Florence – The Best Day Ever! (Part One)

 I love the Italian name for Florence –Firenze. It always makes me think of a phoenix for some reason, maybe that the word ‘fire’ begins it, since there is nothing phoenix-like about the city; it isn’t rising from its own ashes, it always seems to have been glorious. Perhaps it is just the beauty and magnificence the image of a phoenix conjures up for me, which are perfect adjectives to describe Florence, it has so much energy and life. It is a place I could never tire of visiting.

We woke up on Wednesday morning, with our first full day in Florence ahead of us. Barb and I stopped at Caffe Degl’Innocente for our first breakfast, (where we had tasted gelato the evening before) and sauntered off (in the right direction this time) to capture the morning sun on the Duomo.

On the way we stumbled upon the sprawling creature that is the Street Market, just opening for the day on the glittering rain-washed streets (maybe it hadn't rained, but the streets had been cleaned anyway), with people hauling their goods to their stall, setting up, or already ready for business!

We oohed at the beautiful scarves and pashminas, and aahed at the amazing stationery stall selling Florentine papers and journals (LOVE LOVE LOVE); snickered at the hideous array of gaudy sunglasses and tourist trinkets,

delighted at the carnival masks (wait, this isn’t Venice, but they were gorgeous), and laughed outright at the pair of Italian guys who were sure we were taking a picture of THEM, whereupon of course Barb did. If I did, the photo didn't turn out. The market in Florence is renowned for its leather goods, and there are belts, bags, coats, and sandals galore. (Was SO hard for me to resist those sandals, if there is one type of footwear I love, it is sandals, since I usually just like to go barefoot).


We spent a good hour taking more photographs of the Duomo, stunned anew at the majestic dimensions of it. Wikipedia article has a lot more on the Duomo. Construction on the cathedral began in 1294, and all but the dome was completed by 1418!!! The dome took from 1420 to 1436, constructed by Fillippo Brunelleschi.
The Duomo replaced a crumbling 5th century church, Saint Reparata, whose statue just happens to be the in the bottom photograph. All of the details in the carved scrollwork are different, with a variety of fruit, nuts, animals, etc. Incredible.

statue of Saint Reparata

We noticed a large line forming to get in, and decided to check it out later, or come back earlier the next day (most churches in Italy are free to get into, although we did see a few where admission was charged. The biggest rip-off we had was in Rome, at the church where the Bocca della Veritas is, when we each paid two euro to see the altar to Hercules in the crypt, which had looked impressive in the poster outside, but in reality was a dank little room, where the pillars were MINIATURE, rather than you know, Romanly grand, and it was musty smelling. I guess two euros wasn’t much of a rip-off, but hey that practically paid for an entire breakfast of cappuccino and pastry in Florence.

Walking down along the side of the duomo we saw another entrance, charging 8 euro to go up into the dome, 463 steps, and promising beautiful views of Florence. Yes, up we went. I’d rather pay to get in right away then wait an hour in line. We didn’t get to walk on the ground level of the Duomo but still got to see the beautiful interior along the way up.

We reached the first balcony, where you first begin to appreciate the artistic skills of fresco painters. For the image to appear shaded from below, the scale of this work was enormous. Giant bold lines, and blocks of colour look shocking closer up, and we were only on the first balcony. The ceiling fresco (according to Wikipedia) covers 38,750 square feet of painted surface. The work began in 1568 by Giorgio Vasari, who worked on it until his death in 1574, and also by Frederico Zuccari, who completed it in 1579.

The theme of the painting is The Last Judgment, and you get the feeling  that you’d better be a good Catholic so you get to go to Heaven, where you get to  gaze at yourself forevermore in the mirror, or sit beside God or angels,

or the endlessly vile torments you will suffer in hell will be of unimaginable pain and anguish. Well, not so unimaginable. There were clearly giant hot flaming torches being rammed into people’s backsides and other areas (seriously, not very subtle AT ALL),

not to mention heads being snapped off, and three-headed or snake-headed monsters biting at you, and much more. It was very gruesome to behold, yet astounding in its execution.

