The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day Ten

On the tenth day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Ten Things from Florence

Nine Games Worth Notice

A Moment of Rest

Seven Things for Reading

Six old and new musical experiences
Five roadsters you can and should buy right now
FORE! An overdue update on LIV & the PGA Tour
Three Ways of Coping
Stories from two three strokes
And much needed hip mo-bili-ty

The pages of the Gheorghian calendar turn slowly this year, but they turn nonetheless. We move closer to closing our blogyear as I exercise some editorial prerogative to offer some show and tell from my recent vacation. 

Our trip from Virginia to Florence was uneventful, as these things go. IAD to Charles de Gaulle in Paris, a brief layover, and a 90-minute flight to Italy. Little did we know at the time that the return would prove far more vexing. What follows is a rough chronological review of the highlights of a wonderful week.

We stayed at a hotel called La Scaletta in the Oltrarno district, a mixed residential/restaurant/retail area near the Medici family's Palazzo Pitti. The hotel itself is housed in a 15th century townhome, its warren of rooms and hallways a testament to the challenges of retrofitting centuries-old infrastructure for modern purposes. But the staff was exceptional, the rooftop bar a wonderful vantage point (as we'll later see), and the location close enough to the action to suit us but far enough away to allow for some breathing room.

That great staff recommended a spot for our first Florentine meal at Trattoria 4 Leoni, about 100m from the hotel. I had something called Fiocchetti di pera in salsa di taleggio e asparagi, which is ghost-shaped (think a stuffed round "head" with a flowing cape) pasta stuffed with pear in a cheese sauce. Outrageously good, and a strong foreshadowing for the remainder of a week spent eating and drinking well.

Our hotel was a mere 400m or so from the fabled Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge in Florence spared from destruction by retreating Nazis in WWII. Legend has it that Adolf Hitler himself made the decision not to destroy the historic span, though recent research suggests it may have been the work of a brave shop assistant who disabled bombs intending harm. 

The bridge is built up on both sides with shops selling all manner of leather, gold, art, and trinkets. It's often so crowded that it's hard to know that one is crossing the Arno River. There's a covered, windowed hallway above the bridge that the Medicis used to travel above the hoi polloi from their castle in the Oltrarno to their place of business in the old town.

In the light, it's worth crossing the Ponte Vecchio once, but unless you enjoy a good throng, better to use one of the parallel bridges on either side. 

At night, though, at least during this festive season, the bridge was lit in all manner of splendid projections by light coming from the Uffizi. On New Year's Eve, as we waited for friends to get to town, my wife and I sat outside on the deck of Signorvino (that's Mr. Wine, to you Yanks) and watched the show.

The city of Florence, given its history and its amazing collection of artistic and architectural wonders, leans to the touristy in some places. Even so, there are a handful of things that must be done. 

On our first full day in town, we had a splendid lunch of pizza and wine in the shadow of the Duomo, which we chased with a few hours at the Galleria della Academia, where we saw this fella:

Pictures really don't tell the whole story. That is one impressive work of art. Its scale is immense, and it looks great from a distance as well as up close. It's a classic for a well-deserved reason.

We also saw a bunch of Renaissance religious art, as well. In general, a lot of that sort of reliquary is a bit thematically redundant - there's only so many ways one can depict Christ's agony and resurrection - but I did find myself drawn to a couple of pieces that stood out for their color and character.

I was drawn to the crisp colors. And the fact that this
Jesus seems to be the inspiration for 'Dogma'.

This is St. Jerome. He seems fierce. And red.

My wife's best college friend Lori and her boyfriend Richy live in Madrid. They joined us on Tuesday evening. We celebrated New Year's Eve with dinner at the hotel and drinks on the hotel's rooftop bar. It was among the more unique celebrations I've experienced, with the sounds of cathedral bells pealing mixed with the explosive percussion of fireworks from across town.

I knew we'd see a ton of amazing art at galleries. I was not prepared for the amount of public sculpture on display, nor the beauty of Florentine architecture. Across the old city, you can't swing a cat without hitting a remarkable work of art. I'm not sure why you're swinging a cat, freak. 

Check these out, from just one location, the Piazza di Santa Croce:

And this, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the third-largest cathedral in the world and the home of The Duomo. Like The David, photos don't necessary capture the scale of the thing, nor the brilliant white, pink, and green marble. It's something.

After a couple of days in town, we took a bus into Tuscany. We hit a little fortress village called Monteriggioni, did a walking tour of Siena, visited a winery, and closed our day in a small town called San Gimignano. Far too many neat things to catalogue, but here are a few:

This and the next are from Siena's spectacular (and unfinished) cathedral

In San Gimignano, and unexpected superlative!

It's a *really* small village.

You kinda gotta do the Uffizi on your first visit to Florence. It's one of the world's legendary museums. I'm glad we did it. I kinda wish we had tasers. For the people that don't know how to fucking museum. Really tame tasers, mind you. Don't wanna injure anyone. But if you're stepping in front of a crowd to take a selfie with The Birth of Venus, you should be tased. I don't make the rules. I'm sure my man Botticelli would agree.

We took another trip out of town to visit the little historic village of Fiesole. It's about 5km north of Florence, up a steep hill. The views are amazing.

As was the pizza at Buca Delle Fate on the main square. 

And this story, which will amuse you as well as offer a bit of a glimpse into how distracting all of the things in a foreign place can be. Something that pleasantly surprised me about Florence was how many dogs one sees every day. Florentines love their hounds - you see them on the streets out for walks by the dozens every day. So after nearly a week missing my own pup and seeing all of these good doggos, I was in need off a pooch to pet.

We were walking in Fiesole and stopped to visit the ruins of a Longobard (pre-Roman) village. The ruins were tucked into an apartment complex, and the grounds doubled as a park for locals. A young (say mid-twenties) woman walking a little doodle of some sort came near us, and the puppy walked towards me. I asked if I could say hi to the dog, and the woman told me I could. Our group chatted with her while I played with the dog, and then we parted.

A few moments later, my wife said, "that's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen". To which I could legitimately answer, "I didn't even notice!" I don't know if my wife believed me, but it's true.

One of the most special events of our week came on our last full day. A friend and former next-door neighbor from home is a lover of Florence. She studied there during college, and has returned multiple times with her family. We bumped into her at the local farmer's market a month or so before we went and she recommended we book a cooking class at Accidental Tourist.

Malja and Marco are a couple who run the business from their family's 900 year-old villa atop a hill in Collina, 15 minutes or so outside of Florence. They open their home to small groups that they teach to make pasta and then feed. 

On the night we went, a couple from Australia and their three kids (12, 10, and 4) were staying in the villa's guest suite, and they joined us for the experience. American expat Steve Woodbury (he went to Italy 50 years ago to study music and never came back) was both our driver and our teacher, guiding us through making two different kinds of pasta and delivering this performance:

An epic meal, made better by the company, our group, the lovely Aussies (the father had a cup of coffee as an AFL professional), and the proprietors. The "bottomless" wine made by Marco's friend up the road served from a label-free bottle and as good as anything we drank all week didn't hurt.

Though it took us 66 hours to get home, my enthusiasm for Florence wasn't dampened in the least (Montreal is a different story altogether). A fella could get used to eating absurdly good pasta, drinking phenomenal wine, wandering centuries-old winding streets, sipping espresso, and probably most importantly, spending time with people he loves. Here's a selection of a few more images from a week well spent.