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So I finally made it to Firenze!! (Florence)... you know fiore means 'flower' in Italian... So now, you ask, that my life's dream has come
true (not to mention Sandra Bullock's life dream on 'While you Were Sleeping'), what now? ..."well, I'll get up every day, and breathe in
and out." ... ok, enough with the movies, and on to the real stuff!! My train came at 5:58am Sunday morning (ugggh!!) and it was pretty much empty
because who in their right mind would be going to Florence at 6am on a Sunday? (HAHA, I fooled them!! ahem...) I had had to rearrange my trains
after booking the Uffizi gallery for 10:15 (tigger's don't like lineups) and the train I planned on taking was at 8:30 and took between 3
and 4 hours... I woke up in the middle of the night on Friday night in a panic because my
subconscious had figured out the problem before
I had... that's why they teach us math in school... ;-) I noticed that the train I got onto looked
very different than the trains I had been on so far, but I just thought maybe it was because it was going such a long way... silly mara...
Because there was a total of about 5 people on the entire train, nice men in Trenitalia suits came by to check tickets right away. He came
and asked for my ticket and explain very nicely in very good English that my ticket was wrong... this was a EuroStar train and they cost just
a little bit more. No problem, he said, and told me they could fix it when he came back later. Either he completely forgot about me, or took
pity on me, because he walked by several times but never stopped... score, hehehe! I noticed that on EuroStar trains, the people are
infinitely nicer, they dress better, there's ac (woo hoo!!), and they don't stop very often... EuroStar is my friend... When I got to Pisa, I jumped a
train to Florence and arrived at about 9:30. I walked out of the train station and immediately got lost... I almost fell right off the edge
of the map, but at the last second I caught my balance, stepped away from the edge, and walked towards the sun. (east, duhh, no one said I was
quick... sometimes my smartness takes time to kick in...) So I'm wandering around in Florence following street that don't connect, trying to
find my place on a map of street names that change every couple of blocks, and I hear this ringing of church bells, like a lot of them... I followed
the noise and came around the corner on a street and looked up... looked waaaay up. The Duomo was right in front of me (the Florence
cathedral) and it completely took the breath right out of me... I have no words to describe it. The cathedral, the bell tower, the dome, the
baptistery... all right there, the sun peeking out from behind it, bells ringing. All I could say was 'wow' and stand in the middle of the street
with my mouth hanging open. After about 30 seconds of just staring at it, I got out my camera, and now I really knew where I was on the
map. (The next day I actually went inside)
I booked it over to the gallery and arrived at about 10:10. I stood in three wrong lines, and finally the right one to pick up my reserved
ticket (about 5 minute wait). Then I walked over to the next line to wait to get in (about 10-15 minutes). Then we went through the metal
detectors and waited to get into the gallery itself (about 10-15 minutes). Total time waiting... about 30 minutes. Not waiting in the 4 hour
line up outside... priceless! Visa... it's everywhere I want to be!! Seriously, if you ever want to go to the Uffizi gallery, just call ahead
and book... surely 4 hours of your time is worth 3 euro... The second picture was taken from inside the gallery - it's sort of a u-shape
and this was half way...
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So these are my friends Mikey and Leo... they were hanging out at the gallery, you know, nothing else to do in the last 500 years... ;-)
The gallery was incredible... it was looking through an art history text book, just in real life, and really really big... I didn't realize
how massive some of these works really are... I'll put it this way... we could probably put Giotto's
altarpiece in the living room, and it could
sit in the living room (and dining room), but we couldn't have anything else in those two rooms. To walk into the first room and land face to
face with something that massive that you recognize, mixed in with many MANY more recognizable and famous works... it's just a very humbling
feeling. There are a couple of things that bother me though (oh boy, here it comes)... Apparently 1.5 million people come through that gallery
every year... I'm wondering how many of those people have any idea what they're looking at. How many more don't even really care what they're
looking at? I was looking at the Dome of the cathedral (full story later) and a couple of American guys were looking at it too... talking to
each other (even though the signs say in 5 different languages 'Silence please') Now, these weren't kids, they were grown men... maybe 40 or 50 years
old. They are in Florence looking at the cathedral ceiling... not only is information
probably in their guide book about it, but there's
pamphlets everywhere about it... keep in mind that this is Vasari's ceiling (Vasari wrote many, many volumes of books about artists called 'Our Lives', sort of
late/post renaissance) in the major center of Florence, a gigantic Last Judgment
scene with levels of angles and demons performing acts of
torture that no one has even dreamt of. The one guy says to the other guy... hey I wonder what that thing is that that angel guy is holding...
