DAY 14
The locals in Florence don’t call it that. The proper name is Firenze. No one will give you any shit if you use the former, but they will smile with appreciation when you use the latter.
Inna and I love to bike, so we took the Fat Tire Bike Tour with Brian. Every bike had the name of a famous Italian and mine was, of course, Michelangelo. You will find Fat Tire tours in most of the big Italian cities. The one we did in Rome with Mark Winds was one of the best in the world. For my money, Fat Tire is consistently the best tour company in Italy. And they don’t just do bike tours. They also offer walking tours, foodie tours, and other specialty tours. In the end, a tour is only as good as the guide. And Brian spoke perfect audible English and showed us his hometown of Firenze with his own personal twist. We had an absolute ball!
Our first stop was the Dante Museum, a recreated Medieval Tower House that looks ancient but is actually only fifty years old. I love the way the Italian builders can make the new look old and integrate a modern structure into the fabric of a Medieval city. Americans could learn a lot from the Italians when it comes to quality building design and construction.
The second stop was the Duomo Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage site, which is made from three different colored marbles (white, green, and red), each mined from a different quarry and positioned in intricate geometric patterns. Construction began in 1296, and the design plans were destroyed by the architect, Filippo Brunelleschi, so no one could ever copy it or build something as lovely. Inside, you will find the biggest fresco in the world, and there is a dome within the dome. The original cathedral was finished in 1420. And then the dome was added. The dome took 25 years to build, starting in 1475. Michelangelo’s David statue was commissioned by the cathedral to be its centerpiece but the Catholic bosses refused to display it when they discovered he was naked. The David statue is now in the Academia Museum.
You can’t swing a cat in Firenze without hitting a statue of Michelangelo’s David. They all look alike, but some are made of marble and others are made of metal. It gets a bit confusing, trying to figure out which is THE David. Most folks think it’s the one in front of the Palazzo Vecchio (City Hall). Tourists flock around it like pigeons, snapping photos. The original was unveiled in the Piazza Vecchio in 1504, and it stood there until 1873, when it was moved for fear it would be damaged by the outside elements or vandals. So they painstakingly carted it over to a nearby museum and installed a replica in the Vecchio Plaza that looks exactly like the real deal, but is 3 centimeters shorter — the body, that is.
There are two golden doors at the entrance of the baptistery that sits right next to Duomo and which looks like a big multi-colored marble pillbox . The installation of these two magnificent golden doors that stand about twenty feet tall and tell picture stories from the Old and New Testament, are said to have marked the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. It took the artist fifty years — his entire life — to create these two marvelous treasures. But like the phony David statue in the Piazza Vehchio, the doors we were looking at were actually replicas. The original doors are inside the Duomo to protect them from the elements.
The Duomo is the third largest dome in the world and has a Golden Ball on the top. The ball was made by Leonardo DaVinci’s master, Andrea del Verrocchio of Firenze, and it is very unlucky because it has fallen several times during storms and each time it killed someone famous, including a Medici. There is a marble plaque in the plaza that marks the spot where one of the balls landed, as a sort of warning sign to indicate the danger zone when it’s really windy.
Miracles abound in Italy and the Santisima Annunciation Church is the place of a very famous miracle. Legend has it that a painting of the Virgin Mary that hangs inside the church was magically painted by a mysterious and rather clever spirit. According to legend, when the artist went to bed one night, the face was blank and when he got up the next morning, the face had been magically completed. The church, which looks more like a colonnaded warehouse than your typical ornate Catholic palace of worship, also houses paintings by virtually all of the old Italian masters.
The Santisima Church was one of the favorite churches of the Medicis, Europe’s richest banking family, and the front of the church features the Medici family crest — six balls — five red ones for the five brothers and one blue ball with a French fleur-de-lis (stylized Lilly) inside the ball. Like so much in Italy, the crest has a very interesting back story. The Medicis lent money to the French King Louis XI, the Spider King, to fight the English, in 1475, and when the French lost and couldn’t repay the loan, the Medicis were given permission to use the royal fleur-de-lis symbol of France on their family crest. The Medicis, who were essentially the owners of Firenze, also used it as the city crest. It would be like a rich sponsor obtaining the right to use the Baltimore Ravens football team logo wherever they liked.
We stopped briefly at the Piazza di Chiompi, a hip local hangout that has a beautiful garden and some popular local eateries. It was originally the city fish market.
Brian, our guide, said it’s way too hard to live in Firenze — too congested and expensive. Many people like himself, who work in Firenze, live outside the city and take the train into town each day.
