(Fri. Nov. 27th to Mon. Nov. 30th)
Florence. I'd already been, but hey, its Italy, come on. Plus I didn't really have a choice, it was actually part of our semester. We met up with a professor who was half Italian and had lived and worked in Milan and Rome (I think) for like ten years (I think) but by all accounts seems totally American. Aside from speaking Italian and knowing a LOT about Italian politics and recent history.
So the point, for him anyway, was to not spend so much time with the typical OLD old stuff, and the old history, presuming most people did (or should) know that. So it was more like 1800s/1900s stuff, especially in Rome. Lots of political history, and discussion about the city and the people in general. Interesting, but they were sometimes long days of walking and standing and listening. Good lord he knew a lot!
Starting at the airport, after a couple hour flight with all my classmates- this is how we were greeted. I know Florence was famous for knock-offs sold on the street, but geez! 
At the bottom is the most interesting part- you can be FINED for actually BUYING fake stuff. Uh, don't they hafta prove intent/prior knowledge? Maybe I don't know much about the Italian legal system (okay, I know jack) but seriously. How are they gonna do that. I suppose most tourists would be happy to just pay cash on the spot- I'm sure the polizia take it right back to the station :)
But here was one of the first glimpses I got of the church, after we came around a corner and found it there in the piazza surrounded by buildings. So cool. Very ornate and very different than any other church I've seen (outside of multiple other churches IN Florence that are decorated similarly).
Just two blocks away was our hotel, and thankfully we found our professor there (lord knows why he didn't meet us at the train station). And we found the rooftop, and this was our view from up there! Incredible! And also loud in the morning when the bells started chiming...
In the other direction, this was also our view- the Uffizi Gallery, where lots of famous art, mostly sculpture, is displayed.
And we decided to check out the corner store and see what we could get to drink for the night. I personally had work to do still, that was due in a week but needed to be done before Tiffany came. And I wanted to get a good night's sleep cause we were meeting at 9am or something to start our tour of Florence. We found some Fanta blood-orange soda (pretty tasty) and ABSINTHE!
Ha, it was SO strong. Tasted like burning. And people were like afraid to try it. Tasted like burning black licorice. The stuff used to be illegal in the US because it had some possible hallucinogen or something in it- some famous authors and poets, including I think Edgar Allen Poe, are rumored to have been on absinthe while writing their masterpieces. Like Lewis Carroll on opium. But anyway, this was just strong burning liquor, but it was fun to have people try just to taste it. So people were using the soda as a chaser. I dunno, it wasn't that bad, just man up and drink the stuff geez. But I like the red and green cups :)
Something I hope Dave's mom never sees.
The explanation is this- there was a small ledge outside the window (we were on the third floor) and an adjoining balcony to one of the girls' rooms, and Dave decided he could get there, so he hopped out the window onto the ledge. Glad I had the camera ready (always!) Not *that* dangerous, but you know, it was the third floor.
This is after he got from the ledge onto the balcony.
The next day it was time for some adventures. We hopped on a bus and went to see a church built in the 60s (I think) near the highway, a ways out of the main old city center of Florence. Called Chiesa dell'Autostrada (church of the highway), by Giovani Michelucci, one of the most important modern Italian architects, according to our professor. I hadn't heard of him but after seeing a few other of his buildings, I should have.
This particular church was pretty wild, pretty interesting, not terribly beautiful per se but definitely inspiring and dramatic. PARTS of it were beautiful :)
In the main body of the church. Another church with tree-like columns. Pretty amazing sweeping dip in the roof, considering it was all concrete. Tons of it.
See the seats down below? Pretty tall roof. Like a draped bedsheet, except concrete. Impressive engineering.
This was the new city hall apparently, out of the old city center, in the more modern city area. Huge, not quite grotesque but certainly...weird and large. The only clear picture I snapped cause it was through the bus window as we were driving by.
After that was, well, the best thing ever. We drove up into the hills outside Florence, on a mystery journey. We stop at the top of this winding road way up a hill, drive down a driveway, get out in the middle of this olive grove, and get let in through a fence to a house that turns out to be a series of houses, on the top of this hill, surrounded by olive trees, overlooking the city in the distance. Hot damn.
As soon as we got out, everyone was taking pictures.
What we found out was that our professor Xavier, who runs the Barcelona program (and is from there, not the guy who was touring us around Italy) knows the people who live here- the woman was his student, her parents own the place, she moved back here with her husband. Her husband is a badass who runs a program called RuralStudio through Auburn U, that each year actually designs and builds things for people in southern Alabama, like chapels or other public buildings. Cheap renewable materials, simple designs, built for people who can't afford it. A really cool program, through the architecture school. So we got to meet him, and see the house him and his wife spent the last five years building, when they were actually around and not in the US teaching :)
Here's the patio between the two main houses (not the ones they built). Past that, down the hill a bit, was their house, with a picturesque view of course.
Here's their house. Built against an old furnace used for making something like gypsum (that I can't remember the name of) it was basically a huge fireplace with three semi-circular niches where they did the firing. The furnace is to the left, through the glass.
Hard to capture the house in photos. It was pretty small, two story but low ceiling upstairs, open little balcony, lots of light. Here's shelves they made out of flat steel, with a nice color assortment of knick-knacks on them.
In the glassy area, which was basically a no man's zone between house and furnace that collected light and sent it into the house, they had these chairs...and here's Dave standing next to them after he ate the little cake that said "Eat Me" and grew to twice his normal size.
This is the interstitial space between house and furnace. Basically a giant skylight/greenhouse space. Interesting.
Here's Britta and I in the first floor bathroom mirror. The WHOLE thing was tiled like this, with antique tiles from the wife's dad who I think used to hand make them.