I looked over and explained to him that the angels are supposed to blow these horns on
Judgment Day... and the guy looks back at the ceiling for a
second and then remarks, "yeah, I guess this could be sort of a Last Judgment". I kept my comments to myself. Another lady - this one sounded
British - was in the baptistery (full story later...) looking at the ceiling in there... 4 narrative stories with a Last
Judgment in the
focus... and she remarks, "This looks like a Last Judgment"... (I thought to myself... British are smarter than Americans...) "or
maybe Dante's Inferno"... I cringed and my hopes sank... besides being 13th century, the
baptistery is pretty famous - among other
reasons - because Dante Alighieri was baptized there... I think I like it better when I don't understand the drivel that comes out of
people's mouths...
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So after spending almost 4 hours in the gallery, I finally left... *sniff, sniff* I didn't want to go!!... I wandered around and looked at
churches in the burning heat of the afternoon... got to the Brancacci chapel just after it closed... stuff like that. I went to go see the
Orsanmichale... an old grainery turned church around the time of the renaissance... I knew the church itself was closed for renovations, but
the really good stuffs on the outside... Many of the big names have sculptures out there... Walking along the Arno can get you through town,
and it's easy to tell where you are by just looking at the Ponte Vecchio - the main bridge. It's an entire street on a bridge full of nothing
but jewelry stores... hmm, gives me and idea for an "Ocean's Eleven"-type movie... "Starjumper's Three" (me, myself, and I)... or
something like that...
I got a gelato (6 euro, eek, that's like almost 10 dollars!!) and right near the Santa Maria della Carmine (where the Brancacci chapel is) I found a little grocery
store... the only one I found in all of Florence!! So I went in a bought a loaf of bread, some ham, a bottle of water, and a bottle of gatorade
(in the struggle for hydration). In a plan to go find my hotel, I walked through the Piazza delgi Uffizi and sat down in the shade. The
gatorade bottle was impossibly complex to get into... Machiavelli stared down at me disapprovingly as I struggled with the bottle... "Gatorade -
is it in you?"... it would be if I could get the freakin' bottle open!! Petrarch was too busy staring at the clouds to offer any help...
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So now, boys and girls who are in art history... which church is this? That's right, the distinctive Santa Maria Novella! It was everything
I hoped it could be and more... inside are works by Giotto, Andrea Orcagna, Ghiberti, Masaccio, Ghirlandaio, and Filippino Lippi, just to name
a few... it's an ARHI major's dream... if you can get in, that is... If you are ever going to go church hunting in Florence, do NOT wear
all or any of: tank tops, shorts (guys and girls), or skirts... "if there's too much skin, you're not getting in" (I made that one up myself!!
;-)) Sometimes, if it's a minor infringement, they will give you something to cover up with, but I saw one girl flat-out refused at the door.
luckily, my mom warned me... thank you mommy!! I don't have any pictures of inside - some places you could take pictures, some you couldn't,
some you just couldn't have a flash... it varied from church to church...
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When I finally got to my room, I was so hot and so tired, and I knew my room didn't have a shower... I got
up to the reception (3rd floor!!!)
and the lady didn't really speak English. I told her I had a reservation, and she said, "You're Tamara?"... good sign. She showed me my room
and I was very impressed... it was small but not at all cramped... cool air blowing in from the shady street window, very clean (bonus #1)
... what more could I ask for?
I got out of my hot sweaty clothes and dunked my head in the sink (it did have a sink). There were two bathrooms available to
take a shower, but I was soooo exhausted I ended up just washing my hair in the sink and laying down. Laying down on my back on the bed I stared
up at the ceiling fan... wait a second, a ceiling fan?!?! (bonus #2) I turned it on and it was wonderful... then I noticed the fridge (bonus
#3) so I could put that ham in the fridge and have breakfast tomorrow morning as well as dinner tonight (score!!). I walked out to go to the
bathroom and talked to a lady that spoke English... she looked up a train for me (it ended up being wrong, but hey)... I went to sleep and got
up bright and early to hit some more churches, and looked out the window and had this amazing view!! My room was really just down the street from the
Duomo...
