Come Hither, Beckons Florence

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Heed the warning. Florence is detrimental to your purse strings. Even the most resolved heart will melt and purchase something, anything! Be it the 2 Euros gelato (Unlike Rome where gelato prices start from 1. 30 Euros), memento bags or miserly magnets. My friends and I affectionately term the city a, ‘tourist trap’ (also because of hidden costs in touring places, more of that later)

Then again, if you leave without shopping at Florence, you may regret it. Partake in the festival market spirit, which is as pervasive as the stalls that are in it. Most stalls are repeated, of course, very much like the Pasar Malam (Night Market) in Singapore. Do take a brisk walk around the stalls once before you begin buying as some stalls do engage in competitive pricing for similar products.

There are many typical touristy products like fridge magnets, notebooks and masks. The twinkling earrings, leather jackets, shawls and jeweled masks scream out for purchase.

So, my resolved heart was shaken too. While I had kept a tight finger over my purse in Rome and Arezzo, I just couldn’t do so in Florence. Then again, I was probably the lowest spender among my friends, buying only a mask souvenir for myself, how selfish, at 6.50 Euros, which translates into 13 Singapore dollars.

I love Florence because it is aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. It is colorful and engaging. Besides the incredibly beautiful Piazza del Duomo, which I giddily spotted from afar, the place is filled with museums, larger than life statues and picturesque spots. There are more than enough “free” and paid artifices to satiate your senses.

If Rome is for art and architecture, then Florence is for paintings and statues. The Renaissance flourished in Florence. Renaissance, meaning the ‘rebirth’ of art and science, saw art being freed of its purely devotional purposes and being allowed to flourish for the sake of classical ideas. This led to perspective, nudity and design being the main focuses of the three artists responsible for Florentine’s renaissance in the 14th century.

It is recommended in guidebooks that the best of Florence’s Renaissance is experienced inside its museums and churches, plenty of which require an admission charge, so be prepared to loosen those purse strings!

My friends and I did not spend time in the museums, though we did go into one church. The piazza, streets, food stores and art displays were the main places at which we appreciated and absorbed the art and culture of Florence. We started at Firenze station, and walked past the street market leading to the Battistero (Baptistery), and then covered the Galleria dell’ Accademia, Piazza della Signoria, Ponte Alle, Ponte Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti.

Battistero (Baptistery)

The Baptistery belongs in the 11th century. The creation of its bronze doors is considered to have marked the beginning of the Florentine Renaissance. There is a charge for going in. Inside, there are a 13th century mosaic ceiling and the tombs of Donatello and Michelozzo. It’s a great venue to take a postcard-like picture. Its frontal architecture reminded me of a church in Arezzo. From the venue of the Baptistery, I saw this really tall, whitish, pinkish building. It was so pretty and sparkling from afar and I could not wait to get there. I soon realized that that was the Duomo and was less than prepared for its breathtaking beautiful façade and structure.

Piazza del Duomo

The Duomo is located here. The inside of the Duomo dates back to the 15th century while the external pink, green and white marble façade is a 19th century addition. The interior is in sharp contrast to the exterior because its quite dark and solemn. You can see some restored frescoes in there and light a tea-light for world peace if you want. For 6 or 8 Euros, you can climb 230 or more steps to get a bird’s eye view of Florence. There is a museum below, where for 3 euros you can see the….

The exterior, on the other hand shines like the Taj Mahal, in the morning and afternoon and in the evening, basks in the heavenly pink glow of the sunset. The dome was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. You could stand there, at the Piazza San Giovanni, forever and crane your neck to absorb the beauty of this marble monument.

We did not manage to see Michelangelo’s s David in the Galleria Accademia because of an allergy to long queues. Of course, we were not too disappointed as there was a fake David waiting for us at Piazza della Signoria.

Piazza della Signoria

Piazza della Signoria, one of the city’s central Piazza (large space to walk and satnd around in), is where you can see buildings like the Palazzo Vecchio, the Loggia della Signoria, Piazza del Duomo and Baptistery.

The Palazzo Vecchio is a beautiful beige palace, constructed in the 13th century. Many of the statues outside the Palazzo Vecchio are copies of the real thing, like that of Michelangelo’s David. It is a place made for snapshots, with towering statues and fountains spread around it.

The external façade of churches in Florence are worth gazing at for some time. Guidebooks state that churches here are monuments to particular artists, such as San Lorenzo for Michelangelo. Surely they must have been, as we saw churches with different architectural designs.

We hung around some churches and the walkways taking snapshots in front of horse-carriages and uniformed men and women. The sound of horses trotting along, are a more frequent sight here than in Rome and it suits the festive and fanciful atmosphere of Florence.

Ponte Vecchio
Soon, we headed to the Ponte Vecchio. We picked up the pace and headed off to the bridge opposite Ponte Vecchio which is Ponte All, to take photos first.

Ponte Vecchio is a bridge, built in 1345, that bears overhanging shops with yellow and orange facades. The bridge had a private corridor containing artist’s self-portraits between the Medici offices in the Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti.

The bridges stand above the Arno river. The river was magical, arriving from and disappearing into a place the eye could not behold.

The Ponte Vechhio bridge presented a sight of shops I had been accustomed to only in Little India in Singapore. Jewellery shops! Two rows on adjacent sides of the narrow street! There were gleaming displays of gold, silver, diamond, green, blue and red jewellery. My mom would have loved this place without a doubt. Undoubtedly, another tourist trap!

After the river area, we walked to Palazzo Pitti. Pitti Palace is a curved shaped brown building, with some amazing free space outside of the museum.Ah, rest for tired legs. This palace houses six separate museums. The galleria Palatina is said to be the most important of these six museums as it houses works by 11 Titians and 14 Raphaels.

