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daThursday morning was a blur of Rome airport, Pisa airport, bus to Florence, walk to hotel (bump bump on cobblestone streets), dinner at hotel, crash thud.
We saw the leaning tower of Pisa from the air, which was special.
Florence made me happy, once we woke up on Friday and started being tourists. We walked around il Duomo, the largest cathedral dome I've probably seen. The inside of the cathedral was... gloomy, though the crypt was fairly cool. Over the last 40 years they've excavated older architecture, including an ancient Christian road and Roman-era houses. There were lots of gravestones and an unlabeled but sort of exciting little room containing a few skulls. After il Duomo, we visited Dante's house (closed) and his church (very small and gloomy). But there was a busker performing from The Divine Comedy, looking fairly devilish if I do say so. We found our way to Ponte Vecchio, the only medieval bridge that survived the German bombing in WWII, which is covered in jewelry markets leaning out over the water on stilts. We later learned that the top floor of the bridge is actually a still-extant passage from one palace a few km down-river, to the major art museum, the Uffizi. That's sort of cool.
We held off seeing the Uffizi until later in the afternoon (our hotel had gotten us a guided tour- which we could afford, and allowed us to skip a 2-hour line for museum tickets, so we did it- and can I put in a word for hotels with concierges? Thank you.) and met up with dan's parents for lunch.
Afterward, d. and I split up; I was going to try and see the crypt under Palazzo Vecchio (another museum/palace), though the crypt wasn't where dan's mom thought it had been, so I wandered the first floor of the palace. The Piazza there has a great collection of statuary, including the famous "fake" Michaelangelo's David, a rather large fountain to Neptune, and Perseus With the Head of Medusa.
We met up and had our guided tour of the Uffizi. And that was quite the amazing collection- I will admit to becoming a bit jaded by the end, when I was rushing to see their three Caravaggios before closing time. It is true that one can see only so much portraiture and Mary and naked Jesuses; so I skipped a few rooms where I didn't recognize a single artist. I'm glad we spent the time and money for the tour. The story, apparently, is that this was one of the first museums outside someone's home; it was put on the top floor of the Office Building for the Incorporated City of Firenze, in the 1500s. It has kept the collections of the Medici family since they were the most powerful in Italy, and added a fair number since as well, eventually one of the best collections of Italian Renaissance art anywhere. I actually bought a catalog in the gift shoppe, the first time I've done that in a museum.
On the way out, I ran across excavations in the basement. One side, the bathrooms. Other side, crypts. No signs. Shrug.
And essentially, that was our one tourism day.
Saturday was family family family; dan's cousin's Bat Mitzvah. The ceremony was short; the congregation was enthusiastically happy; and dan and I understood less of what was going on than we would've if it weren't held in three languages, and if we were more properly Jewish, neither of us having ever been to a Bar or Bat Mitzvah before. The reception was held an hour away at a vineyard near Sienna, which was beautiful and they fed us wonderful food for several hours. Then there was a falconry demonstration, which included one tiny cousin not being eaten by a hawk. I got to hang out with warm relatives and relatives-by-law who seemed happy to meet me. And I took a trillion photos of the winery grounds.
Saturday night, I tried to get us take-out food at our hotel, and they forbid me. ("You're not allowed to bring in outside food." "What, you'll stop me?" "It's forbidden, because we have a restaurant." "...so what am I supposed to do if we want to eat something that isn't in your restaurant, and we're too tired to go out?" "Maybe if you wait until 10:30 and there isn't anyone at the door, you could bring it in then." "...") So I went and got us take-out sushi and carried it in inside my jacket. What a stupid ending to a nice hotel visit.
Sunday morning, we flew from Florence to Copenhagen, where we immediately were bombarded by dense breads, strange vowels, and ultra-modern sensible Danish design. I have less to say about Denmark right now, because I should be packing. I love our hotel. dan's friend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
surelars put us up; he fed us tasty dinners and gave us exhaustively complete histories (which seem to summarize to "and then there was a war and we lost a lot of the city due to fire.") I hope to have more to write about Denmark later. And there will be photos. Oh yes, there will be photos.
