Florence Diary I: Getting There
Note: I had intended to publish a Florence diary while I was gone, but computer problems made that project impossible. This reconstruction is based on notes and memories.
I shall begin with a confession. I have never really liked Florence. My initial negative impression was formed while spending a few days with our friend the late Leo Raditsa at Ulivello, his family’s villa outside Florence. The first half day was spent in the Santa Maria Novella Station, trying in vain to reach our host. Leo lived at a greater distance than I had imagined, and as a result I was not putting enough gettoni into the slot. I finally paid something like 80,000 lire to a taxi driver, who explained I had to pay for both ways. I knew just enough Italian in those days to know what he was saying. Zipping down the Strada in Chianti, I noticed a crazy driver weaving all over the road in an old jalopy (perhaps a last specimen of the extinct Cit). It could only be Leo, a man whose passionate reading was matched by his indifference to everyday concerns.
It was a hot end-of-August, but Ulivello (which Leo had inherited from his grandfather, the great scholar-journalist Guglielmo Ferrero) was an island of peace and coolness. When we returned to the hot city the next day, it was crammed with mass-tourists and American women buying overpriced gold on the Ponte Vecchio. The next week, staying in Pisa, I refused to accompany my wife on a trip to see the Uffizi. On the half a dozen or so later visits I made, I was struck only by the bad food, acid wine, and cynicism offered by restaurateurs who knew they could get away with anything. Once I was so exasperated by the crowds that thronged the streets between the Piazza dell Signoria and the Cathedral that I turned back and took a train to anywhere but Florence.
That is why in planning a Convivium in Tuscany in May of 2002, I arranged for two thirds of the time to be spent in Pisa and Siena, and even our three days in Florence seemed too much, marred by crowds of tourists and the rowdy Italian teenagers and indifferent staff at the Hotel Basilea.
Once only, on a brief trip to visit the Navrozovs in a cold December, did I see any charm in the city, deserted (as it was) by all but the inhabitants. I spent a morning prowling through an empty Uffizi, and, one chilly afternoon with snow in the air, I ate an amazing bollito with salsa verde at a street vendor outside one of the city gates. My few days in December, shivering from cold weather and a miserable cold caught on the airplane, were good enough to encourage me to plan a Winter School program in Florence. It turned out to be the right decision. I did not care if it snowed, so long as the city was empty.
We had hoped to fly direct to Rome and spend a few days seeing friends, but the retarded sadists who work for Alitalia were determined to disrupt air travel just one last time before Berlusconi succeeded in reorganizing the bankrupt company. Instead, we opted for a United flight to Frankfurt, with a Lufthansa connection to Florence. In both directions, the connections worked perfectly, so perfectly that I am afraid to test my luck by trying it again: I may have exhausted my entire stock of luck with Lufthansa.
Here is a piece of advice. If you have to change planes, when going to Europe, be sure to change over there, where it is much simpler on the way over, and, what is more important, it makes returning to the States a breeze. Getting your bags and taking them through customs in New York or Dulles is no fun. Also, if you are able, do not switch airlines or at least stay within one of the two allied species, the Star or One World alliances. Otherwise you will often not get a boarding pass for the second flight and in general be treated as excess baggage. “I’m sorry,” the American Airlines clerks will all say, “Air France (or Olympic or KLM) won’t give us that information.”
Our friend Mark Beesley talked us (my wife and I, Chris Check and his son Nicholas) into getting a limousine to the airport. He booked the wrong time, which would have meant arriving at O’Hare at take-off time, and since I (the old and senile one) caught the mistake, Mark kindly sprang for champagne on the ride. It is always something of a chore to stay sober on a trip, and Beesley was not making it any easier. After surprisingly good sandwiches at the O’Hare Berghoff, we spent nine hours listening to a two year old Arab scream as his parents looked the other way. This is not, I remarked, Al Qaeda material, or, if it is, we do not have much to worry about. A culture that refuses to repress spoiled brats is as doomed as our own. A bigot sitting in our row made pointed remarks about all the “A-rabs and Chinamen” on the plane, and he reminded us of the old airline commercials that portrayed passengers flying steerage with gypsies and chickens. As any frequent flier can tell you, that is no longer a joke. Being good Americans, however, we refused to give the bigot the satisfaction of a smile at his racist humor.
