(103-104): Florence

(103) is Monday, 19 April 2010.

Blogger seems to have confiscated my user-friendly blogging interface, which means I can't underline things and my fonts may come out looking funny. Don't quite know what the story is with this one, but my glass of Vanilla Coke and I are working on it.

So, Dan and I found ourselves awake and refreshed in Florence. First stop is the Piazzale Michelangelo, home of a fake version of the famous David statue (Dan tells me there are several about) and a show-stopping panoramic view of Florence. It's free, it's good exercise, and we had perfect weather. My suggestion as you climb to the top, though-- and I know this is difficult-- but do try to give it the Orpheus treatment. That is, don't look behind you from the steps. Wait until the lookout point. The sudden reveal is worth your patience.*

Dan and I were really hungry by this point, so we succumbed to lunch at the (relatively) pricey patio near the lookout point. One of many great things about Italian food: since all of it is SO GOOD, even the slightly overpriced stuff is worth it. I had a tasty pizza and Dan's lasagna turned out to be the best lasagna of our trip. The patio, view, and breeze were also a lovely combination.

We rather wandered back to the city... you know how they say "Not all who wander are lost"? Well, thank goodness for its corollary: "Not all who wander but are lost necessarily mind." It was a beautiful day, as I've said, and we found a nice tree-lined street and even a secluded playground that was neat to walk through. After crossing the Ponte Vecchio ("Old Bridge," full of merchants and stuff) back to town, we found the famed Duomo (yes, like Milan has a famed Duomo... I think they're a chain or something) among other cool old churches.

We then moved hostels to the originally planned Archi Rossi, which I highly recommend to hostel-goers. Fine location near the train station and great resources (best included hostel breakfast I've yet had) for a decent price. After a little siesta, we had gelato. Gelato may be the best ice cream in the world, but the cones are edible cardboard. I don't like this, but I think the idea is so that the cone doesn't distort or otherwise detract from the taste.

My high school friend Christina couldn't meet up with us for dinner, but she gave us a great tip, which I will now relay to you. Muna Ciello is on Via Maffia 31 (see here). Fun, funky place with, of course, great food.** After dinner, Christina and her friend Lauren joined us for hot chocolate at La Cite (mapped here). It's a neat bookshop/cafe/jazz hangout where a few of Christina's and Lauren's friends in their music program were playing that night. But the hot chocolate-- it's a must. They have a few flavors, and they froth it up all rich and thick. I picked white chocolate (my new favorite flavor this semester, likely for its sideways resemblance to vanilla). Delicious, just like the rest of that day.

(104) is Tuesday, 20 April 2010.

This is it, folks-- museum day. National museums are closed on Mondays, and trains taking Andy and Dan to Rome run on Wednesdays, so we had to cram it all in today. We got up early to head over to the Uffizi and beat the rush.

Yeah. THAT worked...

We spent two and a half hours in line, which turned out to be almost double the amount of time we spent actually inside the museum. And I hate to say this, given that time commitment, but I really didn't like the Uffizi that much.

Now, before you, my art-loving friends, forever abandon this blog and my company, I'd like to make my case. The Uffizi museum is famous for its collection of old art, which is my least favorite kind. You've got rooms and rooms and rooms full of old crucifixions depicted in old gold paint on old wood. I find that there are two (connected) problems with this.

1.) Anything can be old. I can paint my (now empty) glass of Vanilla coke and wait 650 years, but that doesn't mean I painted it well in the first place. That doesn't require any unique talent or vision-- that requires endurance, which, as WALL-E teaches us, any given object can have.
2.) Not only does being an old piece of art require no unique artistic vision, these particular old pieces weren't supposed to have any. This is a matter of personal taste, I understand, but if I'm going to spend my morning looking at crucifixions, send me back to the Prado, where each painting of the same thing had a unique perspective: a unique reason to be painted. The way I see it, the artists of the Uffizi's paintings didn't understand that you don't do a remake unless you've got something new to add to the original story.

To be fair (and to stop ranting), however, I suppose you can't go to Florence and not see this museum (unless you take my ranting to heart). And it was great to see Boticelli's 'The Birth of Venus'. Also-- big bonus-- our sojourn in Italy landed squarely in the middle of Culture Week, when all of Italy's state-run museums are free. If you're planning to visit Italy around mid-late April (you should), try to land it during this annual 10-day stretch.

Next stop was a private gallery with a surrealism exhibit focusing mainly on De Chirico, a founding painter of the movement. Dan and I spent a little while looking at De Chirico and Friends (the show included a few Magritte paintings as well). It was a cool exhibit, because some of the plaques accompanying the paintings addressed the movement's larger philosophical issues with sort of "Think about it yourself!" questions.***

Our final museum stop was the Galleria dell'Accademia. The big draw here, of course, is Michelangelo's David (the real David****). It's a great statue-- to be sure-- but what I like almost as much is how they don't open with it. Maybe I'm ruining the effect by mentioning it (and maybe the film major finds this more impressive than it actually is), but the reveal of this statue and where it's situated in the museum is at least as good as the masterpiece itself.

Also, the Galleria dell'Accademia has a lot of Uffizi-style Old Art. If you're hitting museums in Florence but don't want to wait on line for the Uffizi, this museum is a good pick because you'll see a smaller (but sufficient) sample of the same stuff. Or, you could book your Uffizi ticket in advance, which Dan and I didn't do.

We found a pizzeria on the east end of the city that seemed to be favored by locals. Cheap and tasty. We then savored dessert at Gelateria La Carraia, Christina's excellent pick of a Gelato place, easily found here.

I want to close this entry by reminding you that my challenge for major Bonus Points is still open, since my parents still have yet to correctly pronounce the French sentence "C'est une nouvelle année." Skype me, say it right, and WIN!

-Andy

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Tonight I gotta' cut notes! Footnotes!

* For those of you who still don't get the reference, go look up Orpheus and Eurydice in your copy of 'D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths.' Google it if you want to, but you should also invest in the book. Seriously-- your kids will love it.

** Also, how can you not love a place-- in Italy-- whose street is Via Maffia?? It's just too perfect. And if it's not perfect enough, can we also reflect also on how that street name sounds like you could translate it as "Thug Life"?

*** One went something like, "Surrealism often finds its inspiration in dreams, even nightmares. Freud said a nightmare was this, this, and this... do you have nightmares? Do they look like the style of this painting?"

*** No, the dog Paul Anka. 50 Bonus Points if you got that one.