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This is the first church I hit... their first mass starts at 7am, and the guide book wasn't kidding about trying to squeeze in to see the
church between masses... there are 7 every day and they tend to be about an hour long... first half hour seems to be women, second half hour
to be men... and the next mass starts at 8, so after waiting for almost an hour, I gave up. But the atrium is heavily decorated... and this beauty
I recognized... I remember staring at my book wondering where the details were, like leaves on the trees, a face on the
Madonna... turns out
that these were painted 'dry' so that they could be in very fine detail, and then they disappear much faster than the rest of the painting...
they stopped doing that soon after because it didn't work... I went to San Marco for a little while after that, and then it was too early to
do anything.
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So walking by the Duomo I saw a line up... I realized that the Dome opened in 10 minutes, so I got in line behind about 5 or 6 people. At
8:30 I got my workout for the day... 392,572 steps later (j/k, it's like 463 or something) I made it to the top of the dome. In between, there
were also 2 walkways around the inside of the dome where you could look at Vasari's Last
Judgment... up close and personal! - that was where
I ran into those two Americans... bahh. From the summit of the dome you can see everything... like the Calgary tower, just more... ancient.
Here you can see the bell tower (looks so small from up here) and the Santa Maria Novella, train station and
Basilica. These are two pictures
from the inside of the dome... one of the good... and one of the bad... notice the flaming sticks? I wonder what those guys did to deserve that...
That's my theory on why Christianity was so widespread... can you imagine sitting looking at that every Sunday? It would scare me too!!
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These are the legendary Baptistery doors... the East, the South, and the North, respectively. The East were dubbed by
Michelangelo "the
Gates of Paradise"... well these aren't the real ones, they're copies. There was a big storm and they all fell off. They were put back on,
but then they decided it was better to restore them and keep them in the museum... by the end of my trip I was so exhausted that the copies really
were good enough for me... I like them better attached to the building too... you really have to click on these and take a closer look...
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And now for the beautiful Santa Croce... of the many works in this Church, the most notable are Donatello's Annunciation (I brightened it
up a little and cranked up the contrast... everything he does is in such dark media), Giotto's frescos
in the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels, as well as the tombs of Michelangelo (by Vasari) and Galileo, and a monument for Dante. A very moving
place, but unfortunately large parts of it are under construction... The real treat was to go out back to the sacristy and the museum...
featuring Ciambue's crucifix... lost in a flood and then restored to its current condition...
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Now for another highlight of my trip... Santo Spirito. In my in-depth research of Michelangelo's Roman Pieta, I came across this wooden crucifix.
Without boring you with all of the mundane details, basically, it wasn't attributed until the 1960's. The piece itself was mentioned in
Vasari's volumes, but they're not positive that this is actually it. Frustrated, I tried to investigate and came up with not much... some
body tell me the truth!!!... how better to get the truth than to go see it in person? So I did. I don't know...
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In the Santa Maria della Carmine is the Brancacci chapel with frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino, and completed by Filippino Lippi...
I don't know what my favorite is... Masaccio or Giotto... anyways, you can go in and spend 15 minutes in the chapel... then I spent another
30 minutes or so sitting in front of the chapel, just looking at all of it... its really something to see, and I hate that trying to
take pictures is so hard. These are just two very small part near the front... Adam and Eve before and after expulsion from Paradise...
I find it incredible that these artists could reuse the same subject matter for so very many years... and they're still going...
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Just before I left town I walked by the baptistery and by that time I was so completely exhausted, I just wanted to get home. I was glad I
brought such a small bag and that I had an early train (sort of). I didn't even see the Museo della Duomo... I'm still pretty burnt out... I
could just sleep and sleep and sleep... Anyways, there was no line at all to get into the
baptistery so I went in - I had forgotten about the
ceiling in there... it was another highlight... funny how everything was a highlight... So this is the ceiling that I was pissed off at that
British lady for... 13th century mosaics - very shiny...
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