We arrived two nights early and on Mark Beesley took us to a restaurant he liked, Ristorante Leo. Leo’s has been around a long time, and the restaurant, while a bit upscale for the Santa Croce neighborhood, is showing its age—a plus so far as I am concerned. I was determined, as I declared to anyone who would listen, to eat like a pig the first night, and I did my best on a large mixed antipasto, followed by “Ravioli Leo”—an unpromising dish of spinach and ricotta stuffed ravioli with a shrimp and asparagus sauce (just the sort of food I loathe) but it was delicious.
The triumph, though, was the bistecca fiorentina the three of us shared. We needed a couple of Checks to finish it off, but they were not man enough to stay awake for dinner. I was so stuffed I barely found the room for a grappa Toscana. The proprietor, coming to pour wine, was mildly annoyed at where my wife had placed her water glass and treated us to a lesson on table setting, explaining that the waiter had to know to aim the wine just north of the knife, a position to be kept free of cutlery and water glasses. He was charmingly grumpy on this and future occasions, talking us into the dishes he had prepared and had not been able to serve—the place was virtually empty at the end of January.
The second time at Leo’s we dined with our friends the Culleys and Mark Kennedy, and I went through the entire menu with them, more than once. (Rick Culley enjoys his dinner and has as insatiable an appetite for information as for good food.) The proprietor watched the performance and jokingly offered me a job. We stayed so late that evening he practically threw us out, after providing free grappa. As I heard him walk by, he was saying to himself, “So quiet, so peaceful. I love this time of year, before Easter.” He has obviously been successful enough not to worry about money, but he expressed my sentiments about Italy exactly. As Rick Culley said, from now on he would always prefer to go to Italy in the Winter.
Before arriving in Florence on the 20th of January, I had several misgivings. The first was over the Hotel Mediterraneo, which we had booked for our thirty-some participants. The Mediterraneo, which mostly caters to groups and Italian businessmen, is not my sort of place, but it was much better than expected. The bar was a lively place, and many of our guests spent a good deal of time, soaking in the atmosphere.
Our rooms were comfortable, and even spacious, especially after the Murphy beds were pushed up into the wall. Chris Check was able to entertain about 15 people with wine and trail mix. Even the inexpensive prezzo-fisso dinners were more than edible.
The only drawback was the 12 minute walk from Santa Croce, which translates into 20-25 minutes from the Cathedral.
Entries(RSS)
Isn't it comforting to know that the SPLC has by now placed all these pictures in their Rogues Gallery of Undesirables?
Thanks, Dan. Always the optimist. You should have been with us, The picture immediately above portrays, from left to right, Derek Cully, Fran Griffin, and Jewell Morrow. The next picture includes the Stebbings, the next above has Rockford industrialist and history enthusiast Bob Trojan and Mrs Tracy (Martha) Thomas. The two gentlemen standing in the are Harold Baum and the Swedish physicist Mats Lyberg. Above them are Dr. Joe Duffy and, again, Bob Trojan. The Cullys and my wife are standing outside Mario's restaurant near S. Lorenzo.
Tom;
For the record and for your fans...this was a great Winter School and I'll be posting a longer response later.
My niece (Mark's daughter) spent several months in Florence as an art student and fell in love with the city. She sent us a lot of e-mails which formed sort of a condensed diary and in one of them I recall her saying "I'm surrounded by beauty wherever I go." The hundreds of pictures she took there certainly make me want to visit Florence - in the unlikely event that I can ever afford to visit Europe or any other foreign site again.
