet another coffee, standing up which is very cheap. Our coffee buying has improved dramatically, we now get eight times more for quarter the price that we did originally. It all depends on the site of the bar, the coffee specified and your posture.
The downpour has been steadily intensifying all day and it is a very wet party that sets off for St Gimiliani, a picturesque medieval hill village famous for it's white wine. The main reason the wine is famous here is because everyone else only produces red. They do of course produce a special cake to eat with it. An interesting feature in the church is a fresco of the crucifixion, during the creation of which,the artist died when he fell off the scaffolding. Examining it closely I am convinced I can see traces of a long vertical line. A few more misty photos later we clank and drip back to Florence.
Hot baths, you remember we have a bathroom each , are followed by another excellent meal.
" We didn't come all the way to Italy to stuff ourselves with pasta" but once the galleries are closed we find we have developed quite an appetite.
Spaghetti with herbs, thick bean soup, ham and baked potatoes, veal in cream with mushroom sauce and spinach finished with their incomparable ice cream. The chianti is pretty good in this region.
Jan 31st. Rain fills the sky as we study the damaged itinerary and try to guess what will be open when. We sit alone in the breakfast room, alone except that is for four waiters who sound as if they are already drunk. If four of them to two of us sounds out of proportion then I should point out that breakfast is self service and the waiter only serves the coffee.
Propping open the bedroom windows as we leave we set out for the foundling hospital. No one is ill or foundling, it happens to be the first renaissance building. Then on to the academy to see Michaelangelo's David. He still manages to impress, even though you have seen a hundred pictures of him. Meg is very taken with Michaelangelo's slaves who are struggling to escape from the marble blocks from which they have been half formed. Our next shelter from the interminable drizzle is St Marc's. The church is open and golden but the monastery isn't. Another blow to the master plan. What was planned for tomorrow? the Bargello, Miles away of course. Splosh splosh, our shoes have not been dry for days. The natives must have foot rot. I have not said much about the residents of Firenze. They are very friendly and dress with style. The continuous rain seems neither to surprise nor distress them. the outdoor markets continue regardless and the cyclists ride carrying raised umbrellas. I think my premature baldness is partly due to sharing an umbrella for twenty years with someone who is twenty five centimetres smaller than me. Not only am I bald but I have little grooves in my head gouged by the spokes of her brolly.
The Bargello is yet another success. Some lovely bronzes by Cellini. More Donatello6s and some terra cotta by Lucia Della Robia which do not appeal to me.
Santa Croce can also be salvaged from the wreckage of Meg's plan. The rain hesitates for a second and I whip out the camera to snap her in front of the facade. As I am doing so the church closes. I don't believe it. But it's an ill wind that's driving the renewed downpour, for the Santa Croce stands in the centre of the leather area and the factory shop is warm and dry. We nip inside for shelter.
I have always needed a leather jacket People in the village can be heard as I pass saying
"Ey up! Its a shame t'lad dun ave a leather coat like 'is Missus"
"I'd ger 'im one mesel' if I 'ad t'brass.
Well I knew what I wanted and accordingly tried on a few plain brown jackets. Meg says black, firmly. The assistant had just the thing and not at all plain and only L300,000. I have never paid six figures before. It is beautifully soft and stylish. Meg has tried it on several times and looks disturbingly good in it. We returned to the hotel for an hour to open the windows et cetera and sample the sweet white wine and sticky cake. They do in fact go well together then we prop open the window again though we know they will nip in and close it again as soon as we are gone and splosh back through the rain to Santa Croce. It's open and full of famous tombs, the boot hill of modern civilisation.
Michaelangelo Art
Gallilleo Science
Rossini Music
Macciavelli The end justifies the means
Capone? ?

plus memorials to other Florentines who are not buried here.
A big fresco by Giotto is the star attraction. He first perfected three dimensional drawing and a group of monks on the wall look like very solid "home pride flour graders". Well that's as much as we can see today.
Much bathed, sweet smelling and dressed in our best we arrive at the restaurant just after nine. In the almost empty dining room our table is next to a very odd pair of blokes, wearing very heavy make up and earrings. The place starts to fill and our first dish arrives. Anyone on a diet or who believes that over eating with so much hunger in the world is seriously advised to skip at least two pages. The starter is

Peas pudding in garlic

After a few moments contemplation, we ask how we should eat it and are told, but before we can start, there arrives

Grapefruit in red wine

Vol au ventArtichokes

Avocado and Prawns

White wine

The atmosphere is merry, the food excellent. The service is good, in fact it is a shade too quick, we need more time if we are to do justice to the next course. but here comes

Salmon with crispy pasta

"We didn't come to Italy to stuff ourselves with pasta" yes I do remember!

