All Roads Lead to Rome

A light rain had dampened the streets overnight as we packed up and called a taxi on this Sunday morning, our destination the Santa Moria Novella train station.  I reflected once again, as I had every time we took a taxi in Florence, that I was glad not to be driving.  The streets were crowded with pedestrians, bicycles, and cars, and our driver was very aggressive as he made his way through them all.  I would have meekly waited for the woman with a baby carriage to cross the street, for example, instead of tooting my horn and cutting her off.

The train station was chaotic, as we had expected it to be, one of the few things we had been anxious about on this trip.  But we discovered where our gate was (Martha had pre-purchased tickets) and figured out how the complicated signage worked, our train and track number climbing slowly up to the top until we heard it being announced in both Italian and English, and then had to hurry along as it began boarding in what seemed to be not enough time at all.

The high-speed trains here, as in all of Europe, are clean and comfortable, and we watched the scenery whizz by outside the windows at 155 miles per hour.  Interestingly, whenever the coach fell dark as we went through a tunnel, I could feel the pressure in my ears, exactly as one does when climbing or descending mountain roads in our part of the country.

The trip to Rome took just a little over an hour, and at the station we easily found a taxi to take us to our hotel, the Grand Hotel Tiberio, where we began to meet our travel companions in the lobby and elevator.  This group was from all over the world – Canada, Singapore, Australia – and we would come to know some of them well over the next two weeks.  We also met our tour director, Lino, who had a thick Italian accent that I sometimes struggled to understand.   

We boarded a coach and went on a brief sight-seeing tour of Rome, the “Eternal City,” stopping at the Basilica Santa Maria in Cosmedin, which dated to the Sixth Century.  There we viewed the relics of the famous saint of love, Valentine, and also saw the “Mouth of Truth.”  According to medieval legend the “mouth” will bite off the hand of any liar who places their hand in its mouth, and it was made famous in the movie Roman Holiday featuring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.  Yes, I still have both hands, and so does Martha.

The flower-crowned skull of Saint Valentine is in a side alcove, and we learned that he was a third-century Roman cleric martyred on February 14. 

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a pizzeria for a get together and a pizza dinner, where we began to get acquainted with some of the group, an interesting group of travelers, including a retired Air Force pilot who had flown fighter jets, and two women from Saskatchewan who had met while cold-water diving and whose husbands did not like to travel.  One of the pleasures of travel is not just seeing new places but meeting new people.`

Final Day in Florence

On our last full day in Florence, we decided to return to Rooster for a more traditional “American” breakfast – eggs and bacon again, and not as crowded as our last visit.  For lunch, we returned to Tijuana Grill again for Florentine-Mexican food.  We liked this place, and the two sisters who were waitresses there were very friendly. 

On our final afternoon here, we went on separate errands – I had to find an ATM to get some more Euros, which I succeeded in doing – but met for a cappuccino at the Duomo Museum café.  We enjoyed people-watching, and sitting at an outdoor table, and we felt very European and cosmopolitan.  I could enjoy this lifestyle.

For dinner, we returned for the third time to Bistrot 74, which by my calculation was slightly less than two minutes from our Airbnb.  I enjoy living in the country, where the occasional deer will wander through our yard, and you can open the window this time of year and there is absolutely no sound at all.  But sometimes I think it would be nice to have restaurants as nice as Bistrot 74 and Risotteria Melotti so close to our front door.

The Medici Chapels

Today we toured the Medici Chapels, home to some of Michelangelo’s sculptures, as well as the burial place of some of the greatest Renaissance families, including Lorenzo the Magnificent.  The two chapels were built between the 16th and 17th centuries as an extension to the Basilica of San Lorenzo.  Our tour guide was Emmanuella, and as it turned out we were the only people on this tour so we had her all to ourselves.  Another beautiful place of worship!

After the tour, we went out into the plaza and Emmanuella pointed out the Basilica di San Lorenzo and part of a wall that she said was the oldest in Florence, dating to 600 AD.  

She also pointed out to us a pasta restaurant that she said was the best in the city, and we checked it out but decided against it.  Can a person eat too much pasta?

Across the street was a macelleria, a butcher shop, and like many we had seen it displayed in its windows huge pieces of beef, the source of Florentine steak, that were being aged under refrigeration.

