Happy Birthday to the best Mom in the world! My beautiful mother turns 60 today! I only write that because she looks nowhere near her age--she is so gorgeous and vibrant. I love her very much and feel so fortunate to have grown up being so close to her. She is infinitely inspiring, encouraging and empowering--the most amazing influence on my life. My mother is the kindest woman and a friend to everyone--I feel so proud when I find trait of hers surfacing (however small!) in me. It is the biggest compliment when people tell me I look like her or I do something that reminds them of her. Muppy, I love you very much and am sorry I am not there to spend your special day with you. But I will be thinking of you all day (on Italian time :) ) and hope this is the beginning of a particularly special year for you!
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Happy Birthday Mom!
Happy Birthday to the best Mom in the world! My beautiful mother turns 60 today! I only write that because she looks nowhere near her age--she is so gorgeous and vibrant. I love her very much and feel so fortunate to have grown up being so close to her. She is infinitely inspiring, encouraging and empowering--the most amazing influence on my life. My mother is the kindest woman and a friend to everyone--I feel so proud when I find trait of hers surfacing (however small!) in me. It is the biggest compliment when people tell me I look like her or I do something that reminds them of her. Muppy, I love you very much and am sorry I am not there to spend your special day with you. But I will be thinking of you all day (on Italian time :) ) and hope this is the beginning of a particularly special year for you!
The Bargello
On Sunday, I still had one more museum I needed to visit while they were free. The Bargello has some beautiful sculptures of Michelangelo's and also some of Donatello's. You can't take pictures INSIDE the museum but the gallery surrounds this courtyard so I was able to take pictures there:
On the second floor there is a loggia, or covered terrace, with sculptures:
On the second floor of the gallery there are two different "David" sculptures by Donatello. Looking down into the courtyard:
The ceiling of the loggia:
This building is extremely old and has been used for many things including a prison at one time. It is hard to imagine because the structure and the art on the walls and the ceiling are so pretty, I can't believe they would have thought it fit for prisoners.
They have been holding a spring concert here in the courtyard:
It was fun to revisit this museum. There was a large placard in the courtyard that told all about the history of the building and the work to restore and preserve it. The whole thing was written in Italian but I stood there for like 10 minutes reading it and I got a lot out of it! It was exciting to really be able to comprehend and get so much more out of a museum by understanding the language. Additionally, there was another temporary exhibit within the gallery and all of the little cards next to the artworks were in Italian only and I was able to read most of those as well. And with this visit, I completed my whirlwind weekend tour of the most important museums in Firenze.
On the second floor there is a loggia, or covered terrace, with sculptures:
On the second floor of the gallery there are two different "David" sculptures by Donatello. Looking down into the courtyard:
The ceiling of the loggia:
This building is extremely old and has been used for many things including a prison at one time. It is hard to imagine because the structure and the art on the walls and the ceiling are so pretty, I can't believe they would have thought it fit for prisoners.
They have been holding a spring concert here in the courtyard:
It was fun to revisit this museum. There was a large placard in the courtyard that told all about the history of the building and the work to restore and preserve it. The whole thing was written in Italian but I stood there for like 10 minutes reading it and I got a lot out of it! It was exciting to really be able to comprehend and get so much more out of a museum by understanding the language. Additionally, there was another temporary exhibit within the gallery and all of the little cards next to the artworks were in Italian only and I was able to read most of those as well. And with this visit, I completed my whirlwind weekend tour of the most important museums in Firenze.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Palazzo Pitti Visit
So after getting enough of old cars, I made it across the Arno to the grandiose Palazzo Pitti. The rooms have been turned into several different museums. Being that it was free, I had to go check it out (again). Here is the front of the palazzo:
Now, I think that the palazzo is one of the ugliest buildings in all of Firenze and I can't see why anyone would design their mansion this way. It must have had something to do with keeping the bad guys out. Anyway, I toured the 3 museums in the palazzo including a humongous painting gallery. There are something like 20 rooms or so COVERED with paintings. Not like in the Uffizi (where I had already spent 4 hours that day, mind you) where the paintings are all hung separately at a respectable distance. No, in the Palazzo Pitti they are hung all over the place and it is quite easy to get overloaded. Then they have about 6 rooms that are dressed up in the time period of Napoleon Bonaparte's sister who was living here for some time. These rooms are really ornate--each has its own color from mustard yell0w to pale blue and each is covered in heavy draperies and ornate furniture. Then finally (because apparently I was on a death-by-museum-overload kick), I toured the Costume Gallery. That one wasn't as interesting except for the clothing from a couple of the Medicis. They had clothing from one man and one woman from the Medici family. At that point I was really done with reading the little placards that went with each exhibit so it wasn't until after I checked out the decaying clothing they had lying being preserved in a very dark room (to aid in preservation, I presume) that I realized that these were their burial clothes. Poor things had been dug up and stripped naked for this exhibit! I was mildly appalled! So anyway, that is all the museum-going I could stand, but I had to take a walk through the backyard of the Palace (aka the Boboli Gardens):
When Renata and I had been a few days earlier we had missed the grotto (above). In this picture you can see the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio on the left:
The crazy looking facade of the grotto:
The painted ceiling and sunroof (!?) of the grotto:
I don't know what the grotto was used for technically. But inside there were originally some Michelangelo sculptures among some others. The originals of these pieces have been removed and are now in the Galleria dell'Accademia with David. Here you can see the copies on the left and the right of the opening into the back part of the grotto, they are the lightest (in color) sculptures in the picture: 
They are two of Michelangelo's prisoner sculptures, considered not to be finished but also thought by scholars to be a metaphor since they are unfinished or still imprisoned in their marble confines. Inside the courtyard of the Palazzo Pitti:
I told you that this was a really ugly building, there is just no interesting way to photograph it!
