It was Friday of our trip, and we woke up and had breakfast in the hotel dining room at 8:00 am. The dining room was small, fitting only about four tables, but people ate in the sitting room as well. The hotel served croissants, yogurt, fruit, cappuccino, cheese, and juice on a china and silver setting, Downton Abby style. It was a good-sized meal for $12E.
We shared the room with an American family (They were grumpy), and a European couple (also grumpy). Then there was me, happily jacked up on several cups of cappuccino and ready to hyperventilate over classic works of art in The Uffizi.
We took a taxi to The Uffizi museum because it was too far for my Mom to walk. When we got there, we had to wait in a short line for our appointment time (We bought our tickets online.). It was about a ten minute wait. Behind us was a very sparkly-eyed English man and his pale subdued wife.
He chatted with us during the wait as though he had waited his entire life to talk to us and was so excited his dream had finally come true. His wife would let out a sigh of exasperation every now and then. I imagine his over-exuberance was trying for her over the decades of marriage.
I picked up a wheelchair for my Mom at the coat check. I knew there would be a lot of walking, a lot of pausing, a lot of contemplating during our viewing, and I knew that was going to be hard on my Mom. The wheelchair was free for the day, and it worked perfectly for my Mom.
The art in The Uffizi is beyond overwhelming. There are rooms upon rooms of works by the masters. You could spend three hours staring at merely one of the works.
There are works from Botticelli, Michelangelo, Signorelli, Raphael, van Dyck, Rembrandt, Goya, Leonardo Da Vinci, Dali, and the list goes on and on and on. It is mind-boggling.
I saw so many pictures of Mary breast-feeding baby Jesus that I felt like I was beginning to lactate!
One of my favorite rooms was The Niobe Room. Embellished with gold, the ceiling was breathtaking. Several paintings and many statues depict Niobe’s story. Niobe, from Greek mythology, was a tragic mom whose seven daughters and seven sons were killed by Apollo and Artemis after Niobe bragged too much about them. Niobe’s story was tragic, but the room dedicated to her in The Uffizi was gorgeous.
Bronwyn was excited when she found a piece of art that she had copied in school for a Latin class project.
Poor Mom was at the mercy of my speed. For her, the experience was a little chaotic because most of the time she didn’t understand why I was pausing at that work for such a long time, or why we weren’t pausing for long at the other piece of work, or what were those people over there looking at so intently.
People need to walk through museums at their own personal speed, and my caffeine infused hands pushed around Mom at a speed she didn’t have much control over. She was a trooper through the tour of the museum though, and she didn’t complain.
We kept running into the happy British man. We must have bumped into him three or four times during our stay at the museum, and he kept on being happy.
We had lunch at the museum café.
That was not a good idea.
A cappuccino would have been OK, but we ordered pizza. The pizza was awful and expensive. However, it was outside on the rooftop deck, and the view was lovely, so that helped a little.
After lunch, we saw more masterpieces. I felt like a kid with no willpower who had been given several large bags of my favorite candy and told to eat whatever I wanted. With the candy wrappers cluttering my mind, and my taste buds dulled by too many fabulous sweets, I got to a point where I had to walk away.
I think we all felt that way.
So we left the museum after 3 hours, knowing we could have spent 3 more hours and still not even experienced as much of the art as we would have liked.
We dropped off the wheelchair and walked to Santa Croce (Church of the Holy Cross). This basilica is famous for the people buried in it. Although it isn’t as awe-inspiring as San Miniato al Monte, it is very beautiful.
We had to pay to get into the church, but it was worth the $6E. We saw masterful works of art and the tombs of Galileo, Machiavelli, and Michelangelo. Brunelleschi designed the Capella Pazzi found in the Convent’s Chapter House off the main building.
Pictured below are the tombs of Michelangelo and Machiavelli. After reading so much about Sister Domenica of Paradise and her unchanged body after death, I had the urge to ask one of the tour guides working that day if we could just lift up the lid of Michelangelo’s tomb and have a look-see.
The cloisters are lovely. If I lived in Florence, I would go there at least once a week to sit and read. It is very peaceful.
As we walked through the cloisters, everywhere we turned, there was a surprise, like the Santa Croce Refectory with the bronzed statue by Donatello, or Taddeo Gaddi’s Tree of the Cross Last Supper, tapestries, tombstones, statues, paintings. I even found a plaque dedicated to Florence Nightingale. It turns out Florence was born in Florence.
After spending a few hours walking around Santa Croce, we left the cathedral in search of a taxi. There was a lot of construction going on in front of the cathedral. Bronwyn and I had learned on our bike tour the day before that the area under construction is used for fighting.
The fights are UFC fights, or Extreme fights where the participants are barefoot on the road and use a combination of boxing and martial arts.
The winner of the fight gets a cow.
