Up at 6:30am, early breakfast at the hotel in Lucca, packed up the car and locked it securely, then left with our backpacks for the train station.
What? Whadda we think we are, students? Backpacks? Trains? Walking to the train station?
No, we have no illusions about our age or our status in life. Its just that driving from here to there would have involved more stress, far more stress, than taking the train. Firenze is a big place, 360,000 people, and the town was not designed for cars or parking. The train stops a twenty minute walk from the statue of David by Michelangelo. What's the choice? The train costs ten Euro twenty cents for both of us, parking by itself would be triple that, per day. What's the choice? Etcetera.
So, train it was, one and a half hours of pleasant countryside. Looked a lot like a drive up the Fraser Valley at home, or any number of French or Spanish river valleys, with flat and green grassy land all around and a mountain range in the distance that was snow-capped. Primarily rural, agrarian. Small towns we stopped at, not busy with few people standing around. Passed a lot of shuttered or collapsed industrial buildings, that was sad. That means people out of work. The only 'workers' that we passed were busy on public projects, roads and rail, cleanup, etc. Our train car was about one third full for most of the journey, people on and off while we stopped at about five stations on the way from Lucca to Firenze. Most older, some young, some students, just ordinary folks.
The train terminated in Firenze's Santa Maria Novella (SMN) station, and we exited to a quiet and pretty much empty station platform. Jan and I moved on into the station and stopped at an information kiosk where we bought a map and made a hotel reservation. This was new for us, a pay-for-service reservation kiosk. They offered an excellent price on a three star hotel, which they assured us had a quality that was higher than three star. We took it, fifty Euro per night including breakfast, a steal of a deal. Went there, very centrally located, nice room, we took it. If it seems too good to be true it probably is, I have always thought. But I double checked and it all seems OK. Can't beat the off-season travel.
Dropped our gear and headed out into the cool breeze and the bright sunshine and cloudless sky. Hiked down to the Arno river, passed by two bridges until we came to the famous Ponte Vecchio Bridge, although we stopped along the way for lunch. We thought we were getting salads but got sandwiches instead, although the coffee was excellent as expected.
The Ponte Vecchio Bridge is a landmark in Florence. The Arno River isn't wide, so the bridge isn't very long, but a whole bunch of businesses have taken root on the bridge. They are all goldsmiths, selling very high-end jewelery. Beautiful, exquisitely designed rings and necklaces, broaches and pins, and other glittery fancy stuff. These stores have been there for centuries, since the Medicis declared that the butcher shops that used to line this bridge up to about 1549 were too smelly and should be replaced by goldsmiths. That's right out of the guidebooks, would I lie about that? Anyway, very nice, cheap at half the price, such a deal I would not give my own mother. Buy two, they're small. Top quality, real diamonds, real emeralds, wait, don't go, buy something! We managed to make it out of their clutches, took some pictures on the bridge, then made our way to the Uffizi Gallery only to find that it is closed on Mondays. No worries, we'll be here tomorrow.
Moved into the Piazza della Signoria Square. What a sight. On the one side is the Uffizi Gallery, with its statury outside. One of these is a copy of Michelangelo's David, the original being in the Galleria Academmia, though it used to be on this spot until the pollution started to concern people and it was moved indoors. The replacement on this site is stunning, a replica of the original, and from a distance of a few meters it is so beautiful that we forget it is not 'real'.
To my right as I looked at 'David' was the Loggia del Signoria. It is a showcase for the fourteenth century sculptures of the Uffizi Gallery, and houses about fifteen very much larger-than-life works of art. Jan and I wandered among these, marvelling at the beauty and detail. And, the thing is, they are made of ROCK. Carved ROCK, shaped with a chizel and a hammer to look like real people in the rigors of the passions of life and death. And BIG, two or three times life size. But, I shake my head and try to understand, these were carved from blocks of marble dragged hundreds of miles from their quarries in Carrera. Then this rock was chipped and carved until these shapes were released from the depths. What a vision it must have taken to conceive these beings in these poses, in these actions, and find them within the solid rock. Then release them, finished and polished, for our view centuries later. I walked around and around among them, stunned, and when I left the Loggia I was finished for the day. How could my simple mind absorb more detail and beauty than I had just seen?
Reality caught up with us quickly, with the need to replenish our store of cash. We wrestled with an ATM and, in the end, won. It wouldn't give us an advance on our Visa Card (Not Authorized for International Withdrawals) but handled our Debit Card. Go figure. We were just glad to get the money, and went away to spend some.
Later we came back to the Piazza to the Baptistry of San Giovanni, and took a tour. It was good, but I was still on overload from the group of statues so was not as moved as I perhaps should have been. The giant dome of the Baptistry is painted and inlaid with precious stones and gold. A variety of scenes are depicted, and stories told, but one stands out for me. A giant picture of Jesus is depicted on the ceiling and on his right hand, which is open and welcoming, are all the blessed who have died on earth and have now made the journey to heaven on the eighth day. The building is an octagon, symbolizing that when baptized (it is a Baptistry, for only this purpose) a person symbolically 'dies' under water and is brought back to life on the 'eighth' day of the week (remember, Western religion holds that God created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh) which is an endless day, no night, a day which everyone enjoys forever. So the people depicted on his open right hand are enjoying happiness forever, in heaven. But on his left hand, which is facing behind him, on that hand are the damned. They are in a panel which is presided over by a horned and cloven-footed devil, and the people there, the sinners who have died on earth, are decidedly not happy. This must have been very impactful for the lucky baptised, and further separated them from their poorer brethren. Poorer indeed, in the midst of all this richness, gold and jewels, ivory and marble, do you think the poor people got into here and the baptism process. No, even the guidebooks say this was a privileged group that got into here. Mercy on the poor damned? What were Jesus' thoughts on this? Who cared, it didn't matter. This is church business, this is the business of religion, the powers of the church didn't bite the hand that fed them. Heaven and hell are earthly concepts, born of fear and ignorance, as far as I am concerned, so I know what panel I would have been depicted in.
After that, and more photo-ops in the square, we wandered by a church that was in the process of being restored and turned into a bit of a sculpture museum. The carvings shown within the church are ones that originally ringed it in little alcoves among the marbled arches. Turns out that everyone these days is aware of and concerned about the effects of pollution on these works of art that have survived from antiquity. So, the Dante Society has had these statues removed from the outside of the church, copied by contemporary masters to a remarkable level of detail, and these copies placed in their places around the church. The originals are now inside, safe, and on view. It was a remarkable experience. My ignorance caused me to only recognize the name of one artist, Donnatello, who carved his double-lifesized piece in the 1300's. The rest were, frankly, better to my eyes than the one by Donnatello but I didn't recognize the carver's names. Perhaps because one of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was named Donnatello. Who says we are not a product of our culture.
We'll see the rest of the Turtle Troup at the Uffizi tomorrow, Raphael and the other two. Ain't Kultur a great thing.
