Churches and Markets in Florence

Early morning train rides... make me tired.  Especially when they're preceded by late nights.  Got up in time to head out for the train and discovered that one of my fellow students had gotten locked out of his room by his three roommates.  He was quite angry because he was planning to go to Cinque Terre directly from Florence (the destination for the day) and all of his stuff, including his wallet and luggage was locked in. He managed to contact one of his roommates to have them come back, but by the time he got there and they were able to head to the train station (it's a 15 minute walk at least, so I'd already left at his urging) he barely had time to get to the station.  They managed it, barely, arriving only about a minute before the train.

The ride was relatively uneventful, and upon arrival we made a quick stop at a cafe for some food.  We were supposed to meet in front of the Basilica of San Lorenzo at nine but we weren't paying attention to where we were going and ended up taking a bit of a detour.  We made it just fine, though.  

After talking about the church (we didn't go inside) we walked past the Medici Palace and went over to see The Last Supper by Andrea del Castagno at Sant'Apollonia, which used to be a convent.  It was a very beautiful work with amazing colors and shading.  On the way out I noticed an odd work, part of which is shown on the left, in which the infant Jesus appears to have lost something down the good Virgin's bodice while she just stares on, knowing he can do no wrong.  or something.

After that, we walked over to the Dominican monastery, San Marco, which is home to an amazing collection of frescoes by Fra Angelico, of which we were not allowed to take photos.  A lot of them looked pretty identical, anyway.  There was one in each of the 20-30 monk's cells plus a huge Annunciation at the top of the stairs.  Gabriel's wings sparkle due to the addition of mica to the paint.

After that we headed over to the Foundling Hospital, or Ospedale degli Innocenti, which was where people could take unwanted infants and put them on a lazy Susan for the church (or state?) to raise.  Despite being called a hospital, it's actually an orphanage and was designed by Brunelleschi, the same guy who made the dome of the Duomo.  

Then it was 11:40ish and time for lunch.  Some headed to make the climb up the 460 some-odd steps of the Duomo, some for lunch... I went off, alone, in search of water, as I was so parched by now I was having difficulty swallowing.  After a cash machine (bancomat!) and a couple blocks, I found a cafe with liter bottles and got myself one.  It was cold and delicious, and took me some work to actually drink because I'd been so thirsty.  

Free of thirst, I wandered around, took pictures, and got slightly lost.  I've decided that I really like all the signs in Florence.  They're very vertical and bright, sometimes, and generally only make much sense from one direction without a mirror.  They tend to be very generic and require that you get up close to see the name of the shop itself.  After finding myself... or, more accurately, the large plaza with the fake David and a homo-erotic statue of naked men just off the Ponte Vecchio, I found a small sandwich shop, one with raw ingredients rather than premade panini, and got prociutto and goat cheese on a very nice, thin foccia crusted with salt crystals.  The goat cheese wasn't the typical soft stuff you spread on crackers, but a thinly sliced, delicious block of white.  I plan to find it again on our third trip.

Gelato (numero uno) for the day sits on the left.  It's a dark chocolate ganache with the frutti di bosco, fruits of the forest, which I really like.  The combo was really delicious.  It came from the same gelateria I went to the first week in Florence.  Oh, the background for the image was really yellow, so this one's been Photoshopped to remove it.

After devouring numero uno, I found that Florence has a Grom (the gelateria with the all natural, organic ingredients from Siena), and decided I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have their Lemon Chill-like puckery lemon and get the raspberry I missed when we were in Siena.  It was as good as I'd remembered, though the line was significantly longer.  After lunch I wandered around more taking photos, occasionally running into classmates, more often alone.

Around two I headed in the direction of the Ponte Vecchio to meet the rest of the group at our last stop for the day, the Brancacci Chapel at Santa Maria del Carmine and the beautiful frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino.

After our fifteen minutes in the chapel (apparently you're not allowed to stay long) we were free to do what we wished.  I joined some of my fellows for a walk through the San Lorenzo market and it's amazing collection of stuff... one might even say some of it was junk to clutter up your shelves, but there were masks and leather goods, purses, belts and diaries of "Italian" leather, clothes and scarves, and knickknacks.  

