OH GOD I’M SO BAD AT UPDATING THIS SILLY BLOG-LIKE THING. But I’m having fun so I guess that’s a good thing. I’ve been to lots of places so I guess I better tell you what’s been up!
Last you heard from me, I was hanging out in a town in Cinque Terre called Monterosso. It’s another one of those places that absolutely would have been amazing and beautiful in the summer, but was still pretty cool in the cold and rain. After our drinks and a bit of walking around, we split a pizza for super cheap at this cute little pizza place, got a train back to Manarola, where we were staying, and passed the eff out.
In the morning, we checked out of our hotel, caught a train to La Spezia, which we almost missed because we got distracted by a cat. And it’s a really good thing we didn’t miss it, because the next train didn’t come until after our train from La Spezia was supposed to leave – our train to PISA! (Don’t worry, we made all our trains and everything was fine.) Pisa was only about an hour away by train, and we knew we didn’t want to spend more than a couple hours there – we really just wanted to see the Leaning Tower. Which, honestly, was supercool. You can go RIGHT up to it – it’s not very big, and you can even climb it. I’m not sure how that’s safe, because it’s leaning and stuff, but who knows. We are cheap and opted to take some embarrassing photos and then wander around for a bit.
We had lunch, did a bit of writing, and then met our rideshare to take us to Florence, where we were spending the night. It turned out to be this lovely guy that lives in Florence but works in Pisa, so we kept him company on his hour-long commute back home. He told us some tips of things to do, and we parted ways at the tram station.
Kiwi Guy and I didn’t do a whole lot that night – it had been several days of nonstop travel, so we split a bottle of wine, watched some Netflix, and crashed.
Our first full day in Florence was lovely weather, if by lovely you mean disgusting and freezing and rainy. We decided to go to the Duomo, which is this giant-ass church in the middle of the city. We went into the regular church part (which was free) but then bought tickets to see the underground crypts (so many mosaics on the ground) and this other building thing (don’t really know what it was for) and a museum (that wasn’t open until the next day) and to go up the top of the clock tower and the Duomo. By Duomo I mean the giant dome on top of the church. In Italian.
We thought it would be smart to go up the clock tower (400 plus steps) immediately before the Duomo (even more steps), which turned out to be not the best idea in the world. My legs definitely almost fell off. Either of those climbs would have been okay enough on their own, but putting them together was definitely a bit much for Out-Of-Shape Genevieve. We made it to the top, though, and had an incredible view of the entire city. Completely worth it.
What else did we do? We had THE BEST SANDWICHES EVER at some famous shop. There were just a bunch of people standing on the street eating these sandwiches that all looked like they were from the same place, and as we kept walking down the street we saw the line for it, so we were like, guess we gotta see what the hype is about! And apparently lots of famous people go there when they visit? Anyway, my sandwich was like one of the most delicious things I’ve ever had- spready cheese, spicy eggplant, truffle oil, veggies, HIGHLY RECOMMEND. Even though I can’t think of the name of it. Afterwards, we went into some leather stores (overwhelming and mostly expensive) and then stopped into a cafe for some (decaf for me) cappuccinos and writing.
It turned out to be another early night. The plan was to go back for a little while and rest up, and then go out for dinner and drinks…but we never got hungry for dinner (those sandwiches were literally so filling) and we already had wine with us, so we just stayed in. Also Kiwi Guy introduced me to Brooklyn Nine-Nine and I have no idea how I thought I was living a fulfilling life without this show.
Today was another free breakfast, then off to the Uffizi Gallery, which is a pretty famous art museum. Florence has approximately six hundred thousand art museums, so I chose carefully.
When I got there, the guy that was taking my ticket said I had to put my backpack on my front side or check it, because they worry about us knocking statues and shit over. No worries. I tried putting it in front of me, but it had my coat and everything in it and was a little uncomfortable, so I brought it to the coat check. Now. I’m used to ONLY checking my stuff when it’s mandatory, in which cases it has always been free. So it was only after I put my stuff on the counter that I remembered it probably WASN’T free and asked how much it cost. It was three euros.