You probably would be wishing for six different heads to absorb all that imagery in one day. Not that I managed to see even one of the interiors of the museums. The palace was not free and we saw as much as we could for free, from the outside, which was very little. We sat outside on the ground for a while to take some pictures. A very picnic-like ambience, I must add.

Soon we retraced our steps back to Palazzo Vecchio in search of friends who had embarked on another route around Florence. While heading towards the Palazzo Vecchio to take a photo of myself, I ran into a bicycle. I shocked the man riding the bicycle because I had literally walked into his path and over his bicycle. I had no idea what he said to me because I was more engrossed with taking the picture. Now, that I think about it, it was very classical goon act of mine.

We learnt that our friends were on their way back to Arezzo. I had no heart to leave Florence. It was not even dark yet. Half the day had been spent in friends’ shopping agendas. Thus, Jeremy, Serene and I decided to spend at least another 1 or 2 hours in Florence. But tragically, I do not think we toured more of Florence, we just stayed there longer.

We had pizza, sitting on the gray steps of someplace and talked for a while. The pizza was flimsier and bigger, much like the one in Cortona.

In terms of food, we saw a wider variety of food In Florence. The tuna, cheese and aubergine sandwiches were bigger and cheaper than in Rome and Arezzo. However, the serving size for main dishes and meals like Pasta and meat is not that large in Florence.

The Gelato here, touted in guidebooks as the best in Italy, was definitely so. Although the cheapest comes at a price of 2 Euros (unlike 1 30 Euros in Rome and Arezzo), it comes in a cone and is well worth the extra cost. The best flavours I have had during my trip are tiramisu and chocolate.

There are small fountains in Florence as well but no water hydrants over-flowing with drinking water like in Rome. Florence is more like Arezzo, in that the walking spaces between roads and buildings as well as between buildings are dark and narrow.

After that, we started walking to the Firenze (Florence) train station. Since we took a path different from the one when we arrived, you could consider that as the extra touring we did.

At Florence’s station, we almost missed our train to Arezzo. Like we did on our way from Rome to Arezzo and Arezzo to Civitella. Nothing new there.

Even though we spent a short time in Florence, and no time in museums, I was happy to have gotten a slight taste of Florentine art in the 14th century. As much as it was a superficial tour, I guess it was all right to not have subjected myself to a line-up of frescoes and art that told many stories and messages, which I would not have comprehended well because of a poor understanding of the cultural influences of those centuries. Though I am sure, I would have enjoyed myself even more at Florence if I had seen the artistic works that kick-started and formed the Renaissance era.

Of course, it needn’t take an academic degree for one to appreciate art, and in that line of argument, I enjoyed myself as much as I could, soaking up Florence’s free artistic offerings.



Civitella

Civitella, or what we managed to explore of it, within 2 or 3 hours, presented an experience in solitary wandering. Well, up to a certain part at least. The question on our minds was, had we entered a ghost town? The answer would have been, No More like, the Siesta period was in full swing.

There was practically no one seen walking his or her dog or crossing the street at about 1 pm there. Even vehicles were few and far between.

What, I thought were houses, but turned out to be shops as well, were the prettiest houses I had seen so far in Italy. The houses were short, square, and either brown or brightly coloured. The highly individual customized post-boxes outside these “doll-houses” were pink and bronze with designs and patterns.

I imagined the joy of opening such a post-box to receive mail. Roses and multi-coloured flowers lined the entrance to houses. There were some houses on higher-ground, guarded by dogs.

But as these houses and shops were all closed and the streets were so quiet, I felt as though I had entered a time warp or an open-aired museum.

There was one church, with a clock that had stopped in its tracks. From there, a cemetery and a long winding highway lead us to some desolate, decrepitated houses.

Some were just too dark, and thus fear-inducing to venture in, but my friends tried to, anyway. We took some pictures at more gut-palatable houses. For all my intuitive powers, I could not sense the presence of wandering souls.

It was hilarious, first walking through miles to a dead-end at the highway, then being scraped by some plants that stuck to our socks and skin on our way to and from the ‘haunted houses”. We felt that, we were on the wrong side of Civitella, and believed that the real Civitella was many miles ahead of us.

Once we came back from the haunted area to the church with the dead clock, we were glad to see the town come back slowly to life.

We returned to the church and kept pushing its doors, walking around it, figuring out how to go inside. Amused at our efforts, an old lady who sat at the benches knitting, called out to us and spoke in Italian to us. There was me, Serene, Jeremy and Melly. What did she say to us? Only heaven knows. The beginning sounded like she was telling us how to get into church, pointing to a different direction. My friends stood there for almost five minutes listening to the lady, not understanding a word she said. I xenophobic-ally stood afar, watching them being sweet to this sweet lady.

Then, a man who had been the lady's companion, before he went into another building beside the church, came out of the building. He also spoke to us in Italian but he spoke more slowly. Jeremy and Serene understood that he had actually traveled to Singapore with someone famous, in some year (with a 9 in it).

He was such a pleasant man and took us to the back of the church, where lo behold, we saw more signs of living beings. Now, we knew where the town people were hiding. There were about 10-15 people sitting silently in the church, many of them ladies. It was a petite church, very pretty, warm and inviting.

Mass was about to start and the man turned out to be the Minister. He invited us to sit down. But we had a train to catch in less than half-an hour. We stood outside for a while as mass started and Serene compared her knowledge of mass prayers with what the father said in Latin. Then, we left to catch the train.

Civitella was not a bore. I was glad we had stumbled upon it because it showed us what small-town living could be like.

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