The duomo is one of the first images that pops up when you google search 'Florence', and for good reason. The cathedral is MASSIVE I would know, because I have to walk past it multiple times a day when I have class. The cathedral was started in the 1200s, but wasn't completed until the 1400s when architect Brunelleschi was able to devise a way to construct the massive dome. From what I've gathered, this dome is pretty much an architect's wet dream. The duomo's dome (and yes, 'duomo' means 'dome' in Italian) is the largest dome ever built until the modern era, which basically means no one could recreate anything like it until the discovery of physics. Brunelleschi was an absolute genius.
And so, after waiting nearly two weeks for a clear day, Kara and I climbed to the top of this masterpiece and beheld our adoptive city.
See the crowning structure on top of the dome? That's where the viewing area was. Also, interestingly, Michelangelo's David was originally one of a projected twelve sculptures made to ring the outside of the structure at the top of the dome.
This, and the next two pictures are off the breathtaking fresco painted on the inside of the dome. When I saw this the second or third day here, my jaw literally dropped and I stared up at it awestruck for a good fifteen minutes. Seeing it up close was amazing, though my pictures don't really do it justice.
The bell tower.
This is San Lorenzo, the church near my school. Kara and I spent a while looking for the buildings we had been to from the top of the dome and searching for our apartment buildings.
One of the dome's giant white ribs (for lack of a better term, I suck at architecture sorry Alex!). It was so strange, at the top of the dome, we couldn't even see the rest of the building underneath us.
Though our shaking legs at the end merited an emergency gelato run, the steep price and stairs of the duomo climb was definitely worth it! Near the sun atop the church, for the first time ever, I understood why people feel closer to God in sacred places. I don't affliate myself with any particular religious doctrine, but I know if some divine power does exists, it has been here.
La Grassa. The Fat One. This is what Bologna, the capital of Emilia-Romagna province north of Tuscany, is known as. Bologna has consistently tied with Paris as the number one place I wanted to visit while in Europe (though it has the convince of not only being in Italy, but also being only an hour away by train). Why? I'll tell you why, Bologna is the 'Fat One' for a reason, and that reason is food.
So, even though it was raining last Saturday morning and my two travel companions were wary, and despite the fact that everyone else we knew was going to Bologna the next day (Restaurants are not open on Sunday here. There was no chance in hell I could be persuaded to be in Bologna on a Sunday), I was adamant. The food was waiting for me.
But even though I had gone to Bologna for food, as soon as I set foot from the train station I was taken by its charm. Unlike Florence and Venice, Bologna is not a tourist haven. There are no Japanese tour groups numbering in the thirties wearing headsets gawking in front of me as I'm trying to scurry to class. There are no street vendors trying to sell me men's boxers with David's ballsack thoughtfully plastered on the front. Yet, the city is still bustling. The presence of roads wider than twenty feet (and the huge increase in traffic as a result) definitely threw me at first. But by the time we found our first cafe, I had fallen completely for the russet and golden buildings and covered sidewalks. In some ways, Bologna reminds me of Buffalo. A better dressed, better tempered Buffalo. I'm not used to the tourist economy. No one willingly visits Buffalo unless you're there for family, college, or passing through to the falls or Toronto. And after living in a city whose number one industry is tourism, I can say that few other things in the world are quite so unappealing as the tourist industry. It destroys the character of places. This revelation hadn't occurred to me until I was in Bologna, away from tourism for the first time in weeks.
It was a welcome change.
But anyway, here are the pictures, and I'll let them speak for themselves!
(Apparently half of pictures have been cut off, but I have no idea how to fix that so it stays that way. But! In an effort to decrease uploading time, all my pictures are also going to be on facebook from now on so here's the link http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=157748&id=561287236. I take more pictures than I post, so I'll post all the links from now on)
The fountain in the main Piazza involving Neptune and his... friends.
Harlot-y mermaid friends, that is. The fountain caused a spark of controversy when it was unveiled. Can't imagine why. Did I mention this is within view of the cathedral?
We found a sephora in this old pharmacy, and it was pretty cool. I took many pictures, because my roommate Arielle loves products the way I love food.
The colours in Bologna are all wrong for the buildings. It was one of the first things I noticed. In Firenze, the buildings are mostly green, lighter yellow, and grey. In Bologna, they are mostly yellow and red. It was just a slight change, but I was surprised by it.
The inside of a lovely church, made even lovelier by the free admission. I love my guidebook even if it makes me look like super tourist.
Okay, we didn't realize this was an art exhibit until after I saw the sign in the picture. We honestly thought that someone was hanging their clothing to dry in a tree outside Giorgio Armani. Drying clothing is serious business in Italy, because there's no dryers to be found unless you want to pay to use them.
