Florence Day 2

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Ok, am now fed and watered and have had a solid ten hours sleep...

The train ride down to Florence was amazing. I grabbed a magazine and forced myself to read, and was amazed at how much I understood. I looked up and had a nice surprise: hills! It is so nice to be in hilly country after all the flatness. I've learned that flatness has its own beauty, but I will always be a mountain girl to the core. These hills seemed rugged, but on closer inspection I realized it was because they are all terraced. It was sobering to look out and see evidence of thousands of years of humans shaping the land.

Florence itself is my favorite city in Italy so far. It has a kind of beauty that distracts you from the tourists, rather than the other way around, and it's not as choked with people as Rome or Milano. Nick and I wandered around in the drizzle to get our bearings, were sufficiently awed by Brunelleschi's Duomo and eventually got some really bad pizza. I've noticed that the touristy places try to make it American style, with rather tragic results.

This morning I woke up to rain. We checked the weather for Napoli: rain. We checked the weather for Greece: rain. We whined a bit, and then ventured out. I was expecting the streets to be much busier, but they were still ok, one good thing about the weather. We decided to postpone the Uffizi due to the mile long line, and went into the Palazzo Vecchio instead. After wandering through the amazing rooms and doing enough damage to my neck to keep a chiropractor busy for a year, I stumbled across treasure: A room completely chock full of maps. Asia, Africa, all the different parts of Europe, China, and "Nuova Spagna." Yellowed parchment and gold meridians and fantastic monsters. And in the center of them all was a massive wooden globe, with a few gilt markings tracing across the weathered surface. It struck me that these were even more of a luxury than paintings: they are works of art, and evidence of expensive expeditions and difficult surveying. Its so much easier now with our GPS and laser lines and sattelite photographs.

After more wandering, and a rather satisfying puchase of a knockoff travel tote, we came back and will now spend a few hours encouraging warmth back into our toes. Tomorrow: rain. But we will be biking, so I'll be glad enough for something to cool me off.

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Comments

[anonymous]

City of the Heart
Florence is amazing. I've never felt like I've seen it enough, and I've been there three times. I'm glad that you're having a great time. Enjoy!! Jane - Jane