....we were heading onwards and upwards...toward the light...

After the first balcony, the stairway led you up to the cupola. I was assuming this meant the second balcony up, which is much closer to the cupola, even though I have actually gone up there before, but no it really is the cupola, and you are walking inside the dome, with the walls curving in on you.

views on the way up the Duomo...

You cannot be afraid of heights or be claustrophobic here. Barb was actually undergoing a kind of panic, and I didn’t realize how acute it was until we got to the ladder leading up to the cupola, where you could see the actual sky, and she was feeling pretty ill. I was pretty sure I would be unable to convince her to come out with me at that point, she was terrified, and so I went up alone, having made that climb. It is kind of amazing that there really is only about a waist-high fence all the way around. In Canada there’d probably be a glassed-in wall or something.

Doesn't this make you want to sound your barbaric
yawp over the rooftops of the world?

However, the views were astounding, and I tried to quickly make my way around to take photos so I could get back to Barb, but by the time I made it back to the ladder she had come up and was standing against the centre wall. I was SO HAPPY she came up, and ultimately, so was she. She conquered a major fear that day, and the reward was great. By the way, the opening of the Dome is 300 feet above the pavement, with the very tip of the ball on what is called "the lantern" we are standing beside is another 75 feet higher.

Giotto's campanile is 278 feet high.

You can barely make out the people who climbed
up...just above the white brickwork...

We spent at least half an hour up there, and by the time we were ready to go back down it was jammed with people. Barb heard a girl say “that was not worth 8 euro, I want a refund”, or something along those lines, and really? It made me want to push her down the rest of the stairs. What kind of sad universe do you live in if you cannot appreciate the amazing views and the accomplishment of not only climbing all those stairs, but standing atop a very high building? It was a breathtaking, unforgettable moment.

We stopped on the second balcony on the way back down for quite a while taking photos of the even closer-up artwork. It was truly amazing. Once outside again, we took more photos and noticed a crowd building as a mini-parade went by. It was kind of weird, with just regular people seeming to wander into the parade, but totally impromptu and neat.

Having worked up an appetite, we wandered off in search of lunch, and stopped at Trattoria San Lorenzo. I tried to go in the front door, but it was locked, which confused me since there were people in there, so we went around the side, where I realized that you had to PULL the door, not push, and what turned out to be our waiter was laughing at me. It was embarrassing but funny, and we were led to a table upstairs.

Barb had noticed this Trattoria the day before, because there was a giant hand-written sign on brown paper stuck to the door advertising burrata. Really? Were we going to get that lucky again??? Yes, we were. We shared the burrata, which in this restaurant was served with a leafy salad and delicious prosciutto, probably the first time I have ever really liked prosciutto!! It didn’t seem quite as good as the burrata we’d had in Rome, but it came a pretty close second, and we had no problem finishing it.

For the main course, Barb enjoyed the asparagus risotto, while I tried the Spaghetti San Lorenzo, which was made with assorted sweet and hot peppers, and was simple and delicious. Spicy food makes me happy every time! We also had sparkling water with every meal while we were there, and loved it.

 We had cappuccino here in lieu of dessert, and wandered off to look for gelato, knowing with the plethora of gelateria in Florence we would stumble upon one in less than a block. I think mine was mango/peach and coconut. Aaahhhh. So good.

 

I had the chance to post a Facebook status before we left that morning: “As Eleanor Lavish says in A Room With A View: “Today we will simply drift”. So that is what we did. We wandered through more of the marketplace, and ended up at the Mercato Nuovo, where il Porcellino  is. If you rub its snout it brings good luck. I'd say it sure didn't hurt. I really was going to try and finish this whole day in one blog, but there is just so much more to go, so I will stop for now and have part 2 tomorrow!!!