Ravioli and Walnuts

On the other side of the two kinky blokes are two young couples. The girl nearest Meg smokes between each course. Worse than that she never actually puts the cigarette in her mouth but holds it in a theatrical gesture high behind her right ear. No doubt to draw attention to the ten rings she is wearing. Miraculously the smoke rise vertically and the ceiling is high so the disturbance is minimal.
All the women are dressed to kill. Spectacular glittery outfits but Meg's recently purchased designer cream silk blouse looks better than any of them.

Tagliatelle and Mushroom in Puff Pastry

A huge portion for two we think until we see the size served to the table for four. One table has a party of ten. We wonder how they are going to get their pie through the door. He serves them a goodly number of size fours.

Meat-cold and raw

Just a plate full. It is dressed with flakes of a strong cheese and oil.

Red Wine

Entrecote Steak in cream with herbs

Wild boar

Wild salad

The salad goes particularly well with the Boar. He would feel at home because it is best described as undergrowth. I recognised Dandelions, Plantain, Grass and several weeds that I normally root out without a second thought. I hasten to add that it was very tasty. About this time the lights went out and everyone stood up and shouted" Buon Anno" then carried on eating. Meg wants to sing Auld Lang Syne but I am still getting wild with my Boar in it's natural habitat.

Champagne

Cake with wild fruit

What, no ice cream,the Italians really are great at ice cream and this is a great Italian. I bet his ice cream would have been terrific. We really cannot face coffee so we call for the bill. We pay by Visa and the waiter misses off a zero but we point out his error and make out our second six figure barclay card in one day.
I want to visit the main square to wish the big white lump Buon Anno. As we draw near it sounds as though world war three has started without anyone telling us. Meg is nervous so we detour through the smoke filled side streets. Even here thunder flashes explode and very drunk Italians blow hooters. Crockery comes sailing out of upstairs windows to join the broken glass already littering the road. What a night. Arrivedercci 1985.

