October 23, 2010: Feel Like We Are Being Followed

Quick note: our regular blogger is taking a break tonight so today's post is brought to you by me, guest writer Mike. So this may not be as eloquent (heck, eloquent might be the most elequent word I use) post compared to the previous 53 days, but hopefully it gets the job done. I will also try to avoid using the work "blog" since I know how that makes some of our readers (Elise) feel. On to the post!!

Waking up today the plan was to take a day trip to the city of Volterra. There is no direct route there and our online searches on how to go from Florence to Volterra proved difficult so we decided to just show up at the bus station and wing it. Normally this tactic works for us, except when it is a Saturday. Bus schedules aren't as regular and it turns out the first bus we could catch would be at 1:00 PM, which, followed by a two hour ride, would result in our day being kaput. We decided to save Volterra for another day. With our plans crushed (or at least postponed), we opted to check out the nearby town of Fiesole (which has daily bus service arriving every 20 minutes) and is only 30 minutes away.

Founded by the Etruscans 400 years before the Romans found Florence, the small town of Fiesole is located on a hill overlooking Arno Valley. Once we arrived we took care of the main town attraction, the view. It was a cloudy day so the view was not as grand as it could have been, but it was still impressive to see Florence and the surrounding Tuscan hills laid our before us (though the view of Florence from the Piazzale Michelangelo is still my personal favorite). After taking in the view we went down the list of sights in Fiesole, first being the Church of San Francesco.

The church itself is pretty small with some colorful paintings, but the highlight of the church was the Ethnographic Missionary Museum located in the basement. The museum presented ancient coins, Chinese clothes, weapons, Buddhas, and an Egyptian mummy (definitely unexpected in the basement of a church). Question of the day was from Aviva, "how does a church even acquire a mummy?" Don't know. There was also an exposed wall that are the ruins of a 3rd century Etruscan wall.

Next, we went back to the main square to check out the town's main duomo. Nothing stood out too much but, like most churches, was nice inside. Leaving the duomo we crossed the street and went to the Roman Theater and Archaeological Park. The park had three main ruin sites (the theater, some temples, and the roman baths) with some other ruins scattered around. The theater itself was well intact (and still in use) while the other ruins were definitely no longer in use. I think the most impressive part was that without even knowing there were Roman baths at the site, we were able to identify them immediately. Guess we learned something from our earlier travels in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Nora.

We then visited the Civic Museum located in the park which displayed some artifacts from Estruscan and Roman archeological sites. While the museum was enjoyable, we were constantly being followed by museum staff - not there to answer questions, just to follow us. This isn't the first time we have been followed around a museum, so it has become quite amusing to us. I guess it did deter us from stealing the 3rd century BC pot shard that we have always coveted.

Leaving the archeological park, we decided it was time for a lunch break to refuel. After a delicious focaccia pizza, gelato, and walk around town, we were ready to hit up the final museum, the Bandini. The Bandini is pretty small with some colorful paintings on wood panels. For the most part it is enjoyable except, once again, we were followed by musuem staff, but this time it was ridiculous. The woman was ALWAYS two steps behind us. Aviva and I couldnt even look at each other knowing we would just start laughing. So we just kept walking as this lady was 2 feet behind us. At one point we tried to devise a plan to split up to see what she would do but by the time it was to enact the plan we finished the museum.

After completing the sights in Fiesole, we headed back down to Florence to check out the Medici-Riccardi Palace, Medici Chapel, and a photography museum. It is safe to say the Medicis knew how to live and die in style. The palace itself, home to Lorenzo the Magnificent (who was, believe it or not, magnificent) with guests of the likes of teenager Michelangelo, Mr. Da Vinci, and Botticelli is full of frescoed walls and ceilings, tapestries, and huge rooms. The highlight was the Chapel of Magi which had the three walls covered in a huge fresco, each wall dominated by a different color (one red, one white, one green...hey! those are the same colors of the Italian flag!!!) and the Luca Giordano Room (similar to the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles) which had an incredible frescoed ceiling of the Medici hanging out with the greek Gods (oh, there is Mr. Magnificent sharing a laugh with Zeus).

Leaving the palace we headed to Medici's private chapel (yup, private chapel) that was divided into three sections: the crypt (not much to say about it, just a cool looking room), the Chapel of Princes, and the New Sacristy. The Chapel of Princes is an enormous domed room covered in beautiful marble from floor to ceiling (including the floor and ceiling). The chapel houses the tombs (also huge and completely made of marble) of six Medici rulers with the coat of arms (a shield with 6 balls representing medicine pills - get it? Medici, medicine, pills) on each wall.

The New Sacristy contains the tombs of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Lorenzo Medici II (grandson of Mr. Magnificent), and Giuliano Medici. Everything in the room was designed by Michelangelo, which you would think would have been incredible, but left me with mixed emotions about it. The tombs were pretty amazing but the rest of the room I thought was rather bland. Aviva thinks it has something to do with his state of mind (he was older, depressed at the time, and was working on tombs for the family that housed him during his formative years) so I can see why it would be pretty plain.

Our last stop was at the Museo Nazionale Alinari Fotografia which is a great photograph museum. Included were photos from different areas of Italy during different eras (including all the way back to the 1850's), a history of cameras (with a room full of cameras showing development over time) and photographs displaying the history of the art of photography (gelatin prints up to pictures from space), including some early photos showing the human body in motion were all on display.

After another full day we headed home to relax before going back to dinner at our favorite restaurant, I Tarocchi. Tonight's menu included a cheese and pear plate, pear and cheese filled ravioli (AMAZING), magherita pizza, a greek salad, and some vino. Full of food and wine we stumbled the block back to our apartment to relax for the night.

Hopefully this post was bearable. (if you wouldn't mind another posting from the guest writer leave a comment so Aviva believes it). If not, no worries, tomorrow Aviva will be back to writing the post and I will go back to loading pictures.

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Mike - Pistacchio e Cookies

Aviva - Mango e Limone

To view pictures of our day, click here.