Our time in Florence on our own was coming to an end because our next tour, Chapter Three, was scheduled to begin in two days.  The flexible passes to the museums during our time here had been convenient, and together with all of the free time it had been a welcome, restful time between the first tour and the next, which we knew would be a little more demanding because we would be packing up every other day and traveling longer distances in Italy.

We stopped at a favorite place we had discovered, just across from the Duomo, a rooftop bar connected to a small hotel whose name I never recorded.  Afterward, we walked across the plaza to the Duomo Café and enjoyed a simple supper of Tuscan soup and bruschetta.

Basilica di San Miniato

Martha had read about the Basilica di San Miniato, which was a little off the beaten path for most visitors.  Located on a hill overlooking the Piazza Michelangelo (see post of November 1), which itself overlooks the Arno River and Florence, it had even more spectacular views.  It was some distance away, so we decided to take a taxi and planned to walk back. 

The basilica is one of the finest Romanesque structures in all of Tuscany.  It also has a spectacular monumental cemetery, and readers of this blog will know that I especially enjoy visiting burial places.  The basilica was undergoing renovations, but we walked around the side and began seeing remarkable gravestones, tombs, and statues.

Then we walked around the back where we saw even more of the same, acres and acres, with small paths threading through tombs and mausoleums as large as small churches.  What a beautiful place!  And we had it mostly to ourselves.

On our way back to the front of the basilica, Martha noticed that the doors were open, so we slipped inside and explored its dark interior, not as large as some of the magnificent cathedrals we had visited but somehow a very quiet and sacred place, a sanctuary for prayer and meditation and very much still in use.  A robed priest, or perhaps a monk, slipped quietly into a private area and disappeared.

We made our way downhill to the Piazza Michelangelo, where we had been two weeks earlier.  It was a little windy today, but we found a table in the sun in a café below the piazza and enjoyed pizza and red wine. 

From there we made out way back downhill through a maze of gardens and walkways, including a Japanese garden, and found ourselves not far from the Ponte Vecchio crossing the Arno River.  It had been a long walk and we had worked up a good appetite, so we decided to try a restaurant recommended to us by Monica, our landlady, on our first day, Risotteria Melotti.

I love risotto, and sometimes make it myself, a slow, labor-intensive process of adding stock to rice (usually Arborio rice).  If you order risotto at a restaurant and it arrives in less than 25 minutes, you are getting a re-heated product.  That was not the case tonight!  The menu contained nothing but risotto, and in varieties I had never imagined:  Risotto with minced Pork and Veal, Cinnamon and Rosemary; Risotto with red Chicory and Monte Veronese cheese; Risotto with Pistacchio cream and Stracciatella cheese; Risotto with Duck Ragù, Orange and toasted Pine nuts; Risotto with Pumpkin and Amarone wine.  So much Risotto, so little time!  We opted for an appetizer of arancini (rice balls) and then shared the risotto with fresh fish of the day, sea bass, and absolutely delicious.

 
We learned from the friendly waiter that the restaurant is owned by the Melotti family, who grows three varieties of rice (not the Arborio that I am used to) on a farm near Venice.  We loved this photo of the family posed with what looked like a tractor from the Model-T era.

We had enjoyed some delicious food on this trip, especially the Culinary Journey, but I think this was our best dinner to date.

The Pitti Palace

Today, we visited yet another famous Florentine icon, Il Porcellino, which means “the little pig.”  It is a statue of a pig located in the Mercato Nuovo (the New Market) and supposedly brings good luck to visitors who rub his bronze snout. 

Il Porcellino was on the way to The Pitti Palace, another museum located in a huge Renaissance mansion on the south side of the River Arno near the Ponte Vecchio.  The Palace dates to 1458 and was originally the town residence of Luca Pitti, an ambitious and wealthy Florentine banker.  It was bought by the Medici family in 1549 and became the chief residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

Like the Uffizi the day before, this museum was simply too vast to take in.  It was less crowded than the Uffizi had been, though, and thus more enjoyable to explore.

And once again, I craned my neck to marvel at the ceilings, not just in some of the rooms but in every single room.

We had lunch in the museum café, and then spent the afternoon – another beautiful, sunny one – exploring the terraced 111-acre Boboli Gardens behind the Pitti Palace, established by the Medicis and famous for the Fountain of Neptune.  The crowded streets of Florence seemed a world away up here in this huge green sanctuary.

