Florence: a day trip

There are rules: don’t go in August is the first one. The problem is, Paola, my walking partner-neighbor, doesn’t know Florence but she also works the school schedule so she can’t go in the spring, fall and winter like sensible people. So we went yesterday.

The idea was not to go to any museums or anything requiring reservations, but to walk the streets, go to the market, buy things unfindable in Città di Castello, point out the best this, favorite that and acquaint her with the town in general.

It was hot. It was also incredibly humid. It was like breathing water and it felt like there wasn’t enough oxygen. Jacksonville FL was worse than this any day of summer, but we are not habituated. At least we both wore sensible athletic shoes. We also wore heavy pants and that was wrong.

We started by leaving the train station and walking around Santa Maria Novella so she could see the front and place it in her mind’s map. Lovely. Then we walked over to San Lorenzo to see the outside of the Capella Medici where there are some dead Medici people and some statues made by Michelangelo. JUst 50 feet away was the Pizzeria Medici, but I remain unconvinced that it is the original one from the 1400s. It marks the beginning of the San Lorenzo market which consists of 700 booths all selling a version of about 12 things. 100 sell leather jackets. 20 sell leather covered notebooks and perhaps some papers. Another 20 sell only paper. 50 sell ceramics. 200 sell aprons printed with the genitals of Michelangelo’s David (and they are not that impressive) or the central part of Venus de Milo (who lives in Paris) or the bikini-clad figure of Valeria Marini. 350 sell purses, mostly leather but not all, and gloves. One of them also sells tiny leather and fur slippers and mitttens for babies. 352 sell scarves.

In the center of all this is the Mercato Centrale, which is open only in the morning. Inside vendors sell most of the delicacies of all Italy and some from other places too. Want that bottle of real balsamico that costs $450 in the US? Here it costs €125. Go nuts, kid. Want to choose among 55 different grappas? Horsemeat? Moomeat? Rabbit? Chicken? Partridge, quail or eel? Here you go. There’s a cheese place that sells 5 year old Parmigiano Reggiano, which is the oldest I have ever heard of. Some places sell seasonings from far away. One of the important things about this airplane hangar sized building is that the streets around it attract other shops with even harder to find foods. This is where I buy Asian ingredients and I bought about 25 pounds of them. I even bought 2.2 pounds of fresh bean sprouts.

After the market Paola wanted to walk along the Lungarno, the street that goes along the river. We streaked down and over the Ponte Vecchio, agleam with gold, diamonds and fake gems, and along the river to the right. We sought my best paper shop, but it was closed for vacation, along with 25% of everything else I was looking for. We turned back and went up the other bank to find Piazza Signoria and the sculptures that you do not have to stand in line to see. They were all there. We walked through the Ufizzi to take a gander at the seekers after culture who must stand in long lines, even with a reserved ticket, to get into one of the best art museums in the world. I do that too, but not in August!

After seeing the sculptures in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, many of which depict people murdering other people, we decided to walk to the Duomo and thence to the shopping area where some of my fave shops are. Paola was left breathless by the Duomo. She really feels an intense pride as an Italian for this miraculous set of buildings made in Italy by Italians and stolidly centering this city of art century after century. It’s still being cleaned. The front and part of the sides are bright and gay with only the back showing the dull, blackened patination of modern days.

From the Duomo we went right a couple of blocks past Grom– arguably the best gelato in the world, to The Paperback Book Exchange which was closed for vacation. Down the street is my favorite place to eat, Terra Terra. I ate what I always order. I am happy. We then went on to Lush, just like yours but in Italian. We bought nice smelly stuff. Then we walked down the Corso, one of the pedestrian only shopping streets, just far enough to locate Perchè No, (Why Not) my favorite gelato shop. We walked along trying to see if there were a single thing I could buy to wear out to dinner later this week. Nothing, and partly because so many shops were closed.

Toward 3:00 we headed back to the station, bought tickets and took the next train home, seeking and finding a car in which the air conditioning was working. We were home before 8:00, tired but satisfied, for the moment at least.

We saw: about 50 really old dead people; 200+ statues; 23 Renaissance palaces; 2,012,743 tourists, half from Japan; SegWays for rent but no one renting them; 3 electric car thingies for rent but only one rented; 123 cute dresses all in size 2; 2 women who were size 2; 564,000 women who are size 12 or larger; 12 men wearing wifebeaters that I can assure you no woman would marry unless her father sold her to them; a very well-dressed man about 70 years old wearing hunting boots– horsey ones– and standing in the street yelling about something that women do but I couldn’t make it out– there was only one of these; 3 girls wearing extremely high heeled shoes they had bought, could hardly walk in and would take off as soon as they could find the damned hotel, and a small city steaming in the sun along a river filled with green water. Ciao, Florence! See you in October…