While I have been to Italy a number of times and even breezed through Florence once, I had always wanted to spend more time there. When the Tuscany Winter School came up, I signed up. This was my first school with TRI and I must admit that I found it very enjoyable and as interesting as I had hoped.
Even before we departed, we had numerous readings to prepare us for this time period.
The School was attended by people from as far as Sweden, Nova Scotia and all points from the US. The group quickly made friends of each other.
The program was well organized with daily walks, mini-lectures and sufficient free time for us to enjoy on our own if desired. A day trip to Pisa and Siena helped to expand the Tuscan experience. Even the bus lectures helped the journey along.
Highlights of art, architecture, sculptures and history were well provided by Dr. Tom and Gail Fleming and Captain Check, who kept us on schedule with his morning briefings and daily interim schedule review. Suffice it to say that the recommended guide books were well supplemented with interesting insights as went along on our tours.
Although the weather was a bit on the cool and sometimes rainy side, the almost complete lack of tourists made church and museum entry most enjoyable.
Hotel accommodations were good, clean and helpful staff; most walks were within 1/2 to 1 mile from it. Most dinner meals were there; lunches were on our own but with some good suggestions from Tom.
All in all, I would give this School an "A" and look forward to the next one that I can attend.
My friend Tom neglected to mention that he took a nap on the day of arrival while Nick and I walked over all of our walking tours for the coming week. We did pause for a lunch and a liter of rosso della casa at my favorite Florentine fiaschetteria, "da Nuvoli," a block west of the Baptistry. I was eager to return to the place. Alice Drennan, my father, Aunt Ruth Besemer (God rest her soul), and I found it in 2002 after Mrs. Drennan had just haggled with a nearby shopkeeper over a replacement roll-aboard. Nick and I ate their twice on this trip, the second time with Mrs. Drennan, Tom Piatak and his charming wife Valerie. On the second visit, the proprietor set a flask of his Rosso Eliseo, a Sangiovese blend, on our table. I know enough Italian to understand, "drink as much as you wish." Though da Nuvoli is only a block from the Duomo, I've never seen a tourist in their bottle-lined cellar dining rooms, though I have seen plenty of laborers and football players, who appreciate well made polpette, more than fairly priced.
Nap? I recall a long walk with Christopher and Nicholas. I returned to the hotel, anticipating the pleasant duty of taking my wife to lunch. In the end, we settled on the hotel bar, and, though the kitchen was closed, they made us quite good "toast"--sandwiches with prosciutto and cheese--which we washed down with a bottle of Vernaccia before taking a walk around the neighborhood.
Dr. Fleming, that ultimate source of European cultural knowledge, Rick Steves, would be disappointed in your assessment of Florence. My memories of Florence are ancient, dating my wife's first pregnancy many years ago. Although the art museums were worthwhile, I found much of the rest of Florence mundane. A steak I ate was on par with Golden Corral. The Ponte Vecchio was a bridge of jewelry, fit for a tour of rappers or blue-haired ladies. A walk along the Arno accidentally brought me upon a minefield of discarded syringes.
The problem with Florence, Venice, Rome, and many other important cities is that they have been tourist shrines so long that the real city has shrunk within itself and is harder and harder to find. My object, in planning this Winter School, was to give participants a bit of the flavor of the city, where it still survives, as well as taking them to the great museums and monuments. It is not impossible to eat well or have a good time in Florence, but it takes a bit of work and research.
What was interesting to me, which I think many "tourists" completely miss, is the knowledge of the history of the what's, who's, and where's.
More than just looking at various well known objects, I was able, due to prior study, to envision what took place hundreds of years ago, who was involved and even why.
One example, on the Palazzo Vecchio about 50 feet from the Fountain of Neptune, was a large commemorative disk/plate. Even in my limited knowledge of Italian, I could make out one of the words "Savonarola" I quickly realized what it signified.
