Buona Pasqua

Clara, Matthew and I were expecting Florence at Easter to be overrun by tourists. It was. (We were tourists ourselves, after all.) But I think it rivals Heidelberg for being my favorite city in Europe so far, despite the throngs of people. I have read so many stories set in Florence--The Decameron, The Birth of Venus, and A Room with a View spring easily to mind, and I am certain there have been others--that it was so exciting to actually be there. I imagined so many artists and historical figures wandering the same streets I did; I could picture interesting stories happening on every street corner. I suspect the bridges over the Arno have been the setting for all sorts of nefarious activities over the years...

My highlights of the four days in Firenze (Europe considers the Monday after Easter to be part of the holiday, so we had that day off school and work!):

• Our tent hostel. It wasn't actually a hostel but a campground, with the slightly nonsensical name of Camping Plus Michelangelo. Located in the hills to the south of the Arno (which we fondly called Arnie for short), it was about a fifteen minute walk away from the Uffizi gallery  We rented a big framework tent for three people, with a ceiling perhaps 8 or 9 feet high, where we slept cozily in bunk beds with sheets and four blankets each. Three blankets were just a bit cold, we found out the first night. There was a floor and it was waterproof and, as I texted Matthew since he arrived a day later, it was literally fantastic.
• The nighttime hike to find our hostel on Thursday evening. Florence's bus system is one of those stop-on-demand ones, which is quite nerve-wracking when you have never been to a city, it is dark outside, and you have no map. Coming from the train station, we got off at the wrong stop and had to walk almost forty minutes, helped by directions from several locals who encouragingly told us, "It's only five minutes away." (In my defense, the "GA" of the bus stop named "Galileo" looked very like the "CA" of "Camping", the stop where we were supposed to alight, especially in the dark and in a frantic moment. Clara took my mistake very good-naturedly, thank goodness.) The walk was actually quite nice--warm weather, flowers, trees, and a beautiful, beautiful view of Florence at night.
• Gelato. We felt essentially naked without a cone in our hands at all times. I tried all sorts of exciting flavors--rose being the most exotic. Good thing I was only there for four days and also wanted to east pasta sometimes.
• A wildlife sighting! Clara and I were waiting for Matthew's train to come in on Friday evening, so we walked to the bridge closest to the train station and watched the sunset over the Arno. A bat--PID-ed by yours truly--was flitting about over the water. We tried to call to it in bat-language, so unfortunately Clara took a video of me squeaking at the highest pitch I could before I realized what she was doing. I am disclosing this now so that it can't be used against me in later years as blackmail.
• The Uffizi Gallery. We did have to wait in a line for an hour and a half to get in, because we showed up at 8:30 and it opens at 8:15, but it was entirely worth it. I loved that gallery. I think we were there until 2 or 3 in the afternoon; we had to pause midway to eat lunch at the rooftop cafe. Those paintings were ones I have heard of and seen pictures of all my life, and it was incredible to see how they looked in reality. They are not the same as the photographs, certainly. I am not sure why photographs cannot do them justice, considering that they are completely still paintings and you can do nothing but look at them, but they are so much more amazing in real life. I liked Botticelli's The Birth of Venus best, I think. This may be a common reaction, but I think that is for a reason. At first, it seemed much simpler than the painting I had in my head, but the longer I stood in front of it and looked, the more and more beautiful it became. Her hair glows. You never see that in the photographs.
• The Accademia and Palatine Galleries were very impressive as well, especially David--you never see anything but the frontal view in photos, but I actually thought the best and most distinctive part of the statue was the expression on his face. I liked the Uffizi best, though; it had the most variety. I can only see so many Madonna and Childs, Assumptions, Annunciations, and Crucifixions before most seem indistinguishable. The Uffizi had more paintings from after the Reformation, when people had to start painting other things...
• The Easter celebrations. The procession behind a cross we stumbled upon the night of Good Friday--the monk lighting candles outside the cathedral up on the hill where we watched the sunset Saturday night--but above all, the Explosion of the Cart. It is a ceremony that has been performed virtually unchanged in front of Florence's duomo for over 900 years, and we were right in the front of the crowd. (We had learned our lesson from the Uffizi the day before, so we showed up at 7:15 in a feat of excellent tourism. No one even started lining up until a quarter to 9. I was perfectly happy to be that ridiculously early; it really paid off with the view.) There was a half-hour parade of drummers, trumpeters, finely-dressed ladies, flag-wavers, and soldiers, all wearing medieval Florentine finery. They were having so much fun with it--the men in the plumed hats looked like a gaggle of primary-colored peacocks, with the feathers bobbing every time they moved. I saw one man who purposely kept shaking his head back and forth, whipping his friend behind him in the face with feathers. The peasant ladies with their carts of flowers were also very popular; they had baskets of hard-boiled eggs which everyone snacked on and heaps of flowers which they tossed to the crowd. I caught a branch of apple blossoms--very fitting. The flower-bedecked white oxen pulled the cart in near the end, and then a half-hour of fireworks preparations ensued. Meanwhile, the bishop blessed the crowd with holy water. At 11 am, a holy fire lit the cart, and we got 10 to 15 minutes straight of explosions and smoke. A very exciting way to spend Easter!
• My attempts to masquerade as a Catholic. Since we arrived at the duomo so early on Sunday morning, we thought we would try to go inside the cathedral to see what it looked like. It was closed to tourists at that point, however. Luckily, Clara, being a knowledgeable Roman Catholic, got Matthew and I inside. The secret password was to say we had come for adoration. They let us in! We sat in front of the alter under that famous dome, drinking in the sight and smell of the thousands of white flowers arrayed about the nave in honor of Easter. It was almost completely ours alone, except for a few other adorers, and much more pleasant than when we came back in the afternoon to try to take photos. (At that point, it was filled with tourists and so noisy.) We also went to Mass that night in Santa Croce. I did my best to learn Italian from the bulletin they handed out. That cathedral is where Machiavelli, Dante, Michelangelo, and Galileo are buried; I was able to see Machiavelli's tomb but not the others because the priests were closing up the church for the night after the Mass. I am now even more determined to read The Prince.

I will not be back to Italy until this summer--let us hope I retain all the Italian I have learned until then!

Photos of the trip here.

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I meant to go to Lyon today, but France's railroad strike is ongoing. I arrived at the station this morning to see the word "supprimé" by my 8:58 train. Hopefully I will manage this before my Eurail expires; Lyon is reputedly the gastronomic center of France and I must go. I did go to Vevey, just up the lake from Geneva, on Tuesday, because Paige told me to take the day off work. I went to see the Alimentarium, a museum dedicated entirely to food, in Marissa Lucas' honor. Thank goodness I walked through a street market right before the museum and bought a pastry called salée du fromage chaud, or I would have started eating the exhibits.

And tomorrow, I leave for Berlin for our week-long field trip through Germany and Belgium!