Oh man. The first cafe. More of a gelato/dessert cafe than a usual cafe. This is another reason why I love my guidebook. The allure of pumpkin cinnamon and ginger gelato was too much for me and Amanda and Arielle to resist so we went and it was FABULOUS. The prices were excellent, the gelato amazing. This was the part where I melted into a puddle. These melting moments, for the record, happen at least once a week (yesterday's was when I bought violet knee high heeled boots for 70 euro marked down from 145), and it's how I know coming here was the best idea I ever had.
The brownie I had been craving for weeks.
Something Sarah and I will probably make when I get home!
Chocolate tree with nut leaves. I bought some dark chocolate here as I was dangerously low, and it is some of the best chocolate I've ever set my lips upon.
Bologna is a medieval city, and this is one of the their medieval towers. Florence has some medieval relics as well, but it's mostly been overcome by Renaissance style buildings and art.
Oh man! We found this awesome science museum (also with free admission, thanks to my book) run through the University of Bologna. There is a HUGE student population there, like, one fifth of the population huge. Apperantly there's killer nightlife because of it, and this, with the want of another gelato, will probably be enough to lure me back.
A random art display in the museum, snakes made of crystal. I think it puts a new spin on the tempting serpent icon. Bologna has quite a bit of artwork around, actually. Again due to the university.
I get excited when I see Latin. I'm not bothering to translate for you though.
The covered walkway/my friends losing me for the eighth time. Arielle said it was a good thing my coat is so green so they can find me. It's like a leash for errant children, except visual and more dignified.
The restaurant we ate it. It was phenomenal, though I've eaten just as good in Tuscany. I had homemade tagliatelle with a Bolognese ragu. The meat was perfectly seasoned, it was lacking nothing. Divine.
My SUPER EPIC appetizer that was actually more than my entree. A collection of cured pork products and regional cheeses to make any nordic princess proud (it looks like a viking feast to me). Definitely worth the price, even just for the visiaul presnetaion. The other couple at the table beside us was openly gaping. I love making fellow dinner guests envious of my order.
So that, in a nutshell, is Bologna! Other than a spot of rain, the day was perfect. Although we barely made the last train leaving before five in the morning we still made it! But if we had been stuck there until five, I have a sneaking suspicion that I would have been totally fine with that.
Soo... I have six hours of class tomorrow and homework to do still, so please accept this video instead? Even though I still haven't reported about last weekend and it's practically next weekend?
There is a perverse truth to living in Florence: the more you explore, the more you realise that for every sight you see, there's at least three more you haven't seen. So me and a few other people decided to grab the bull by the horns and ditch out homework for grander notions. So this past Monday (yes, this post is long overdue, I know) we went to the Santa Croce church, which is a convenient three minute walk from my apartment. Now, Santa Croce's claim is fame is the excessive amount of famous dead people buried there. Among them are Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Galileo, and other, less important persons.
The church from inside the grounds.
the Medici crest on one of the tombs on the floor. These signs are all over Florence, it's a little ridiculous how many there are.
Rawr, lion! And skull and cross bones.
Michelangelo's tomb. The statue sitting on the left is for painting, the middle for sculpting, and the far right for architecture. His tomb is definitely the most blinged out of all of them.
Galieo's tomb.
Beatrice, Dante's love, who was not actually buried in Santa Croce but since she's dead too I figured I'd add her here. Lovers can leave notes to her in baskets near her tomb.
Machiavelli's tomb, my personal favourite.
I like taking pictures of arches and I don't know why! Everywhere I go, if there is an arch, it invariably ends up in my latest photo album. Maybe I was an arch in a past life, or something.
Old music that the monks used.
So this is all for now. I have more pictures of the inside of the church, but I don't feel like spending an hour uploading them when I know that I have a whole slew of Bologna pictures waiting for their chance to be posted. Oh, weekend adventures are something!
Right now there are a number of things I could (or rather, should) be doing. I could be buying groceries like I told my apartment mates I would, I could be doing homework, I could be researching the tastiest places in Bologna, I could be reading, writing, any of the above would be fair game. Though I guess this does count as writing, just not of the reputable sort.
But it came to my attention sometime between my daily morning nutella brioche and visiting Michelangelo’s David for class that I’ve been in Florence for three weeks. I can’t believe it’s been three weeks, but on the other hand three weeks really isn’t that long. And while I’ve found I have been dutiful in reporting on the sights of the city itself, I haven’t really thought of myself in all of this.
When I was at orientation here, the school warned us about the issue of ‘culture shock’. Culture shock begins with a honeymoon period (ie, “Oh my God, everything is so beautiful!”) followed by the crises period (“Nothing in my 400 year old building works and no one sells peanut butter”) then to negotiation (“at least the International Supermarket sells peanut butter”) concluded with adjustment (“On second thought Nutella is better and it’s not five euro a jar”).