After my tour I went home and fell asleep on the couch at around 6pm. I was so tired from all my museum-going. I had to rouse myself at 9pm to go grab a "portare via" (takeaway) pizza from my pizzeria. I forgot to write that the night before all this crazy touring I did, I had shared a bottle of wine with three other girls. Renata, her "new" roommate Catty (from Finland) who was leaving the next day to return home and another girl from the Czech Republic whose name I forget. Renata brought a bottle of wine and we all sat on a bench in the park near our houses and drank it right out of the bottle. Not super classy, but nice and cheap and completely entertaining. Renata and I were sitting in the middle so we got a little more drunk than the others (realize that if you are sitting in the middle while playing 'pass the bottle' you are going to take two drinks for every outside person's one drink...so you have to insist that they keep up!). Anyway, we were harassed by two Italian guys who heard us talking (even though we were talking in Italian) and one of them was really keen on knowing where we were all from. I was the hold out and wouldn't tell him for like 20 min. So he just kept standing there saying, "Dai, dimmi, dai!" (C'mon, tell me, c'mon!). But I don't like the reaction I get when I tell men I am from America. It was actually quite amusing talking to him and he was surprised how well we all spoke in Italian considering we had all been here for around 2 months. Finally I told him where I was from and just as suspected I got a weird kind of "Oh, wow" reaction that he did not give the others. It's like part wonder, bewilderment, envy, and fantasy. That's the best I can describe it for now. Anyway, he had promised to leave us alone when I told him so after that he did finally bid us "arrivederci" and took off. Wild. But I guess that is to be expected when 4 pretty foreign girls are sitting in a public park drinking a bottle of wine in Italy. Renata wanted me to go with her and the other Czech girl to a party in town but I begged off saying I had to get up early for my museum crawl. Phew, for what I thought would be a relaxing weekend staying home...it sure ended up to be pretty packed!
Now, I think that the palazzo is one of the ugliest buildings in all of Firenze and I can't see why anyone would design their mansion this way. It must have had something to do with keeping the bad guys out. Anyway, I toured the 3 museums in the palazzo including a humongous painting gallery. There are something like 20 rooms or so COVERED with paintings. Not like in the Uffizi (where I had already spent 4 hours that day, mind you) where the paintings are all hung separately at a respectable distance. No, in the Palazzo Pitti they are hung all over the place and it is quite easy to get overloaded. Then they have about 6 rooms that are dressed up in the time period of Napoleon Bonaparte's sister who was living here for some time. These rooms are really ornate--each has its own color from mustard yell0w to pale blue and each is covered in heavy draperies and ornate furniture. Then finally (because apparently I was on a death-by-museum-overload kick), I toured the Costume Gallery. That one wasn't as interesting except for the clothing from a couple of the Medicis. They had clothing from one man and one woman from the Medici family. At that point I was really done with reading the little placards that went with each exhibit so it wasn't until after I checked out the decaying clothing they had lying being preserved in a very dark room (to aid in preservation, I presume) that I realized that these were their burial clothes. Poor things had been dug up and stripped naked for this exhibit! I was mildly appalled! So anyway, that is all the museum-going I could stand, but I had to take a walk through the backyard of the Palace (aka the Boboli Gardens):
When Renata and I had been a few days earlier we had missed the grotto (above). In this picture you can see the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio on the left:
The crazy looking facade of the grotto:
The painted ceiling and sunroof (!?) of the grotto:
I don't know what the grotto was used for technically. But inside there were originally some Michelangelo sculptures among some others. The originals of these pieces have been removed and are now in the Galleria dell'Accademia with David. Here you can see the copies on the left and the right of the opening into the back part of the grotto, they are the lightest (in color) sculptures in the picture: 
They are two of Michelangelo's prisoner sculptures, considered not to be finished but also thought by scholars to be a metaphor since they are unfinished or still imprisoned in their marble confines. Inside the courtyard of the Palazzo Pitti:
I told you that this was a really ugly building, there is just no interesting way to photograph it!
