Firenze

On my last morning in Florence I walked to the Market Centrale to buy a lampredotto, which is apparently the true, albeit maybe underground, Florentine food. Pictured:

Inside of a roll is meat from the fourth stomach of a cow, chopped up, with some green sauce resembling a slightly spicy chimichuri, and one half of the roll is curiously dipped in some other mild sauce. That’s it. It really is quite delicious.

The amiable guy making them asked where I am from, what I was doing in Florence, how I was finding it, and I told him that I had really enjoyed the city because it reminds me a bit of New York. He said that he had lived in New York and had no idea what I meant. I told him in one of my typical ways that I felt like I was floating there, like I was able to be anonymous but also a solid person, not an exposed ghost-person.

He seemed to like my shpiel because he gave me a free sweet item (which actually had the same components of a pastel de nata — pastry and cream.)

Indeed, my time in Florence was both reassuring and energizing, suave but extremely intricate. I suppose this could be interpreted in accordance to the stereotype, but it did not feel like that. It just felt natural, like my internal and external regions were aligning at last.

I went out to wander after finding my hostel, and for the first time being solitary in an unfamiliar public during this trip, I felt absolutely no sense of paranoia or hyperawareness. It was great.

Within a few minutes, I came upon a block with stall after stall of a rotation of leather belts, bags, and jackets.

Sheets and sheets of these facades all down the street.

The line-up was one of the more tacky ones. There was an open air market that I came upon later with some beautiful stuff (where I found a deep purple tote bag) but I did not photograph because I didn’t want to provoke a big reaction. (Of course, the slightest motion that indicates interest brings at least two vendors flocking.)

Interesting angles of the Duomo (Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore) across several days:

David, at dusk. Obviously not the iconic one in the Galerie Accademia — this one is in a piazza with a bunch of other statues, and I grew to like him a lot partly because he became a landmark.
Apparently the head and hands are intentionally out of proportion to express… something positive.

Diagonal in the piazza from David is this sculpture of Perseus and Medusa. It is believed that David and the head of Medusa are placed so that David is facing the head, as if literally turned to stone.

About an hour into my walk I entered a building with mediocre frescos. I was looking up at the ceiling when I vaguely heard the melody of “Love of My Life,” a song by Queen which is not supreme but to my mind is absolutely outstanding because, and I cannot exaggerate the extent, it was my constant of comfort for a few months several years ago. (I mean I listened to it around 12 times every day for weeks on end. Why that song, I don’t have any idea.)

It was being played on a piano. I followed it into the next room and indeed there was a guy sitting at a piano, playing Love of My Life. Quite a number of people were standing around ungainly as if impersonally listening to a street performer. I planted myself so that I had an intimate vantage, feeling like a new level of a tourist, and waited until he finished. I could tell he was in that awkward state of considering what to play next, but I approached him and told him that the song had saved me a few years ago.

Moritz From Berlin had been traveling around Italy with some friends for a few weeks and had just broken off, had also just arrived in Florence that day, and was leaving the next night. He is very interested in dreams and film and doesn’t know what he wants to do in the near future. He doesn’t feel as connected to Berlin as he once did. He had spent a substantial amount of last summer building a boat for a collective of artists, and upon his arrival home he would be continuing involvement with this boat, driving alongside the boat with a cook in shotgun — the cook would be cooking for the collective. (I was so enthralled and excited about this whole situation that I don’t remember the logistical details, thus the incoherence of this account.) We then determined that each of us had been walking with no direction, and so we decided to resume side by side.

Talked and walked and walked and talked and walked and talked and talked and talked and walked and

ate at last. Here is pasta with wild boar ragu, which is a Florentine specialty. I’m not sure where all the wild boars come from though.

walked talked walked talked and finally ended up right outside the building in which we had met. And then, one of the most bizarre things of my life occurred — truly. At first I thought I was having an auditory hallucination, which in any state is not rare; I heard the melody of Love of My Life once again, but Moritz was standing right next to me. I asked him if he heard it, he listened, and then confirmed. I ran toward the sound, he not quite on my heels, and there was a man playing a guitar, indeed playing Love of My Life. To spell out the significance any further would be minimizing.

I can’t really explain how I felt or what I think is the significance. The situation was simply fantastical to me.

We sat on some steps and listened to the guitar player’s American-appealing set for about as long as it took me to believe and accept what had happened, and then we resumed walking and talking briefly until we agreed that our feet were just too tired and we parted ways to our respective hostels until the next morning.

As I was waiting for Moritz the next morning on some steps, an elderly Italian man began talking to me and (after telling me upon our standing up that I am too tall and should not be wearing “heels” — I excused him because he was Italian and old) showed me this inconspicuous carving in a wall (again, the Love of My Life Building), which was done by Michelangelo.