Now, I’m not exactly known for my ability to adjust well to new situations. So even though I took countless pictures, stared in slack-jawed wonder, and fell asleep every night to the tolling of church bells, a part of my mind kept insidiously reminding me that that this phrase couldn’t possibly last because I would soon be a neurotic mess plastered to skype and pictures of my cats from home. And though part of me feels like I ought to knock on wood for even suggesting it, I think I’m in the clear. Maybe part of this is because a friend of mine asked what it was like to live in Florence. Not the mundane activities of life, but what was it like to live in a place so rich with history? Ever since he asked I can’t get it out of my head- what is it like to live in this place? It’s like any other place yet no place at the same time. And so, from that day forward I dedicated myself to attempting to profile the personality of Florence.
And how, exactly, does this prevent an emotional Chernobyl you wonder? It reminds me constantly that, no matter how proud I am when the cashier at the grocery store doesn’t parry my feeble Italian with English, I am American. I don’t say it as someone who is particularly proud or resentful of that fact. But I talk loudly in public places, and I drink extra large cappuccinos, and I’m an English majour. There is no way you can avoid the irony in that. I’m not here to assimilate into Italian society. I’m here because… Florence sounded interesting. The way you pick an entree from a menu purely because it’s nothing like you’ve ever tasted before. I came here with no expectations, no demands. For once, I’m just letting things come as they are. I don’t remember the last time I did that.
I sense an eminent shift in my philosophy of self.
Oh wow. If I thought staying in Firenze for the weekend would be more relaxing than heading on a trip, I was wrong, wrong, wrong! Luckily, I wasn’t staying around my neighbourhood (in a manner of speaking) to sit on my ass for three days. It started bright and early Friday morning when my friend Amanda and I decided to head to the Market Centrale to admire the local food (the market is deserving of its own entry, and so, I will say no more of it for now). From there, we wandered around aimlessly until we somehow ended up across the river in the Pitti Palace.
Amanda and I.
The Pitti Palace was the last residence of the Medici family in Florence. I say ‘last’, but what I really mean is impossibly large and absurdly extravagant. Since they couldn’t get anymore over the top than they already were, it was their last residence. The self-actualization of living situations. The outside of it is impressive, though it pales in comparison to what lies within. I wish I could show you all what it looked like, but the moment I took my camera out the docent when three rooms away chastised me, so I have no proof. But imagine this: no ceiling lower than twenty feet, each room its own vibrant colour resplendent in gilded curtains, every wall covered in ornately framed, priceless works of art, each ceiling adorned with goliath frescoes mythologizing the bible, the pagan gods, the Medici themselves. Everything in that palace is a testament to absolute beauty, and it has a bathroom larger than my living room back home to boot.
The palace has mostly been renovated as an art gallery, but most of the rooms have the description of their original purpose. With that, I could see the people in their elegant garb drifting from one decadent room to the next.
Needless to say, I was quite impressed.
This is the passageway the Medici built to pass over the Ponte Vecchio. The Ponte Vecchio is the main river across the Arno, and was built by the Romans. It was the only bridge in Florence not destroyed by the Germans in World War II, allegedly because Hilter thought it was too beautiful. The bridge is host to a flock of jewelry peddlers and souvenir shops, but during the Renaissance, it was a meat market. For some reason, Cosimo de’Medici did not appreciate having this beneath his passageway, and so, he evicted the butchers and put the jewelers there where they have been ever since.
Anyway, that was Friday. Saturday, my friend and roommate Kara and I decided to head across the river yet again for a look at the Boboli Gardens (the grounds of the Pitti Palace, and, if possible, even more stunning than the palace itself) and the San Minato church. Though my camera battery died about five minutes into our venture, Kara’s preserved, so I stole all her pictures from facebook for you!
Here is the church.
This is the lover level of the church, approximated to Hell and it was SUPER CREEPY.
The view of Florence from outside the church.
These following pictures are the Boboli Gardens.
A rather large man on a rather large turtle.
This has nothing to do with anything really, but I bought some oranges from the market that were grown in Italy and they were the best oranges I ever had, and I don't even like oranges that much. I will probably starve to death when I go home.
Okay, so I was unreasonably excited to find a cat here (she followed me out to the path) but then like, two minutes I saw these two older ladies walk out from one of the garden paths into the bushes with more cats following them. There was a plastic tarp in the bushes arranged like a shelter and cat toys on the ground. I think I found nomadic cat people/
The back of the palace itself.
Stolen Egyptian obelisk.
So that was Friday and Saturday! Sunday, we celebrated Valentine's day by cooking a bunch of delicious things, and exploding an egg in the microwave and blowing a fuse. It was then I learned that my landlord is kind of a jerk, but nevertheless, it was a good weekend, even though I couldn't spend Valentine's Day with everyone back home and eat heart-shaped chocolate ganache cakes. Mmmm, chocolate... I still want brownies in the worst way.
I'm a fabulous, almost unemployed, newly minted English grad. The "almost unemployed" and "newly minted English grad" are objective, while the "fabulous" is fairly subjective. I blog because I am underqualified for most jobs, and overqualified for the rest.