After my tour I went home and fell asleep on the couch at around 6pm. I was so tired from all my museum-going. I had to rouse myself at 9pm to go grab a "portare via" (takeaway) pizza from my pizzeria. I forgot to write that the night before all this crazy touring I did, I had shared a bottle of wine with three other girls. Renata, her "new" roommate Catty (from Finland) who was leaving the next day to return home and another girl from the Czech Republic whose name I forget. Renata brought a bottle of wine and we all sat on a bench in the park near our houses and drank it right out of the bottle. Not super classy, but nice and cheap and completely entertaining. Renata and I were sitting in the middle so we got a little more drunk than the others (realize that if you are sitting in the middle while playing 'pass the bottle' you are going to take two drinks for every outside person's one drink...so you have to insist that they keep up!). Anyway, we were harassed by two Italian guys who heard us talking (even though we were talking in Italian) and one of them was really keen on knowing where we were all from. I was the hold out and wouldn't tell him for like 20 min. So he just kept standing there saying, "Dai, dimmi, dai!" (C'mon, tell me, c'mon!). But I don't like the reaction I get when I tell men I am from America. It was actually quite amusing talking to him and he was surprised how well we all spoke in Italian considering we had all been here for around 2 months. Finally I told him where I was from and just as suspected I got a weird kind of "Oh, wow" reaction that he did not give the others. It's like part wonder, bewilderment, envy, and fantasy. That's the best I can describe it for now. Anyway, he had promised to leave us alone when I told him so after that he did finally bid us "arrivederci" and took off. Wild. But I guess that is to be expected when 4 pretty foreign girls are sitting in a public park drinking a bottle of wine in Italy. Renata wanted me to go with her and the other Czech girl to a party in town but I begged off saying I had to get up early for my museum crawl. Phew, for what I thought would be a relaxing weekend staying home...it sure ended up to be pretty packed!
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Cars and Culture
So after I toured the Uffizi that morning, I went home and had a nice lunch and changed because the weather was starting to get ridiculously warm. Then I walked out to Piazza della Signoria because there was going to be a big kind of car show thing. Apparently it is a kind of demonstration "race" called the Mila Miglia, I believe. I think it is supposed to mean 1000 miles. These old cars do this whole long course through Italy that lasts for a few days. So at 2pm on Saturday they were scheduled to be driving through the center of Firenze. I'm not usually so interested in cars but my classmate Yuki was so excited when she was explaining this event to the class that I figured it would be a fun thing to see. So, CAR LOVERS, this post is for you! Here I was back at the Palazzo Vecchio, which I had been photographing earlier in the day from the terrace in the Uffizi:
Here is Yuki:
I had never seen her in her traditional Japanese kimono dress. I asked her why she had dressed up and she said because it was a VERY exciting day for her--to see these cars. You would never guess it but this girl is a huge fan of Formula One racing! It's called Formula Uno here, however. Cracks me up. So she dressed up for the cars. Wild.
I was standing on the other side of the street where she is in this photo:
But then she said, no come over in the shade with me it is better. So even though I thought the angle was probably better from the spot in the sun, I came over to stand with her. Then as the time drew nearer, she realize it might be better from the other side and went over there. In the meantime, another classmate Yoko had joined us so she and I stayed put--the shade was much nicer. Leading the procession was a polizia on a motorini:
Followed by a regular police car:
Then there was the Mercedes pace car:
And then the fun began:
They were filming from this "car", sadly, from my work at ET it reminds me of the 'woman without a face' who we profiled on Insider time after time. I think she is doing better now so hopefully I am not a horrible person for drawing the comparison. But I can't help it, every time I see this picture I think of her. This car was quite functional for filming however, since there was no windshield or doors...:
It was so fun to watch these cars driving through the piazza because cars do not drive there. And to see so many old ones driving by was really a treat. I thought there were going to be maybe 20 cars but I think there were actually a couple hundred or so!
A few modern cars snuck into the race:
Then the garbage truck that is regularly driving through the city drove on the course:
And everyone cheered loudest for him! The garbage man soaked up the attention--he was waving his arm outside the window of the truck and working the crowd:
My personal favorite, the old firetruck:
Back of the firetruck:
Finally, I decided I had fulfilled my responsibility to the car-loving reader(s) of my blog so I headed off to the one of the other free museums I wanted to see that day. I couldn't resist walking along the course and kept stopping to take more pictures:
This is on the main (usually pedestrian) road that runs from Piazza della Signoria to the Duomo. I can't stress enough how fun and unusual it was to see these cars driving through:
The Duomo on the right and the baptistery on the left in the middle, this just isn't something you see in Firenze everyday, lots of people were lining the streets enjoying the spectacle, including a bunch of bewildered tourists:
The facade of the Duomo again:
Finally, I made it to my destination--the Medici Chapels:
These are some major chapels (just like everything else the Medici's had--major and ostentatious) which are really more like crypts. There are some Michelangelo sculptures on some of the tombs. It was neat to see again, but I do remember visiting it last time. This time, however, I noticed the room where they kept the fingers of various saints. They would take the bone of a finger and put it in a glass case with a decorative holder. Weird and more than a bit creepy. So then I headed back out because I wanted to visit one more museum that day. I was destined for museum overload. I had been in the Chapel for awhile but when I came back out on the main street running out of town, the cars were still coming!