I could cite other examples but the point is not just go and see but also understand.
@9: So true. As a consequence, the best East Coast pizza apparently is no longer found in New York but in Boston. In Paris the best baguettes are in the 19th district, close to the really nasty suburbs. Even authentic "tourist trap" hot spots are so commercialised as to have lost their charm: when I lived in South Florida, my favourite hangouts were not in Miami but around Fort Lauderdale.
As far as food, I had numerous good lunches and dinners. Lunches were especially enjoyable at local Osterias where daily specials were offered...like boiled octopus at Mario's in Florence!
After reading TJF's comments about Florence, I examined the photos of the participants in the Winter School, and thought I recognized one ... and I did: Harold Baum. Along with his late wife, Jeanne, Hal and I served as Foreign Service Officers in Norway. Glad to see he is still wandering the world.
I first visited Florence in 1963, when the Italian Communist Party was still a viable force, and their posters (affissi) were omnipresent in the labyrinthine streets of the city. A quarter century later, I would make the "classified mail run" to Florence (the posters were gone) from Rome, and came to know the city even better. Then,from 1996 to 2001,from September through mid-October, my wife and I rented an apartment on the other side of the Arno, - Olt'arno - which is far less crowded and touristy than the sites mentioned by TJF. A few comments are in order.
One cannot visit Firenze without knowing that, after Venice, and before Rome, these three cities have the greatest number of tourists vis-a-vis the native population than other Italian cities. Another problem with staying in Firenze is that it truly is a small city, and unless one can get out and travel around Tuscany, it can become deadly dull, unless one becomes a shopoholic or daily museum visitor. Dr. Fleming, a visit that I would suggest is to the US Memorial Cemetery,a well-kept site only a short bus ride from the city.
Finally, I knew that the time had come to look for an apartment elsewhere when one night in a fairly well-known restaurant, my guests and I were told that we would have to leave so that the restaurant could accomodate the busloads of Japanese tourists who eagerly awaited outside. The time had come to say, "Addio."
Signore Chiarello et al,
The Baum's are wonderful company and great appreciators of art, which makes our job (showing people the good, the beautiful, and the true) so much more gratifying. This was their second trip with us. The joined us in Venice, Ravenna, and Padova last spring. Indeed, three quarters of the folks on this Winter School were "repeaters," that is this was not their first Rockford Institute conference. I've lost track of how many events Alice Drennan and the Culleys have attended. This also is gratifying: to welcome back so many friends again and again. It means we are doing something right, but more than that, it means that our Convivia and Schools have the joyful flavor of a family reunion. A good friend who teaches high school in suburban Milwaukee wrote one time, quoting Romano Guardini, that one of the trials of the modern world is that good people who understand the world are isolated and scattered. In gathering good people from time to time, the Rockford Institute, he said, replaces that sorrow with joy.
We did pass the American Cemetery on our way to Siena. As a Marine veteran, I am always moved by the sight of the modest white crosses covered and aligned on foreign soil. (I encourage anyone visiting Paris to visit the American Cemetery at Chateau-Thierry.) The heroism of individual soldiers is never, in my mind, diminished by the dubious political or strategic decisions that cost them their lives.
Bob Trojan's remarks are on target. I remember being in San Marco in Venice in April and wishing more to escape the crowd than to admire one of the most magnificent churches in the world. Nonetheless, if we keep away from the great monuments of Christendom because they also attract cheap souvenir vendors and hordes of tourists who do not know what they are looking at, we are spiting ourselves. By visiting places off season (sometimes well off season), The Rockford Institute reduces much of the unpleasant effect of tourists. We did not stand in a single line this entire trip. Many places we had to ourselves: The Piccolomini Library and the Pinacoteca in Siena, and the Baptistry and the Brancacci Chapel in Florence are just a few examples. Tom and I have wondered who would be interested in going to Venice in January. We would!