confusionMy passion, often combined with my hobby.
Dead smack in the middle of the eternal city is holy mother church. This is a place one must visit when in Italy. remember: ‘nothing new will be learned of the ancient [western] world, until the archives of the Vatican are plundered.’ Actually that’s not quite how the quote went [everything2.com] and there seems to be some debate on the subject.
You can see the whole Vatican City State, November 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].
The hilltop city of Siena [wikipedia.org] is a few hours by train from Florence. I suspect the bus trip would have been better but we had more days than we could use on our rail pass so we took the train. From the train station we walked the 2 kilometers or so to the top of the hill and into the center of the medieval and renaissance town.
The center of Siena, Il Campo [wikipedia.org] sight of the famous Palio di Siena [wikipedia.org] a twice yearly crazy horse race between representatives of the various wards of the city for bragging rights. By the time we got to Il Campo it was time for lunch so we pulled out our friendly Lonely Planet Italy guide [lonelyplanet.com] and looked for a good place to eat.
The first place we tried was only open for dinner in the off season. The second place was closed completely for the off season. The third was an empty shop. The fourth we never found. So after an hour of back and forth around the city center and it’s steep hills and steps we decided to just go back to Il Campo and eat at one of the many places there. The food was not bad but it was a bit frustrating after looking forward to the highly recommended menus of the places in the guide
An unfortunate side effect of our hour looking for food was that we could not enter one of the major sites I wanted to see in Siena; the Palazzo Pubblico [wikipedia.org] or town hall and it’s museum and the Torre del Mangia [wikipedia.org] the 102 meter high bell tower dominating the Campo. Problem was these sights close an hour before sunset in the off season, sunset was around 4:30 when we were there and it’s was just after 3:30 when we got there. The only thing we could do was go the the Siena Cathedral [wikipedia.org].
The cathedral is one of the most beautiful in Italy. The exterior is similar to the cathedrals in both Florence [confusion.cc] and Pisa [confusion.cc]. The inside is much more amazing; whereas the inside of the cathedral in Florence is, aside from the painted dome, sparse, Siena’s Duomo is beautiful. Filled with mosaic floors and fresco-ed alters.
By the time we finished touring around the cathedral it was dark outside and we did not do much more in Siena. A cup of coffee in a small cafe and one more stop at il Campo before taking a bus back to the train station and heading back to Florence for the night. I hope we can go back and visit the sights we missed some day, Siena was one of the most beautiful places we visited in Italy.
You can see the a few more photos in the Siena, Italy, November 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].
An hour and a half down the tracks from Florence near the mouth of the Arno River [wikipedia.org] sits Pisa [wikipedia.org].
Our adventure began on the train to Pisa. We rode a packed commuter train rather than the faster direct train and most of the passengers were locals. A good percentage of the standing crowd changed at each stop. There were two other tourist couples in the car with us which became apparent when the conductors came through to check tickets. Our carriage was near the middle of the train and a few minutes past the second of third stop the conductor lead about five young guys into our carriage all waring street clothing but with conductors hats and the automated ticket machine and punch.
Pisa is, of course, famous for one thing [wikipedia.org]. That one thing is on the far side of the medieval town from the modern train station, a 20 minute leisurely walk. Since only a set number of people are allowed in the Tower each day in small groups we marched directly from the train station to the ticket booth with only a short stop to purchase more storage for the digital camera.
Upon entering the Piazza dei Miracoli [wikipedia.org] I was driven to repeat the great words of The Flugie saying; “it’s slanty!” (Guess you had to be there the first time.) Not so bad as it used to be mind you since they spent a lot of money and a lot of time to pump mud out from under it in order to get it to stand back up a bit straighter.
Straighter it may be but straight it is not and while 3.97 degrees might not sound like a lot of lean it means that the top of the tower is leaning 4 meters from where it should be! Half the time you are climbing the 296 steps you lean against the outside wall and half the time you lean against the inside wall. Quite an odd sensation.
Anyway, beyond the world’s most famous engineering mistake the Piazza dei Miracoli also holds the Duomo or Cathedral and the Baptistry of St. John [wikipedia.org]. We didn’t visit the Baptistery but the Cathedral is beautiful, not the best in Italy but beautiful.
After the Tower and Cathedral we took a slow walk back to toward the train station and stopped to have lunch at a place listed in the travel guide. The review looked promising and the food was good but it was a bit pricey. After lunch and a bit of shopping it was back to the train because the sun was already going down.
I’m sure there is a lot more to Pisa than just a construction error but it two visits to Pisa I haven’t seen it.
You can view the rest of the Pisa, Italy, November 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].
High up on a hill overlooking the beautiful Tuscan [wikipedia.org] countryside, San Gimignano [wikipedia.org] is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Really San Gimignano is not much more than a village despite the fact that some seven thousand people call it home year round. With one main street within the medieval walls it’s not a big city.
