1/21/19: opening hours

I continue to be flabbergasted by how early/late things are open here, specifically museums and such, and OH BY THE WAY ALSO THIS PUBLIC LIBRARY WHERE I AM HAVING A GLASS OF WINE AND LOOKING AT THE DOME OF THE DUONO and my hand to god this place is open until 11 pm. IT IS A PUBLIC LIBRARY AND IT HAS A BAR. I may have died and gone to heaven. Part of the building dates to the 13^th century and so I am moving to Florence to live in this library forever and ever amen. (Uh, also, it's now 8:30 here and I left the library hours ago and had dinner, mother, DON'T WORRY.)

Sunday morning I finally got my wish to ride the Metro in Rome and it was…fine. The seats are more generously sized than the trains in NYC and the cars have TVs showing the news (no sound). Rome only has 3 lines, with a 4^th under construction and something like 20 years behind schedule, which, Rome, I feel you. I got to the Termini super early, having wanted to make sure I wasn’t late, and the Termini is pretty horrible so rather than hang around there for an hour I figured I’d see if I could take an earlier train. Here my suspicion that lines are not an area of strength for the Italians was confirmed: the line for the ticket ladies was governed by a DMV/deli counter-type take-a-number system. I was grateful because I have been cut in on several times on this trip, including just moments ago in the goddamn public library (bar).

Ticket for the earlier train secured, at first I was pleased that seats are assigned—no more walking through endless Amtrak cars, looking for an open seat—but then I quickly realized if there is a five-year-old having a meltdown in the immediate vicinity you can’t get up and move away. Headphones! The train ride did include some lovely scenery—lavender, some sheep (!), a bajillion vineyards, handsome castle-y things atop hills, etc.—but the train was moving so fast (up to 248 km/hour! I totally forget what that means in mph but it has to be a lot!) and there were a lot of tunnels so it wasn’t exclusively a scenic ride.

I didn’t really know what to expect from Florence, besides some art, I guess, so after scarfing a plate of tagliatelle with truffle cream sauce on my way from the train station to my hotel (I have made it a sacred goal to eat my weight in pasta every single day and I am here to tell you that is not actually as easy as it sounds but I, sir, am no quitter!), I figured I’d swing by the Uffizi and see if I could sneak in. My experience with Rome had been largely line-free but kind of like the 12 Apostles in Australia, I finally found ALL of the people in Italy: in line at the Uffizi. So, I retrenched and retraced my steps to do some amazed gaping at the Duomo. That thing came to PLAY.

Outside of the unbelievable insanity that is this monstrosity (I mean that as a compliment?), otherwise Florence feels like a smaller, cleaner, better organized, Rome. The architecture is much more consistent in style (Duomo aside my GOODNESS) and so the city is much less visually overwhelming than Rome is and I find walking around very pleasant and calming—there are palazzos practically every three or four blocks and there aren’t too many people here—though there are some—and I can’t say a word against this place. In fact, I like it so much, and I have so much museum work to do here, that I decided to ditch Venice (see also: aqua alta) and stay in Florence until Saturday when I’ll head back to Rome and my besties at the River Palace. (On check out, Tatyana finally couldn’t help herself and slyly asked, “Did you pack your charger?” Yes, Tatyana, I did.)

My hotel here in Florence is another reason to extend my stay. It’s crazily done up and the staff nametags all advertise their support for AIDS research. My room has a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in Italian and English), and the breakfast buffet goes from 7 to noon and the eggs this morning were deeeeeeeeeelish (don’t tell the River Palace!). The RP has a more extravagant set up for breakfast, and REAL coffee, but this joint is bringing everything I need and it’s been lovely. Here’s a salon where I posted up and did some stuff yesterday afternoon.

Today is Monday and, you may have heard, sometime during the overnight there was a total lunar eclipse. Florence was slated to see it over four hours in the very early am. I woke up a little before 5 and since the “total” part wasn’t scheduled until 6:21, I futzed around a bit and then headed out about 5:30. There is a palazzo three blocks down and I figured I’d pop over there, check out the moon, maybe even duck back to the hotel to warm up if I needed to, etc., etc. Let’s just pause here to get it out: HA. HA. HA.

What actually happened was I spent two hours walking around Florence in the dark looking for the fucking moon and never saw the damn thing. I’m pretty sure that it was an issue of how low the moon was to the horizon, at least by the time I got to a place where I might have been able to see it, but it was still an interesting experience. Once my palazzo theory didn’t pan out I headed toward the Duomo which has a much bigger palazzo (naturally) and from there to the river. There are about 2,000 bridges over the Arno and I criss-crossed about 80% of them (okay, 4), trying to follow my compass app to an unobstructed view of 283 degrees NW. At one point I was standing mid-bridge and saw a couple come toward me and stop 20 or so feet away. They too were scanning the skies, and eventually the lady was dispatched to approach me. She said something in Italian that included the word “christo” (or similar) and since this particular bridge was only about ten feet over the water I was pretty sure they weren’t here to suicide and the only other logical explanation to be standing around on bridges at 6 in the morning was the moon.