So I walked back along the route, past the Duomo:
Then I turned off onto another main pedestrian street to get close to the Ponte Vecchio. Look at the crowds on the bridge (you can't really see that it is a bridge but it is where all the people are):
Tourist season is in full swing.
Then I followed the course south of Ponte Vecchio on the Lungarno (road running next to the river Arno, here the river is on the left):
And across the Ponte Santa Trinita for a nice view of the Ponte Vecchio and these old cars that just kept coming:
Finally, I really decided that enough was enough of those car pictures. It was really fun to see though! I hightailed it to the Pitti Palace for my third museum visit of the day. You can't take pictures in there but I will have my exterior pictures of that place up tomorrow!
Here is Yuki:
I had never seen her in her traditional Japanese kimono dress. I asked her why she had dressed up and she said because it was a VERY exciting day for her--to see these cars. You would never guess it but this girl is a huge fan of Formula One racing! It's called Formula Uno here, however. Cracks me up. So she dressed up for the cars. Wild.
I was standing on the other side of the street where she is in this photo:
But then she said, no come over in the shade with me it is better. So even though I thought the angle was probably better from the spot in the sun, I came over to stand with her. Then as the time drew nearer, she realize it might be better from the other side and went over there. In the meantime, another classmate Yoko had joined us so she and I stayed put--the shade was much nicer. Leading the procession was a polizia on a motorini:
Followed by a regular police car:
Then there was the Mercedes pace car:
And then the fun began:
They were filming from this "car", sadly, from my work at ET it reminds me of the 'woman without a face' who we profiled on Insider time after time. I think she is doing better now so hopefully I am not a horrible person for drawing the comparison. But I can't help it, every time I see this picture I think of her. This car was quite functional for filming however, since there was no windshield or doors...:
It was so fun to watch these cars driving through the piazza because cars do not drive there. And to see so many old ones driving by was really a treat. I thought there were going to be maybe 20 cars but I think there were actually a couple hundred or so!
A few modern cars snuck into the race:
Then the garbage truck that is regularly driving through the city drove on the course:
And everyone cheered loudest for him! The garbage man soaked up the attention--he was waving his arm outside the window of the truck and working the crowd:
My personal favorite, the old firetruck:
Back of the firetruck:
Finally, I decided I had fulfilled my responsibility to the car-loving reader(s) of my blog so I headed off to the one of the other free museums I wanted to see that day. I couldn't resist walking along the course and kept stopping to take more pictures:
This is on the main (usually pedestrian) road that runs from Piazza della Signoria to the Duomo. I can't stress enough how fun and unusual it was to see these cars driving through:
The Duomo on the right and the baptistery on the left in the middle, this just isn't something you see in Firenze everyday, lots of people were lining the streets enjoying the spectacle, including a bunch of bewildered tourists:
The facade of the Duomo again:
Finally, I made it to my destination--the Medici Chapels:
These are some major chapels (just like everything else the Medici's had--major and ostentatious) which are really more like crypts. There are some Michelangelo sculptures on some of the tombs. It was neat to see again, but I do remember visiting it last time. This time, however, I noticed the room where they kept the fingers of various saints. They would take the bone of a finger and put it in a glass case with a decorative holder. Weird and more than a bit creepy. So then I headed back out because I wanted to visit one more museum that day. I was destined for museum overload. I had been in the Chapel for awhile but when I came back out on the main street running out of town, the cars were still coming!
So I walked back along the route, past the Duomo:
Then I turned off onto another main pedestrian street to get close to the Ponte Vecchio. Look at the crowds on the bridge (you can't really see that it is a bridge but it is where all the people are):
Tourist season is in full swing.
Then I followed the course south of Ponte Vecchio on the Lungarno (road running next to the river Arno, here the river is on the left):
And across the Ponte Santa Trinita for a nice view of the Ponte Vecchio and these old cars that just kept coming:
Finally, I really decided that enough was enough of those car pictures. It was really fun to see though! I hightailed it to the Pitti Palace for my third museum visit of the day. You can't take pictures in there but I will have my exterior pictures of that place up tomorrow!
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