Okay. My ticket was eight euros, and it could have been even less if I was a member of the EU or a student or younger. I’m not paying THREE EUROS for a coat check. So I was like (very politely, I might add) Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, never mind, I’ll just take it in with me. And then the guy was like no, you can’t, it’s too big. And I’m like, oh no, it’s okay, they told me I could just put it in front of me. And the the guy goes, Well, I’M telling you it’s TOO BIG. And I’m like, he literally JUST TOLD ME I COULD TAKE IT IN. And he’s like, WELL I’M TELLING YOU YOU HAVE TO CHECK IT BECAUSE IT’S TOO BIG. And then I’m like, well I’m NOT paying you three euros to hold on to my bag!!! I’ve made a little bit of a scene at this point, but I’m so mad I don’t care. I rip my jacket out of the bag, put it on so the bag is half the size, and put it back on my front. THERE IT’S SMALLER, ARE YOU HAPPY? I walk up to the ticket guy and he happily lets me in.
I really thought that traveling was making me less of an angry person, but it really hasn’t. I don’t let little things ruin my day or anything, but I still get JUST as angry when people are assholes to me or are just oblivious. Like tourists. I know, I know, I’M a tourist…but I at least try to be aware of people around me, and if I mess up, I apologize. But so many people around me are just idiots. When I was climbing the clock tower, and it’s this tiny staircase that you can only pass people coming down if you’re going up by like shoving against them, a woman just STOPPED on the stairs directly in front of me. Not because she was tired or winded or old; I understand all those. She was looking at her phone. There was a platform with more space in three steps- this couldn’t wait until three steps from now?
Anyway, the museum was beautiful and had a ton of incredible statues with no informational signs next to them. There was also an insane amount of renaissance art, which I’m getting KIND OF SICK OF. There are so only so many Madonna/Jesus paintings I can look at. But then, The Birth of Venus was there, which was cool to see. I also really enjoyed this painting of a personification of all the virtues (faith, hope, charity, justice, temperance, prudence, and fortitude – I only googled two of those!). Apparently the Christians were pretty obsessed with these virtues back in the day, a TON of the art was centered around them. This particular piece was seven different panels, each with a woman who was a virtue. I’m not sure why it had such an impact on me- it honestly could have been simply the size of the piece. But it was so beautiful.
Another cool thing that I’ve noticed happening a lot lately is that I’m starting to piece together bits of history, especially when it comes to stories and legends. For example, I saw a panting today entitled “Salome;” it was a woman with a decaptiated man’s head on a platter. And I realized that it was the same story of the opera I saw of the same name. I also saw a painting of a man killing a water beast while a woman was tied up to a rock, and I realized it was the same story I had learned in Israel, about Perseus saving Andromeda, who had been sacrificed to the water beast to stop him from causing floods and killing everyone. It’s so fascinating to start making these connections in artwork and stories all over the world.
After this, I met up with Kiwi Guy, who had been getting some work done – art museums aren’t really his thing. We ate an entire pizza apiece for a super late lunch, and then we went to the Duomo museum that we hadn’t been able to go to yesterday. We were expecting it to be a little thing, half hour tops. Which would have been perfect, because I’m not too good with more than one museum in a day.
NOPE. It was a pretty full-on museum. Smaller than most, sure, but it definitely took some time to walk around. It was honestly really beautiful- the design of the entire museum was incredibly aesthetic, and one wall that went up three stories was a recreation of an original facade of the church (one of the eight or nine times it was rebuilt, this time in the Gothic style). There were so many statues, including some huge bishop dudes that were about twice my height, and a creepy Mary Magdalene.
I was all museumed out after this; we picked up some wine on the way back, and here we are, in our cute little hotel room, writing away, working our way through a couple of two euro bottles of wine. We are at least going to see the David tomorrow at another art museum, but I’m not sure if we are staying another night here or heading to Rome. But I guess we’ll all find out soon enough!