FLORENCE, ITALY - July 2003
It starts with a borrowed car and a three-hour drive west to Goettingen, Germany. Late dinner and overnight with friends, then an early start to Frankfurt-Hahn... another three hours southwest. A cheap flight to Bologna-Forli, short train to Bologna, snacks and water, an hour's train to Florence.
What follows is a week of site-seeing, city-walking, ice-cream eating, cold showers, breakfast and coffee on the terrace, cooked dinners on the terrace, art museums and churchs, reading, and wandering. Lots of heat, lots of mosquitoes, and a hell of a lot of tourists.
The Uffizi, the stairs and courtyard of the Uffizi where I would sit and read in the shade, hiding from the hot sun, watching the vendors and cartoonists work the crowds. Santa Maria Novella, frescos and hanging masterpieces. Lots of sculpture which I still don't appreciate as much as I should. Lots of discussion about renaissance and classical art.
Walking over and back and forth across Ponte Vecchio, up the steep hill to the villa, perched on a hill next to Fort Belvedere, ten minutes walk from the downtown.
A day's ride to Pisa, an old mercedes driving through the colors and texture of the country, stopping in Volterra, seeing the Etruscan ruins and castle on the hilltop there. So damn old, makes your head spin. Pisa: A Leaning Tower and ten thousand white plastic souvenirs thereof. Heat and more heat. Lots of driving, walking, thinking, writing, grinning.
So much I've heard or seen or thought about Italy. The colors were the same as I imagined them to be. The smells and tastes also. Except the ice cream was even better. The people and the traffic actually less chaotic and wild than I'd believed. Almost all of the scooters and mopeds were recent-- very few classics and antiques-- which was quite disappointing. I saw relatively little of Italy, but also was there only briefly-- I'd certainly like to return sometime and see much more. Perhaps in a better season. Actually, uncomfortable weather bothers me less than being somewhere, at a time, with too many other visitors. My favorite times in Italy were probably simple moments in simple places. The villa, the terrace, sitting on a curb on a little alley street.
A vacation to me is mostly the little things. Bashfully ordering a pizza with a phrase book. Seeing a small dog with two lame hind legs and a wheelcart to get around. An old man smiling on the street's edge. Bakeries. Bells ringing. An old Vespa rattling by. Late at night, slicing so-fresh cheese and slipping slivers into my mouth between sips of cold white wine while the cicadas scream somewhere off in the olive groves and vineyards.
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JPM, Ponte Vecchio. Florence.
Villa terrace. From the garden.
Window Shot. Downtown somewhere in Florence.
Little bus, statue, alley.
Motorini, Alley.
Buying and selling.
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