The ride back was quick and dinner was very saucy rigatoni followed by roasted chicken and buttered vegetables (carrots, squash, and potatoes).  We had a real dessert tonight, ice cream sandwiches in honor of two birthdays.  I was so tired by the time dinner happened that, though I managed to stay up relatively late, I didn't do much other than talk to Andy and mom before dropping into my bed (no room mate this weekend because she ran off to Cinque Terre with Michael and some others) and sleeping until 10 am.  Which I'm going to do now, other than having to get up at 8ish to catch the train to Arezzo for the antiques market.

Florence I

Today was our first day trip!  We were told to be at the local train station no later than 6:45 AM so that we could catch the fast train in.  Though I set my alarm for 5:45, my internal alarm, or something external I'm not aware of, decided that I should wake up at five.  Considering I didn't manage to get to sleep until midnight due to my very chatty roommate, this didn't leave me with much sleep.  Then the train was twenty minutes late and not an express.  Italy is odd like that.

First stop was San Miniato al Monte, a stunning church looking down on the city from one of the surrounding hilltops.  We spent a good amount of time taking photographs inside.  I did so with the Bach Magnificat in my ears setting the mood in a very fitting way.  The challenge was to not sing along.  I managed it... most of the time... and only ever so quietly if I failed.

After that was a long walk down winding roads back to the Ponte Vecchio, or old bridge,  across the Arno, which is the only bridge in Florence that predates the German retreat in WWII (thank you, Wikipedia).  It's covered with jewelry shops and tons of tourists.

Continuing our tour back towards the center of town, we entered the Orsanmichele, a rather small church with a very large tabernacle housing a painting of the Madonna and Child, which apparently cures the sick of their ailments (or, at least, did so during the plague).  It was guarded by a small woman with a loud voice who wasn't ever afraid to tell people not to take photographs.  I offered a .50 Euro coin for a small votive to light in front of it.

Finally we were able to run off and find some food.  I think everyone was pretty starved.  We'd grabbed snacks before catching the train and shortly after we arrived but much walking was done and it was time for something more substantial.  I wandered off with the Ann and Lawrence, our professors, Erica, Lawrence's TA, and Ann's two grown sons who are on the trip with us to find a panini shop that Lawrence had heard great things about.  We split up there, with Lawrence and Erica staying for a sandwich and the rest of us went to find some pasta or pizza.  The result wasn't great.  Ann and one of her sons had pizza that they deemed inedible, although my torteloni in butter and sage wasn't horrid and her other son seemed happy with his pasta ragu.  

The gelato afterward was much better.  Apparently, Italians think it's odd to get just a single flavor of gelato, so I'll be trying two each day, as I have so far.  Festival Del Gelato was amazing!  They had at least fifty flavors to choose from with a variety of milk, cream, and sorbetto flavors, all of which were decorated to show off their contents.  The colors were so rich and beautiful and I had a difficult time choosing.  I decided to go with one of my favorite combinations, raspberry and mango.  Be sure that I'll be visiting again on our next two forays to Florence.

After lunch we stared at the huge Duomo di Firenze, (the Basilica di Santa Maria  del Fiore) and the Baptistery and Campanile (bell tower) in front of and beside it and spent more time taking photos.  We should be entering it's great dome, known as Brunelleschi's Dome after it's architect, on one of our later trips.

After wandering around for a bit afterward, we headed back to the train station for the 5 PM train and rush hour traffic back to Castiglion Fiorentino.  Dinner tonight was penne rigatte in a light oil sauce with fresh tomatoes and Parmesan cheese followed by a simple salad and thinly sliced roast beef (rare or well done) and some divine mashed potatoes.  We had an actual dessert tonight rather than the usual fruit, something they call chocolate salami.  Which is sort of indescribable but tastes a lot like chocolate fudge and has little bits of sweet cookie, perhaps something like ladyfingers, mixed in to be the salami "fat".

The post dinner time was taken up with sorting through images from today, some minor editing, and the blog, of course!  Now it's 12:30 and plenty late for bed.  Until tomorrow!