In one of the side streets we encounter the granary. Not the type of building one would expect to be worth a mention but in Florence five hundred years ago they had the money and the talent. Each of the landowners had his own area in the granary and the architect had thoughtfully left niches round the walls. The gentry competed with each other in the decoration of their niche and so they hold statues by all the great artists of the time.
Happy New year reader! "What were you doing at midnight?"
Woke surprisingly early. Still coughing, still with a sore throat and of course it is still raining. After breakfast we visit the church of St Lorenzo which is open and the Palace of the Princes, closed. Dash across to St Maria Novella, open but there is a service in progress. Curse these Italians, what do they mean by it, holding a religious service in a church of all places. That leaves us at a loose end but we are near the station. An addition to the programme springs to mind. We catch the train to Pisa. My Italian is as poor as you who know the full extent of my study would expect an the booking office staff think I an trying to order a Pizza. Eventually we overcome this difficulty by adopting a list to starboard and soon reach the town with the famous tower instead of obtaining some more pasta. "we didn't...."
What is more, it is not raining in Pisa. The tower is some distance and the lone bus in front of the station explains that there are no buses until 4PM because of Buon Anno. We ask the way to the tower and he decides to take us. No charge and he won't accept a tip. The tower is a real oddity and is much photographed. We play silly games, trying to produce a snap that will make it appear upright failing miserably. The byzantine cathedral next door and the adjacent crown shaped Baptistry may open at three. I check the map and work out a short tour of tourist attractions within walking distance to fill the time gap. Meg who for some reason has not been impressed with my navigation on this holiday comes along with some reluctance. The streets do not quite correspond with the map. Well they never draw to scale in foreign parts, they don't seen to value ordnance survey. We reach a decrepit church, closed, in an untidy square. In a side street there is a silhouette of a man sitting on a wall, odd. The square of the horsemen comes next. The horsemen are on holiday but the square is interesting. It contains St Stephens, pretty, a school, very ornately decorated and a clock without hands. I have seen one without numbers before and one with only one hand but this makes telling the time nearly as difficult as taking a photograph because cars keep shooting diagonally across the square from all sides. We return to the Cathedral, excellent navigation you will note, which decides not to open so we down two cappuccini and stroll back to the station sharing roast chestnuts with a family of Australians who all have French names.
The train is due and for variety this is a stopping train and we need to change. Tonight we eat more simply, Pizzas, not Pisas baked over a wood fuelled oven which creates a delicious flavour.
January second starts with a long walk to the Carmine church which is open but the Branacci chapel is closed for restoration. The nearby Pitti palace is closed. We must make the long walk, right across town to St Marks. This time the Monastery is open and the Fra Angelica's are worth several long walks, especially the Annunciation which is cleverly sited at the top of a long flight of stairs. Their faces are wonderfully expressive. Angelica had decorated the monks cells many of which one can visit. the quality of his work varies and we speculate on the relationship of the fresco to the occupant, conjecturing what he thought of each individual. We visit Santa Maria Novella again and it closes as we arrive. More luck at the Chapel of the Princes but for the first and only time on the whole trip the building is not as impressive as the pictures we have seen. The multicoloured marble tomb leaves us cold and the chapel designed and decorated by Michaelangelo must have been done on one of his off nights.
We are much more impressed by the single room open to the public in the old Medici Palace. It has a continuous procession of kings round three walls and is full of interest. The sightseeing part of the day finishes with a third and this time successful visit to Santa Maria Novella and we see at last the Masaccio and Giotto plus Donatello's tomb all of which were on the tick list. After a meal that does not merit detailed description we stroll round the shops and markets in the evening and plan our final expedition over coffee. I wonder if my feet will ever be dry again.
Friday morning we get two jugs of black coffee for breakfast from the tribe of waiters. This is a new first, as our normal request for black coffee has resulted in a jug of coffee and a jug of milk. I should add that it is NOT raining. Our walk to the Pitti Palace is rewarded with yet another collection of fine paintings especially by Raphael and Murillo. We followed a short stroll in the gardens by climbing to the Plaza Michaelangelo from where the best view of Florence is to be had.
I told you those tourist maps were no good and I make a very bad decision at one junction when faced with a fifty-fifty guess. This resulted in much unnecessary walking and climbing without any views or places of interest to compensate. Once attained however the view from the square is good and much film is exposed. Would you believe we are back on schedule with only a second helping of the Uffizzi to enjoy tomorrow. We do some more window shopping with Meg unable to decide between a red leather skirt to match her gloves, or a briefcase which she needs. Every so often she buys another belt for one of the offspring or a scarf for one of the Grans to take her mind off the problem.
We return to the hotel without either and Meg soaks herself while I go Off in search of wine and cake. I am given the last of our lire with the exception of tomorrows entrance fee to dispose of.I always enjoy this phase of any holiday even though it signals our departure is at hand. An unusual wine shop is reached by climbing down through a hole in the Plaza Santa Novella. Down below is an Aladins cave of Italian wine. Fancy sending me out with only L15000. Fortunately they take plastic. Unfortunately we are flying and there is a limit to what I can carry so I go for quality instead of quantity. As I get back to the hotel the heavens open to produce a major hailstorm.
We dodge the falling rocks in search of yet more food. Finding a cosy trattoria, we indulge in soup and macaroni followed by veal, lemon and spinach. this is the first time we have chosen the same main course. the combination of tastes is delicious. Washed down with chianti as usual.
Saturday, the holiday is nearly over. We are outside the Uffizzi before opening time armed with a guide each. After all they only cost half a breakfast. We set off together , agreeing to meet opposite the Fillipo Lippi if as seems inevitable we get split up. I spend an enjoyable morning particularly impressed with a recently restored Michaelangelo absolutely beautiful but it is 11-00AM. I dash back and meet Meg in the corridor having given me up. We finish the last few galleries together and emerge into the sunshine very happy. Meg keeps trying to construct a top ten but it is futile. If you think this saga is long you want to see her notes on the galleries. It is after mid day, we fancy a pizza at the place we dined on Wednesday, later we blow our final L8000 on our final ice creams. God knows what I weigh.
The coach picks us up and we drive to the airport scoring points off the other travellers when comparing hotels meals and purchases. It is all very good humoured except for the couple who insisted in staying in the original hotel who got very little sleep due to the continuous alterations in progress.
Summary

It rained, six days out of seven.

We saw thousands of paintings, hundreds of sculptures and many fine buildings

The finest well known works of art were

1) Fra Angelica's annunciation.
2) Phillipo Lippi's Madonna and child
3) Michaelangelo's David

The best of the lesser known were:-

1) The Baptistry doors
2) The flight to Egypt
3) Sienna cathedral

The hotel was good

We ate and drank like pigs

We had a great time Arrivedercci !!____