I didn’t bother digging up my “mi dispiace” but just addressed her in English and it turned out they were British and in two hours of tromping around I never saw anyone else who could plausibly be looking for the moon so either the Italians knew more than we did or…draw your own conclusions. The husband joined us and they asked me where I thought the moon was (okay…) and I will not relate this real-time but instead say that I ran into them a total of three times this morning and each time they wanted to compare notes on where the moon might be and whether we were in agreement as to where NNW might be and once I jokingly said, “I mean, how many total lunar eclipses do you end up not getting to see in a lifetime?” and sure that wasn’t super funny but they both looked at me blankly and the husband brought up watching it on YouTube and the wife wanted to know if I lived in the neighborhood behind us and now it was 6:45 in the am and we’re standing on this bridge and I’m thinking to myself I am going to have to actually tell these people I don’t want to be their friend. But they seemed nice, if weird, and harmless—they looked to be in their 60s, maybe, and the wife had put actual lipstick on before they commenced their outing, so I weasled away as quickly as I could and walked two miles home because that is how far I managed to get from the hotel in search of the freaking moon but when I got back breakfast was open and so all’s well that ends well.

Today (Monday) I did some ticket buying, and so I have a 8:30 am appointment at the Uffizi tomorrow, then two more days for the Pitti and the Boboli and then Friday morning I have an appointment at the Accademia Gallery, which is better known as The Museum Where The David Is, but there are many other things to see as well and yeah, okay, I’m starting to get into this Florence thing.

Post-ticket spree, I swung down to the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, aka Dick Medici’s place, and did a tour of that joint—those Medicis were INSANE—and then, naturally, in a palace that dates to 1444, there is a temporary exhibit devoted to the work of Banksy, the famously anonymous London-based artist. I lurve that guy but checking out a collection of his work inside Dick Medici’s place was super trippy. I had completely missed the whole Walmart fiasco, and that story is FANTASTIC. Banksy did a piece called Festival, also known as Destroy Capitalism, and it looks like this.

Due to what I can only characterize as catastrophically bad decision-making OR the most epic insider prank of all time, Walmart (WALMART) was selling (without permission) copies of this print online. Banksy ended up having to sue Walmart (WALMART) in order to stop them making money off of his work, without his consent, and the piece that this whole insanity was built around is an ironic take on how a merchant is making a profit selling shirts that say “Destroy Capitalism.” Honestly, I’m leaning toward epic insider prank. [NB: Banksy being Banksy I should totally fact-check this whole story (yet I haven't).]

Dick Medici’s place was pretty cool to experience though it was hard to tell what was original and what was not, but overall I had the impression that the Medicis did alright for themselves and seemed to enjoy spending some of that dough on tapestries and more power to them for that. I go around buying fancy yarn all the time and it’s pretty much the same thing. (It is not, at all.)

Pictures!

I passed the Uffizi early on in my fruitless moon search and laughed out loud at this statue. It’s like this dude is trying to shove the kid out of the shot but it’s a SCULPTURE so they probably had like three months to be like “nix the kid.” Hahahahaha I’m sure there is a long historically important story here but I like my version better.

Also outside the Uffizi I caught this angel and a balloon-head guy taking a smoke break. I guess I just thought maybe they'd have a faculty lounge or something, but nope: just pop a squat, take a few minutes to kvetch, then it's back to work, stone angel and balloon-head guy: let's go! 

I am a HUGE fan of tapestries—HUGE—and fortunately so were the Medicis, as there were a TON of them hanging around Dick Medici’s place, and I would not normally poke fun at these things because they are SO impressive to me, but holy smokes what went wrong with this FACE? I’m sure the weavers couldn’t have imagined their work would have to stand the test of sag, but I’m not 100% convinced that sag is responsible here.

Speaking of faces, presumably this dude paid for the portrait and he still came out looking like a creep?

There was a LOT going on in this ceiling but obviously the best part was the cloud-cows.

Apparently they keep this room (in the Medici palace) reserved for the president of France whenever he visits Florence and YIKES, Macron, find a way to never go to Florence. What are all those chairs lined up for next to that rickety-ass bed? Do NOT find out!

There are way too many heads in this picture for the requisite number of people-carrying horses to be possible.

Met my new best friend. Too bad he's more than 500 years dead. Nothing gold stays, kids. 

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