He told me that there are two rumors: 1. It was meant to be a self portrait; 2. An impoverished man was asking Michelangelo for money and instead he carved the man’s image into this wall.

For the first time Moritz and I set a destination for ourselves — the Piazzale Michelangelo, which the old man recommended despite its being supremely touristy.

Some bridge characters, spotted en route:

One of the more interesting gelato flavors: plum. The point at which I remembered to photograph my portions really varied. Just caught myself here.

(For anyone currently trying to fill in their “Florence” google doc. — Sbrino is the most supreme gelato place in the city that I found.)

Moritz’s bag, which I thought was just awesome. Puts mine to shame. Visible items: a hammock, a ukulele, a metal drinking cup, a fake pistol. (Which he did utilize for its realistic noise against some massive hedgehogs he had come upon several nights before.)

What a serendipitous 33 hour companionship we had, maintained by nothing but walking and talking; exactly the kind I had been envisioning and hoping for. Not much has lived up to various precise expectations I envisioned for the trip, and much good has overflowed out of spontaneity; but this bond fulfilled the possibilities of both types of experience.

The next day I ventured, lone again, to the Palazzo Pitti Museum, intentionally undernourished because I find that such a state, at times, can make certain experiences more vivid.

The Palace is most well known for housing the Medici family (massively wealthy Italian family dynasty) starting in the mid 15th century for a few centuries following, and was subsequently inhabited by the courts of two other Italian dynasties until the 20th century. The amount of art in there is just immense and I felt for the whole time like I was floating in something like clouds until I got too delirious.

Domed ceiling of one of the palace’s greeting rooms.

This struck me just because it is curiously de Chirico -esque… even has a whiff of Dali.

Astonishingly two-dimensional wall extending to the ceiling; a greeting room.

After immense oversaturation I found the big gardens which are connected behind the palace, and by this time the delirium had turned into stubby walking poles so I was relatively mobile again.

Phase II delirium; found a restaurant which I had spotted and noted on my first afternoon of wandering.

Some pesto pasta cheese tomato creation.

I arrived right before the 15:00-19:00 break time (for most restaurants and many businesses), so I was still there when the kitchen had closed before dinner. Like the majority of Italian restaurants, it is family owned, and here they are having their meal together.

Over stimulation of inspiration is exhausting.

A ridiculously glamorous resting photo in my hostel bed. Authenticity not always warranted.

Late lunch had merely filled my food deficit, so I was more than hungry enough for a special solo dinner. Finally getting used to sitting alone amidst lots of honeymooning couples.

Unfortunate photo of a very fortunately chosen dish. Mushroom beef pasta something.

This was a little gift from the owner, who perhaps was acknowledging that I was alone? It was unclear. But it was very nice and tasted a bit like amaro.

Special lunch next day. Jam-packed-treating-myself.

Nicoise — I’ve principally hated them, so I was a bit perplexed when this arrived. (The menu was in Italian so ultimately I was blindly choosing.) But how great it was. Spontaneity at its finest.

Yet another sublime pasta concoction: ravioli type thing filled with pear (!yes) in cream asparagus sauce. Big success story.

Uffizi Gallery: the most famous museum in Florence, though I was not enthralled. I can see only so many (very traditional) expressions of Lamb of God and Birthgiver.

Ceres/Demeter, who they assume is mourning her daughter Persephone who is taken by Hades to the underworld for a portion of each year. I’ve just never seen a marble statue with color like this so I was taken by ir.

Almost more engaging than Birth of Venus were the faces of various children and spouses who were coerced into posing in front of it for photographs, obscuring the viewing experience for the massive crowd. But still, even with the silly crowd, it is clear why the painting is so renowned even aside from its being the first non-religious nude and why ever else it is so significant. It truly did glow like no other painting I’ve seen — it must be something about how it glows out of its age that incites something even more.

Visually, Spring struck me more, but that could just have been out of rebellion against the mainstream. Here is some commentary from my audioguide (which I don’t think I’ve ever invested in before the Uffizi.):
It reads from right to left: Zephyrus, who is the god of the spring wind, descends from heaven to this forest of trees to be with his beloved nymph Chloris, and makes her his wife by touching her. Thus he sets a transformation in motion. The girl to the left of Chloris represents herself after her transformation into spring. In the center of the painting is a myrtle bush, with Venus placed in front and separated from the motion. Cupid above her shoots darts in the direction of the three graces, who symbolize chastity, beauty, and love. On the far left, Mercury chases clouds (very top left) away from the garden.

Miscellaneous..

(In retrospect, an aptly enigmatic foreshadow for Siena.)

Siena

Cinque Terre