However, San Gimignano was the most ‘authentic’ medieval Tuscan city we visited. Maybe it was the lack of large crowds of tourists (there were tourists, in fact quite a number compared to the locals we saw, but the city most definitely did not feel crowed.) Maybe it was sitting on the main square having coffee and people watching. Maybe it was the food… ok maybe it was not the food..
After navigating our way to the bus station early in the morning we were dropped off by the first bus at a small stain stop in the town of Poggibonsi [wikipedia.org]. After about 45 minutes the bus that would take us up into the hills to San Gimignano arrived at Poggibonsi to save us from the freezing train station. 30 minutes of climbing into the hills later we arrives just outside the gate to the medieval city. Just before 11 AM (this despite getting up at 5 AM!)
We did not really do much hardcore sightseeing in San Gimignano. More wondering around the streets punctuated by lunch and coffee. Lunch was an interesting ordeal. At about 11:50 we selected a nice looking restaurant along along the main street. When Candice stuck her head in to ask if they were open (it was not obvious to us) it took a few tries for us to understand that they opened at noon. Wait 10 minutes? No problem. Too bad that no one had told us that it was 10 minutes by Italian country time…
30 minutes later after much wondering around the few shops near the restaurant we finally had lunch. It was OK but not worth the buildup.
It did not really matter that the food was only mediocre. The city was so beautiful and peaceful that it was a pleasure just be walk around and sit in the piazza and enjoy a cup of coffee… and a cup of ‘cioccolata calda’ which means hot chocolate but is so much more. Good cioccolata calda is literally melted chocolate bars, served steaming hot! It warms you up all the way down, you can feel it sliding down your throat. So good. Can’t possibly be good for you. I drank a lot of it while in Italy.
San Gimignano was a wonderful place and I would like to see it in the summer when the rolling Tuscan hills are in full bloom. But I understand that the city is overrun with tourists all summer. I think that would destroy the magic.
You can see the rest of the San Gimignano, Italy, November 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].
Florence [wikipedia.org] was Candice and my base of operation for more then a week. A full third of our honeymoon was spent in a small converted bishops apartment just off the Piazza del Duomo. Just far enough off that if you stuck your head out of our third story windows and stretched your neck enough you could see the dome and maybe part of the bapistry [wikipedia.org]. Actually the location was brilliant, the only problem was the constant lack of water pressure in the hotel shower!
I thought that using Florence as a base of operations from which to visit some of the other must-see cities of Tuscany [wikipedia.org] easy. Unfortunately the reality is that the best way to get to places like Siena [wikipedia.org] and San Gimignano is to take a variety of buses—but the trips there are really worth it, in fact we should have stayed overnight (remember the sun was setting at 4:30ish so everything closed by 3:30… And taking buses means we did not get there till almost lunch time if we got out of bed at 5:00am!). At least Pisa [wikipedia.org] is on the train line.
But enough about the other cities in Tuscany, Florence is the city in Tuscany. You could spend months here and not exhaust the city if you wanted. The Florence Cathedral [wikipedia.org] aka Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore with Brunelleshi‘s [wikipedia.org] iconic dome dominates the city visually and the Uffizi Gallery [wikipedia.org] and the Accademia di Belle Arti [wikipedia.org] dominate it culturally. Between the two you can see some very nice works by all the Ninja Turtles—Leonardo, Donatello, M██████angelo and Raphael. And more renaissance art than anyone without a PhD in art history can appreciate!
Then you have Palazzo Vecchio [wikipedia.org], Ponte Vecchio [wikipedia.org], the Palazzo Pitti [wikipedia.org] and Santa Croce [wikipedia.org] home to more famous only-one-name-needed dead people than you can shake a coffin at; Galileo [wikipedia.org], Michelangelo [wikipedia.org], Machiavelli [wikipedia.org] and (for the physics geeks,) Fermi [wikipedia.org]… oh yea, it’s got a lot of art too. And all this is just scratching the surface of Florence’s museums, churches, palaces and various other old things.
And let’s not forget that Florence is a living city! Within the small town center where most of the above super-attractions are located in easy walking distance from each other you can also find some very fine dinning. Candice and I like two places especially; the I Buongustai di Casini Laura e Lucia and the Birreria Centrale (which is where J███████ and K– had dinner with me a few hours after they got engaged in 2002—still there, still great!) And while I love the food at both places I have a hard time deciding if the food was better than the ‘oh my god! I can’t get enough of it,’ gelato [wikipedia.org] at Festival de Gelato! A hundred flavors! Heaven! Eat your heart out Ben and Jerry!
Florence is definitely my favorite Italian city. But once again Candice and my enjoyment of the city was tempered by the early sunsets and cold weather. And in Florence we had to contend with the Thanksgiving holiday tourists from the US. I can’t tell you how many times I heard college types talk about where they were going to drink or how good the pizza was (or wasn’t as the case may be.) But even with all that Florence was still great! Maybe I’ll get back one day. Maybe I can move there!
You can see the full Florence, Italy, November 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].