Florence (Firenze)

The following events took place after we left Rapallo and the Cinque Terre and before we headed south to Sorrento.

I have been glad I was able to take lots of pictures of this trip and upload them from the camera to the computer and then to picasaweb. That way, should I lose the camera, I'd still have the computer and if I lost that, I'd still have the pictures online for re-downloading (is that a word?)

For the sheer volume of historic artwork, you can't beat 'Firenze' – unless you're in Rome. As home of DaVinci, Galileo, Michaelangelo, the Medicis, there is practically no end to the architecture, sculptures, paintings and churches and museums to house it all.

Despite our best laid plans, we didn't get to see everything we wanted. That isn't to say we didn't see volumes! First was a tour through the Uffizi Gallery where Botticelli's “Birth of Venus” awaited. Since we had the foresight to purchase tickets for both the Uffizi and the Accademia (where the “David” statue is housed), we didn't have to wait in the horrendously long lines outside. We had an awesome tour guide who admonished us not to try and see everything in our visit. Rather, he suggested we think of the plethora of sights as a menu.

“Choose a few items from that menu and savor them. You'll get a lot more from your visit than if you try to sample every item.” He was right. In the Uffizi, we didn't bother with most of the art. We stayed focused on important objects and paintings that told us something important about the time they were created. We looked in depth at perhaps 15 objects d'art and got a sense of how everything fit in to a timeframe. We also looked at seminal works that defined a new period or was revolutionary in some way.

It was funny how he kept shushing other gallery visitors and then paranthetically telling us "People act as if they're in the grocery store, not a museum."

We did visit a number of churches for their amazing frescos. I got a real sense of appreciation for how the church dominated daily life. I saw how religious scenes and subjects fueled the renaissance. As time went by, the works that spoke most to me were those by artists who started to break the mold. Michaelangelo and DaVinci pushed the limit and sometimes pissed off their benefactors (such as the Pope) by depicting scenes that pissed them off. (Like “Jesus is looking right at you” or “What's with the naked people?”)

The statue of David completely threw me. Of course I was expecting a huge marble depiction that was set off from everything else in its own gallery. What I wasn't expecting was the emotional reaction brought on by the facial expression (he really looks like he's planning on how exactly to kill Goliath) or the realism of the piece seen by Michaelangelo's attention to musculature, veins and arteries and other characteristics that made it plain he knew his anatomy.

In fact, it was a blasphemous work in some ways because it became clear he had to have dissected real bodies for him to have understood the underlying human musculature to such a degree. Apparently, a doctor friend in a local hospital invited him to view corpses late at night so he could understand better how the body was put together. If the church authorities had found out about this, he might have lost his artistic license.

We stayed at a hotel half a block from the Ponetvecchio (literally “Old Bridge”). Like a lot of other structures in the area, the building we were constructed in the 15th century and decorated about the same time. The one saving grace was that we had access to a rooftop garden where we could enjoy a vista of the entire city.

There, one evening after walking four or five miles around town, we brought our dinner plus some wine and cheese upstairs and met a terrific couple, Craig and Sonnika from Pretoria, South Africa.

Craig is a cardio-vascular technician in private practice and has a two hectare parcel on which they built a house for something ridiculous like 100,000 Rand. A rand is worth about a US dime, so the whole kit and kaboodle cost them about $10,000 in US dollars.

He spoke so lovingly about his country and the area he lives he enticed me to look into living there. They have a live-in whom they pay the equivalent of $140 month to act as a nannie and cook. They do, however, cover her room, board and medical but, compared to what it would cost in the US for the same services, it seems like a total deal if not slavery.

Only problem for them is Jacob Zuma of the Africal National Congress was just elected. They seem to feel their lifestyle may be in jeopardy if he has his way with the country. So, while buying property and hiring help at a mega-affordable price seems compelling, I'm not sure it's worth possibly ending up getting boiled in a big black kettle.

At any rate, they were lovely people and they invited us to join them the next day on a tour of Tuscany that was to include Sienna, lunch at an organic winery, a visit to San Gimignano and Pisa. We took them up on it and were not disappointed. It was especially nice not to have to walk since they are 60 miles apart from each other.