For dinner, we decided on Osteria il Giglio D’Oro, not far from our Airbnb.  Like Bistrot 74, the restaurant was reasonably priced, and we often economized by sharing entrées.  The food in all of the places we tried thus far was unfailingly delicious, the service was good, and no gratuities are expected. 

The Uffizi

We spent the morning exploring the Uffizi Gallery, one of the most famous art museums in Florence and also its most visited.  It is absolutely vast, and holds a collection of priceless works, mostly from the Italian Renaissance.  The museum complex was begun in 1560 by the Medici family, the wealthiest family in the world at the time.

To be honest, it was almost too much to take in, with room after room of huge, priceless statues and works of art. 

Even the ceilings were covered with frescoes!  An art historian could have spent all year in the museum admiring in detail the art collected there, and I almost felt guilty that we spent only one morning, walking by (and beneath) masterpiece after masterpiece.

We saw countless works from Michelangelo, and also Caravaggio’s famous Medusa.  You can buy note cards in the museum gift shop depicting this lovely work of art.

We were walking through one room, and I spotted a beautiful painting that I recalled from a very long time ago.  It was called Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) by the 19th century Italian painter Antonio Ciseri, and it depicts Pilate presenting Jesus to the crowds just before washing his hands of him.  The details are remarkably poignant - a group of woman on the right turning away in sorrow, Roman soldiers on the left preparing to take him to Golgotha.  "I know this painting!" I told Martha.  "It was in my childhood Bible!"  And sure enough, upon returning home I found it right there, in John 19 between page 854 and 855, presented to me in 1958 to mark my graduation from the Park Street Congregational Church Primary Department to the Junior Department.  I was nine years old, a child who could never have imagined at the time traveling to Florence and seeing the original more than six decades later.

Our exploration of Florence continued that afternoon, and we decided to eat lunch at a place Martha had read about called Tijuana Grill.  I did not think that we would be eating any Mexican food in Italy; in my post of October 28 I described having lunch at the Charlotte airport at Tequileria, “probably our last Mexican food for a long time.”  But this Florentine take on Mexican food was actually so good that we visited it twice.  We were talking to somebody about where we were from, and a couple who heard us came up to our table and said they were from Maggie Valley, NC.  Small world!  I discovered for the second or third time, though, that Italian beer is not very good, and I never ordered it again.  But the margaritas were excellent!

The Bell Tower and the Crypt

This morning, we had planned to climb the impressive bell tower that stands next to the Duomo, but we were disappointed to learn that it was undergoing repairs and was closed all week.  The 277-foot bell tower, or Campanile di Giotto, stands next to the cathedral and the baptistry, and rings throughout the day to mark the hours and to call worshipers to prayer.

Since the bell tower was closed, we went into the cathedral and visited the Crypt of Santa Reparata lying beneath the floor, which was unearthed during excavations in 1965.  It dates to the Fifth or Sixth Century, and the church above it was rebuilt several times, enlarged, and finally abandoned in 1379 to make room for the cathedral.  It contains many mosaics and tombstones, and also the remains of Filippo Brunelleschi.

We spent the afternoon exploring Florence some more and stopped for lunch at Trattoria Vecchia Griglia, an eatery on a busy street, the Via del Canto del Nelli, where we had some delicious zuppa fagioli.  This is a view (from Google Maps Street View) showing the little place, tucked between other sidewalk cafés and restaurants.  Note how the street is open to cars, bicycles, and pedestrians,  Exploring this city on foot means keeping your wits about you because of the traffic whizzing by on what you might think is a pedestrian street.

We enjoyed Bistrot 74 so much the night before last that we went there again.  The owner was mingling with guests, and I noticed that he was speaking German to a couple at another table, so I asked him how many languages he spoke.  He hesitated a minute (counting up in his head) and said, "Six."  We had found so far that he, and many other Italians, spoke English very well, and many other languages, too. The other night, we were offered a complimentary glass of limoncello after our dinner and we were offered the same tonight.  Limoncello is the second-most popular liqueur in Italy and is traditionally served chilled as an after-dinner "digestif."  Wikipedia sternly says that it is “believed to aid digestion, even though there is not strong evidence to support this.”  We beg to differ! And we have come to enjoy it very much since our return from Italy.