Here's the staircase to upstairs, also fabricated out of flat steel. Take a close look at it. Individual half steps for each foot, offset half a step from each other. VERY weird to walk down, pretty narrow and steep, but interesting to look at, and piqued my interest about what can be done when you think outside of the box.
This was in the old house by the patio- I liked the clean sterility of it and it seemed like a nice photo composition. And the overflow drain was in an odd spot...
Another great composition. I generally don't artificially arrange things that I take pictures of (much) because I just like the world as it is, happenstance. These I moved a bit to get better shadows.
That was when they were setting up the "lunch" we were told the family was feeding us. Their own bottled olive oil and locally made wine. They said oil this good doesn't ever make it to the US because it never makes it out of Italy- it all is bought locally. I knew then we were in for a treat. Apparently they do this every year for the students when they come through Italy. All the sudden though, the real food started coming out, and I was getting overwhelmed. Wishing my family or Tiffany was there, someone who'd appreciate this amazing fresh Italian food in the middle of an olive grove on the top of a hill overlooking Florence and the Tuscan hill country.
They had giant loaves of bread (we started pitching in to prepare it)
and a TON of meats and cheeses, that we were all cutting, and eating while cutting, and I was taking pictures too, because it was simply remarkable. I can still taste and smell and remember that vividly, that half hour of preparation and eating, when I just thought I could die right there.
This was just one little grouping of foods they had for us- the wine, the water (frizzante- with bubbles!) Italian olives, pickled herrings (actually quite good!) some goat cheese kinda stuff, and red peppers. And of course, the meat :)
Here's two thirds of the table we were all sitting at, with food and drink EVERYWHERE, enjoying the afternoon sun. It was a bit chilly but my heart was warm. Oh yeah that big basket in the front of the picture was FULL of grapes.
They started having each one of us stand up for a sec and tell them (the family, and the architect couple) who we were, what and where we studied in undergrad, where we were from, and what our best moment in our 3 months of travel had been. I told them very honestly that I was pretty sure this very moment was the best of my three months, and that I really appreciated good Italian food, and the hospitality.
And here is me making some kind of devious face about how much I want all this food in my belly.
So after the meal, I died, and this is what heaven looks like, apparently- my camera got to come with me, which was nice.
Like many European cities I went to, Florence had the pedestrian shopping streets well decorated overhead with lights. Very festive. I love Europe.
The next day was Florence itself, the old city, a walking tour. Here's one of the main piazzas, that had a merry-go-round. There were people fences up because we found out they were having a marathon through the middle of the city! Cool...
We decided to climb the bell tower next to Santa Maria del Fiore. In any city its always the best to get to the highest point and see things. So here, some of the way up, is me standing on a giant grate, looking WAY down to some of my friends many levels below. The whole middle was open, the stairs were actually in the corners that supported the whole tower. Pretty big tower. I climbed it before with Chris and my dad when I was there.
Up at the top, here's a view of the race down below. I like this shot. I stole the idea from Dave, of sticking my arm out to take a picture straight down. You can see the Baptistry down there, the octagonal building. It has gilded doors that were designed by Ghiberti, who won a competition.
Here's inside the church- Florence, again, has the only churches I've seen that are more ornate on the outside than the inside. Odd.
This I enjoyed, when we were walking around again- the pigeons enjoying someone's leftovers. Gross though. Stupid pigeons.
Here is Ponte Vecchio! It means... "old bridge" :) The whole thing is shops on both sides, with apartments up above, pedestrian only. One of the only bridges not bombed out by the Germans in WWII, apparently. Near it though is a very interesting transition of buildings from new to old, where part of the city was so destroyed that it was completely rebuilt, but intended to blend in rather than stand out. This was the good Italian architectural and political history we got from our professor, Alexander.
This fence had an obviously too-little-too-late sign on it that said its forbidden to put locks on the fence. I don't remember why people did this, it was a superstition of some sort, around this little monument.
We kept walking, on the other side of the river now, and here was a plaque that said that in this hotel, Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote The Idiot. Interesting...
Here's the burial place of Donatello, the wisest of the Ninja Turtles. Also a famous Italian artist. Pictures of his tomb were not allowed, for some reason. Good thing I took this before the docent came by and told us that. I'm sneaky like that.
Nicolas Machiavelli...all of these in one church. Lucky church! The Basilica of Santa Croce (the holy cross). There were other famous but less interesting people buried here too.
After that, after an evening of rain, many went home and the few the proud the strong followed Alexander up the hillside with our rain jackets and umbrellas to see another small old church and a good view of the city at night, captured by my favorite camera.
another view, with what remained of our group overlooking Santa Maria del Fiore on the right and the Uffizi Gallery on the left. Fantastic! I love getting just the right picture.
The next day. (I think that night I did school work and went to bed, after a warm shower- many people had work to do and we all crowded in the breakfast room where the only wifi was. Ps they had terrible breakfast). Here's Dave calculating a possible jump that we couldn't convince him to do, but I said we should have posed an "after" picture of him laying on the ground in pain.
This church looks a lot like Santa Maria del Fiore, but it isn't. The benches in the foreground were very new, and glass and rusted steel, kinda cool, and there was actually some grass!
And that's all I have to say about Florence. We were there for four days total, but its really a relatively small city, with lots of churches but nowhere near the interest or architectural excitement of a major city. Especially since the old city seemed to be separate from other newer areas of the city built with normal roads and highways and such. Like two separate places. It was time for an excursion again, so we hopped on a four-hour train to Rom, and I'm pretty sure I did work the whole way again.
No comments:
Post a Comment