Our next stop was the Santa Croce Church, dating back to 1230, and which supposedly used to house a small piece of the cross upon which Jesus was crucified. The legends of the cross go back to Emperor Constantine’s mother who traveled to the Holy Land in search of the Jesus cross. She was, of course, sold some bogus chunks of wood by some shady Middle Eastern shysters. Thinking it was the real thing, she proudly took the wood home and then dispensed the holy offerings to churches all around Europe. As the circus showman P.T. Barnum once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.“
The Santa Croce Church is made with the same green and white marble of the Duomo but it has a very strange thing at the top of the front facade — a big blue Star of David. This was allowed because the architect was Jewish, and it’s a very rare sight indeed to see a famous Catholic Church adorned with the Jewish star. Michelangelo is buried there. So is Galileo, who the Medicis hid in a secret crypt in their private chapel because the Catholic Church thought he was a heretic. When the church finally came to its senses and agreed to display his tomb, they opened the original crypt and found that he was buried with his wife and child, and was missing three fingers and a tooth. Today, all sorts of scam artists claim to house his fingers and teeth. Gullible pilgrims will pay to see anything macabre.
Piazza Santa Croce was also the birthplace of football (Calchio Storico). It started there in the plaza, and was played on sand between players from four districts of Firenze. There were 27 men on each team and each year they play a ceremonial match on June 24th, and it’s one of the biggest events of the season in Firenze and not to be missed. Original soccer was a cross between today’s game and rugby. Essentially, it’s the Italian version of “kill the guy with the ball”; there are no rules and the contestants usually get badly hurt, often having to be taken to the hospital.
We made our way over to the Arno River and stopped in front of an old watchtower where the gold Floren coin was minted. The Italian Floren was made of pure gold (2.3 grams) and was the one currency that was accepted everywhere in the world, even in America hundreds of years later.
After a leisurely ride along the river we stopped at the Plaza Republica where you will find the city’s oldest cafes. This plaza was originally a Roman fort, sitting at a crossroads. This is a happening spot and quite popular with tourists who don’t seem to mind paying two or three times more to sit overlooking a plaza that really looks no different than any other plaza in town.
After our very enjoyable bike ride around Midieval Firenze we returned to our apartment to chill out and rest before meeting Inna’s dear friend Milena from medical school in Moscow who is now a psychiatrist in Sienna.
We had a few drinks on the sixth floor terrace cafe SESIO atop the Westin Excelsior Hotel, overlooking the entire city of Firenze as the sunny weather that we had been enjoying for the past several days, starting back in Bellagio, beat a slow retreat and the clouds and rain moved back in. But we were blessed to have warm and sunny weather our last five days in Italy.
I had a very amusing thing happen on my way from the Westin with Inna and Milena. As a general rule, I dress very casually in shorts when we travel. I’m all about comfort, not appearance. But I wanted to make a good impression on Inna’s friend, and please my Leetle Inna, so I wore nice designer jeans, some snazzy new lace-up Rockport boat shoes, and a blue, polkadot, Italian Bugatchi shirt Inna bought for me at the Nemacolin Resort in Pennsylvania several years ago. So, I was looking pretty sharp. In fact, I was looking so sharp that two very well-dressed Italian matrons stopped me to ask directions, and were genuinely shocked to discover that I didn’t speak Italian and was an American. STYLIN’!
I decided to let Inna and Milena catch up on their missing years and speak some Russian. So I headed slowly back toward our apartment, following a gravel path along the river in a light rain with thunder booming off to the north. By this time I knew my way around the old city pretty well and with so many tall landmarks like the Duomo dome, it was pretty hard to get lost.
I was walking up a narrow street and I came upon a very interesting attraction of sorts. In fact, I’m not really sure what you would even call it — maybe a “temporary street painting“. A young woman was painting a large mural of what looked like a fairy princess on the cobblestones of the street and she had a tip jar for people to help her with her artistic endeavor. I asked some locals about it and they said she would take a few more days to finish it and then the city street cleaners would wash it away. A few days later, she would start painting something else. It reminded me of the concept of a Navajo sand painting where the artist uses different colored sands to paint a very elaborate scene only to wipe it away upon completion.
Walked 5 miles
Bicycles 5 miles
Insider Tip — Let’s talk about dining in Firenze, or any large Italian city. It’s expensive and with liquor can easily run you 100€ for two each time you eat. Inna and I had an apartment in Firenze and our first stop after checking in was to walk to the nearby Pegna grocery store. We had a stove, but most hotel rooms have a refrigerator, so you can buy perishables and keep them fresh. We spent 200€ which sounds like a lot of money until you realize that it covered two dinners, three lunches, and three breakfasts, and also included a six pack of beer, a bottle of incredible Shiraz wine, and a bottle of Prosecco champagne. Do the math. We saved ourselves a bundle of money and didn’t drive ourselves crazy trying to decide where to eat in a city with a zillion restaurants.
Insider Tip — We stayed in an apartment building about two blocks from the Duoma and within easy walking distance of EVERYTHING. I don’t normally recommend places to stay, but I would recommend this one very highly. Luxury accommodations, great staff, and very reasonable prices.
Cavalieri Palace Luxury Residences
