Florence - Escaping the clutches of Venice
Trip Start
May 16, 2006
1
16
33
Trip End
Jun 13, 2006
Florence,
Italy
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
We head back across town to the Palazzo, and actually encounter a somewhat nice section of Venice. If you stay within a very small radius of San Marco Piazza, Venice isn't bad at all. Maybe that's what most visitors do? Sarah took a few pictures (my camera hand is now busy with kleenex, so I have no pictures for a short span), and we headed into the palace.
Duomo in Florence
To find that our tickets were all screwed up by the booking agent and we couldn't go in. The only place we've ever had a problem is, of course, Venice. It does eventually get straightened out.The Palazzo Ducale is, for the most part, rather unimpressive. The most interesting parts were things like the displays of old weapons and the wardrobes. Almost all of the furniture was gone, so you'd walk from empty room to empty room, looking at pictures of dour Venetian nobility on the walls, with the occasional bloody war scene thrown in for good measure. The ceilings were ornate and gold and lovely, in a strange contrast. A few of the huge halls (probably the larger court and audience rooms) did have some more interesting paintings on the walls, including a few by Tintoretto. I'm growing kind of fond of him, for no particular reason. Then we took the stairs down to the prisons, which are pretty much what you'd expect. The only thing that surprised me was the size of the metal bars, which had a diameter about that of my forearm.
We made the train back just fine, though I was moving on autopilot by this time, lagging about half a block behind Sarah and paying absolutely no attention to my surroundings. We settle in to the Eurostar first class, where they insist on feeding us small snacks at regular intervals. No matter what I ask for, though, they hand me chocolate cookies. I tried orange juice three times and only actually got orange juice once, followed by peach and grape. I kind of think the servers were really bored and just amusing themselves.
Palazzo in Florence
They were nicer to me than to many of the people, though. They completely ignored several passengers, directed several others to the bar if they wanted anything, and mocked a few for their horrible luggage storage techniques. So I can handle random juice.Three hours later, we arrived in Florence, to sunshine and a light wind. Ah. No more Venice! The Hotel Aline is not far, but the street numbering system in Florence is weird. They have two sets of numbers running concurrently, one set in red, one set in black. One set is commercial, one residential, I don't remember which is which. So we get to the street, find 18 and 16, then the numbers jump up to the eighties for awhile before coming back down to 14, where we are. A very nice lady checks us in, though there is a little bit of a language barrier. We ask if there is internet nearby, she says yes, gives us directions, then asks "For breakfast?" This hearkens back to a couple of days earlier when we stopped at a store to buy sandwiches. The counter lady asked Sarah whether she wanted a bag or not, but Sarah thought she was asking for the type of sandwich. So the conversation went like this, "Would you like a bag?" "Salami." Annoyed sigh, picking up a plastic bag, "Bag?" "Oh. Yes." So now any time there is a communication problem, we say "Salami!" and giggle to ourselves. Quietly. At least we'll be the quiet daft Americans.
The room turns out to be nearly as shabby as the one in Venice, with the notable exceptions of a lack of rot and mold and indoor plumbing that functions. We can handle this. We went on the Internet Search to find that internet in Florence is almost all on Via Guelfa. We counted five places before we stopped. There are a lot of ATMs on Corso Cavour, by San Marco Piazza.
Florence has a lot of the atmosphere of Flagstaff or Tucson, with the universities here. There are many, many students, a more laid-back style of dress, a huge street market, and the occasional biting wind (as in Flag). But you probably won't be seeing the huge naked statues lining the squares in Flagstaff.
ETA: I can't believe I forgot my two favorite things from the Palazzo. The first is the map room, a room with enormous maps of most of the world, or maybe just Europe, on the walls, and two enormous globes, at least six feet in diameter set in the middle of the room. The second was one of the tiny rooms on the way between the court and the prison with pictures of hell and redemption, some by Bosch. My favorite wasn't the Bosch, but a different allegory of hell. The whole room was just eerie. It might have been part of the Gallery/Hall of Sighs.
ETA: A couple of pics up - a few more at Flickr.
