Firenze al aperto (Florence Out of Doors)
May 23 – 24, 2019
We enjoyed wandering around Florence as much as we did touring its galleries and, still fortunate with the weather, we managed to get quite a bit of fresh air. As I continued to recover from my face-plant in the Borghese Gardens, I was amused to see a street sign that seemed to warn me against landing on my head again. (As if I needed a warning.)
We spent time on both days in Florence in the Piazza della Signoria because it is so central. Surrounded by several “palazzos” and the Uffizi Gallery, the piazza is massive, accommodating outdoor restaurant seating, a lovely old merry-go-round and many shops (including an Apple store). At times in its history, the square has been less welcoming: it was here that the puritanical Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola and his followers carried out the famous “Bonfire of the Vanities” – burning secular “books, gaming tables, fine dresses, and works of poets” in their attempt to build a new Jerusalem, and here – in front of the fountain of Neptune – Savonarola and two of his fellow friars were ultimately hanged and burned on May 23, 1498 (Wikipedia).
As is true in many major cities in Italy, being outside can be very much like being inside a museum, and that was certainly true of the large space just off the Florence’s Piazza della Signoria that is known as the Loggia dei Lanzi. We went there one afternoon to rest our feet between tours, but I soon found myself standing up again to more closely examine the huge sculptures on display in the loggia.
The Loggia dei Lanzi or Loggia della Signoria was built in the late 1300s and was intended to accommodate public meetings and events. The statues now located there include two Medici lions, historical figures, and a number of sculptures depicting characters and events from Greek and Roman myths. One of these, Perseus with the head of Medusa, I remember seeing in an encyclopedia when I was a girl, and being absolutely horrified. The actual statue is pretty horrifying too.
The River Arno flows from its source in the Apennines through Florence on its way to the sea, and while the water itself looks uninviting (it is fast and dirty), there is no matching the spectacle the river offers, especially when the light is right. There are six bridges across the Arno in Florence, five of which were bombed during the retreat of the Nazis from Italy in 1944. These have been rebuilt, either in a more modern form or to resemble the historic structures they replaced.
Although it was swept away by floods a couple of times during the first two centuries of the Common Era, and was damaged again by flooding in the mid 1960s. the Ponte Vecchio, the most famous and remarkable of the bridges, is the only one that was not destroyed in the German retreat — rumour has it that it was spared by direct command of Adolf Hitler. However, the buildings at either end of the bridge were destroyed in order to prevent its use.
The Ponte Vecchio is a “closed-spandrel bridge with three segmental arches” built from stone at the end of the first century. (The spandrel is the space between the outer part of the arch and the deck.) Its design was determined in part by the need to allow horses and carts to cross it easily, and vendors have been selling their wares from stalls on the bridge for more than a thousand years. We wandered past clothing and jewellery shops, some selling products of the highest quality (and price!) and others selling schlock for tourists, also at the highest price. The kicker was a gelato that I bought on the Ponte Vecchio for eight euros ($12)! (It did involve two tasty scoops, but the only reason it is memorable is because of how much it cost me.)
I was quite tickled to be standing in a place where Dante had also stood.
Florence, like other major Italian cities, must be particularly magical to those with limitless wealth and a fondness for shopping. We meet neither of those conditions, but we did enjoy wandering past some of the exclusive shops.
We are hard-pressed to remember even one disappointing meal in Italy. However, we discovered a couple of outstanding restaurants in Florence, one of them thanks to a fellow-writer from the U.S. who I’d met online on a writers’ forum. Caron Guillo had spent the previous four or five years leading tours in Europe and she had lived for an extended period of time in Italy. Before we left on our trip, I saw that she had posted a photo of a dinner she’d just eaten in her favourite restaurant in Florence. She gave me the name — 4 Leoni — we tracked it down, and had a most spectacular dinner. My main course was the restaurant’s popular ravioli dish featuring pears in taleggio cheese and asparagus sauce (the same dish that Caron had posted on Facebook) and for dessert a chocolate pudding. We should have made a reservation: we were lucky that they let us in without one.
Of course, even the graffiti in Italy is artistic. I liked this piece, which somehow evoked both Banksy and Magritte.
I'm All Write 