Once I'm back on the proper continent, I think.
We saw the leaning tower of Pisa from the air, which was special.
Florence made me happy, once we woke up on Friday and started being tourists. We walked around il Duomo, the largest cathedral dome I've probably seen. The inside of the cathedral was... gloomy, though the crypt was fairly cool. Over the last 40 years they've excavated older architecture, including an ancient Christian road and Roman-era houses. There were lots of gravestones and an unlabeled but sort of exciting little room containing a few skulls. After il Duomo, we visited Dante's house (closed) and his church (very small and gloomy). But there was a busker performing from The Divine Comedy, looking fairly devilish if I do say so. We found our way to Ponte Vecchio, the only medieval bridge that survived the German bombing in WWII, which is covered in jewelry markets leaning out over the water on stilts. We later learned that the top floor of the bridge is actually a still-extant passage from one palace a few km down-river, to the major art museum, the Uffizi. That's sort of cool.
We held off seeing the Uffizi until later in the afternoon (our hotel had gotten us a guided tour- which we could afford, and allowed us to skip a 2-hour line for museum tickets, so we did it- and can I put in a word for hotels with concierges? Thank you.) and met up with dan's parents for lunch.
Afterward, d. and I split up; I was going to try and see the crypt under Palazzo Vecchio (another museum/palace), though the crypt wasn't where dan's mom thought it had been, so I wandered the first floor of the palace. The Piazza there has a great collection of statuary, including the famous "fake" Michaelangelo's David, a rather large fountain to Neptune, and Perseus With the Head of Medusa.
We met up and had our guided tour of the Uffizi. And that was quite the amazing collection- I will admit to becoming a bit jaded by the end, when I was rushing to see their three Caravaggios before closing time. It is true that one can see only so much portraiture and Mary and naked Jesuses; so I skipped a few rooms where I didn't recognize a single artist. I'm glad we spent the time and money for the tour. The story, apparently, is that this was one of the first museums outside someone's home; it was put on the top floor of the Office Building for the Incorporated City of Firenze, in the 1500s. It has kept the collections of the Medici family since they were the most powerful in Italy, and added a fair number since as well, eventually one of the best collections of Italian Renaissance art anywhere. I actually bought a catalog in the gift shoppe, the first time I've done that in a museum.
On the way out, I ran across excavations in the basement. One side, the bathrooms. Other side, crypts. No signs. Shrug.
And essentially, that was our one tourism day.
Saturday was family family family; dan's cousin's Bat Mitzvah. The ceremony was short; the congregation was enthusiastically happy; and dan and I understood less of what was going on than we would've if it weren't held in three languages, and if we were more properly Jewish, neither of us having ever been to a Bar or Bat Mitzvah before. The reception was held an hour away at a vineyard near Sienna, which was beautiful and they fed us wonderful food for several hours. Then there was a falconry demonstration, which included one tiny cousin not being eaten by a hawk. I got to hang out with warm relatives and relatives-by-law who seemed happy to meet me. And I took a trillion photos of the winery grounds.
Saturday night, I tried to get us take-out food at our hotel, and they forbid me. ("You're not allowed to bring in outside food." "What, you'll stop me?" "It's forbidden, because we have a restaurant." "...so what am I supposed to do if we want to eat something that isn't in your restaurant, and we're too tired to go out?" "Maybe if you wait until 10:30 and there isn't anyone at the door, you could bring it in then." "...") So I went and got us take-out sushi and carried it in inside my jacket. What a stupid ending to a nice hotel visit.
Sunday morning, we flew from Florence to Copenhagen, where we immediately were bombarded by dense breads, strange vowels, and ultra-modern sensible Danish design. I have less to say about Denmark right now, because I should be packing. I love our hotel. dan's friend
surelars put us up; he fed us tasty dinners and gave us exhaustively complete histories (which seem to summarize to "and then there was a war and we lost a lot of the city due to fire.") I hope to have more to write about Denmark later. And there will be photos. Oh yes, there will be photos.Once I'm back on the proper continent, I think.