It seemed there was some political turmoil taking place because the mayor of Florence would not let the last fight take place, and that made a bunch of people angry.
The UFC fighting occurs to the left of Bronwyn and my Mom in the picture below.
We found a taxi, and we rode back to the hotel for a snack in the room.
Rachele, another awesome hotel clerk, promised she would make a reservation for us for dinner; then, she called a taxi to drive us to Michelangelo’s Piazza. My Mom had not yet seen it, and she had to see it! It was too beautiful to miss.
Rachele was relieved to hear that our electric bike tour the day before went well. She grew up not far from the olive farm we visited. Her family still lives there and owns some olive trees. She told me that all the farmers in Fiesole take off work, and together they pick olives and press them for oil at the same time.
Working together, they got a better yield. Once the oil was made, they split it up depending on how many olive trees their family had. She said the first taste of the newly pressed olive oil was wonderful, and I believed her. They harvest the olives in October. I told her if I was ever in Florence in October, I would help her family pick olives. I meant it too. Now that would be a fun experience!
We rode up to the Piazza Michelangelo, and the view was as amazing as it was the day before on the bike tour. We could see all of Florence from the piazza. There were many tourists taking pictures of the view. There were several gelato and drink vendors, and vendors selling tacky souvenirs, like an apron with naked David on the front.
There were steps leading down to a lower level at the piazza. People of all ages had begun to sit on the steps waiting for the spectacular view of the sunset. There were two middle-aged couples unpacking their picnic dinner on the steps and pouring their glasses of wine.
They had the best spot in the city for dinner, I thought. On the lower tier was an outdoor restaurant with a jazz musician playing music. The sound melodiously floated up to greet us as the light breeze blew energy into our art-weary minds.
If I lived in Florence, this is the place I would come with friends several times a month to watch the sunset and the moonrise with a good bottle of wine.
Bronwyn and I sat my Mom on a bench overlooking the city beside one of the gelato vendors with a bottle of water. We had to climb a hill, and then take on over 400 steps to re-visit San Miniato al Monte, and I knew it would be unfair to ask my mother to attempt that climb.
So, off we went.
We noticed a huge monastery to the left of the church for Benedictine Monks. As we continued to walk towards the church, I noticed a discrete white flag with a red cross at the top reminding me of the Knights Templar. It also made me wonder if the Knights Templar had anything to do with San Miniato al Monte.
At the bottom of the steps was a table with some young boys collecting money for a drug rehabilitation program in Italy. Apparently, the Italian government gives nothing to drug rehabilitation programs, so Bronwyn and I donated money to their cause.
It was far better that we spent our money helping kids that have lost their way, than using that money to buy a tea cloth that has “I heart Italy” stamped on it.
We climbed the steps, and walked into the basilica. It was just as impressive during the second visit as it was the first time.
Tranquility!
Clean, crisp air.
We walked around the church, and the only sound was my squeaking sneakers.
SQUEAK, squeak, SQUEAK, squeak…
I thought Bronwyn was going to punch me.
We sat down on one of the seats in a pew and just looked around in awe.
It was so peaceful there.
Then, bells from the church began to toll.
Bells of San Miniato al Monte
The ringing reverberated through the grand building making me catch my breath.
Wide-eyed and full of wonderment, we sat and listened to the bells.
When we left the church, we felt truly lucky to have had the experience of being there.
If I lived in Florence, this is another place I would often visit.
On the walk down the hill, a brown robed monk passed us. He seemed happy, definitely not sullen.
We found my Mom where we left her. I was surprised she didn’t buy a gelato. I would have.
After waiting for 15 minutes in the taxi line and noticing the lack of taxis driving by, I called for a taxi, and we rode back to the hotel and changed for dinner.
Rachele made reservations for us at a restaurant called Za-Za. When we pulled up in the taxi, I was deeply worried because there was a line of 100 or so people waiting to get in. I walked to the front of the line and said we had a reservation and that the Hotel Morandi had made it for us. Several people at the front of the line complained about having reservations as well. It didn’t look good for us; then, a waitress came out and walked us right in and sat us down at a table.
Rachele had come through for us!
Za-Za was a very popular restaurant.
They sell merchandise at the restaurant, so Mom bought Grappa and Orange-cello for my Dad, and I got some truffle paste and truffle oil. The restaurant was fun and upbeat, and the food was fantastic.
There was a jazz musician playing in the restaurant, which was a great ending to a beautiful day.
We caught a taxi back to the hotel, and once in our rooms we quickly fell fast asleep.
We only had ½ a day left in Florence; then, it was off to Rome to stay in a monastery. I had never been to Rome, nor had I ever stayed in a monastery. I was about to find out which I liked better: Sister Domenica of Paradise’s convent or the monastery in Rome.
Ciao