Trip to Florence no. 1, part three

Ok, I forgot to post the rest of the bit about the visit to Florence, so I will do that and then later write about this weekend’s visit to Verona with Leah.

Saturday morning involved me visiting the Medici chapels (very interesting if you happen to run across a knowledgeable guide giving a tour in a language you know), San Lorenzo (not worth it), and contemplating the line into the Academia (where Michelangelo’s David is) on my way towards the Duomo. The lattermost of which then proceeded to take up several hours instead of the anticipated half an hour, although that is of course my fault and my delight, as that time was spent developing a more intimate relationship with the one of the most famous buildings in Italy. Or more specifically with the walls of its steep staircases and with the roofs. :)

The Way Up

I am of course referring to the chance to climb to the top of the Dome and the Belltower, both of which I did after wandering around the general-public area of the massive cathedral’s nave, which is itself relatively plain in design, with nice marble floor patterns and a view of the rather distant painted interior of the Dome itself. (Since many important cathedrals have some kind of a dome, the word for a dome, “duomo” is synonymous with the most important church of a city, and as the dome is the most famous part of Florence’s cathedral, it deservedly is called the Duomo in general.) There was a door around the side of the Duomo saying “Entrance to the Dome” and repeated warnings to not “enter” if not in good health because of the 463 steps. It did not say where within the Dome you went or how you got there, but I decided to try it anyways.

The steps begin on the side of the interior and go into a small stone corridor that leads up into the wall around the sanctuary. The steps in this section weren’t too steep or narrow, with small windows and landings every now and then, and wound in a square in normal square fashion. They were many but not too challenging, despite the required pauses and, uh, preemptive inhaler, because my lungs are lame like that. I thought that we were pretty high up with all these steps, and since I wasn’t counting, I just kind of assumed that I’d gone up all 463 by the time I got to the top of them. Haha, I was wrong. I was maybe half way there. It turns out that this bit of steps leads out onto a protective balcony part way up the Dome right below the windows, from which you get your first real views of the sheer size, detail, and interesting stories of the painted interior of the Dome.

The paintings are in layers, depicting the non-Earthly realms – Hell of course on the bottom layer with the levels of Heaven extending up above, with Jesus/God (I couldn’t tell which) in glory opposite the three-headed giant devil … who is eating people with each head in true Dantean fashion. The scenes of Hell and the sinners and skeletons and demons and whatnot were probably the most interesting, since they seemed more original in topic – in comparison with the expected angels and saints and and sunshine and halos of the blessed, although their scenes were also quite impressive. It was kind of awe-striking at the sheer immensity of the painting and what it must have taken to paint the Dome. Of course, the scale and skill – the whole construction - of such an enormous and intentionally designed and decorated structure was extremely extraordinary to think about at all.

The Conquest

And then when I got to the end of the walkway around that side of the Dome, I noticed that a door and that the German ladies ahead of me were disappearing –up-. Of course, there were more stairs, which I (again wrongly) assumed brought us to the walkway visible right underneath the painting itself. These got gradually steeper, windier, and with strangely tight corners between sets of stair wells and with the blackened stone walls often jutting in awkwardly over the steps – which I only realized later must have been the support for the actual dome as it started to curve in. We were going deeper into the Dome itself, inside the cavity between the paintings and the tiled roof. And the steps just kept getting steeper and the roof juttier and the traffic harder to negotiate. Luckily I went during lunch time, so it wasn’t anywhere as bad as when I came back down a while later.

And they just kept going. I’m amazed at how long it takes to climb 463 steps, although that might have been partly due to the odd structure and the awareness one needs to bring to climbing them. Frankly, it was sometimes terrifying, particularly on the spiral staircase and the last serious one that actually had to be almost straight up with a slight curve as you follow the last big angle of the Dome – if anybody slipped, anybody at all, you would all just keep sliding down and making a domino effect, with a number of very cracked skulls on the stone walls and steps oiled black from centuries of people climbing their way carefully to the top. I’m pretty sure these stairwells must have been built into the original structure of the Dome, since their design looks pretty integrated with the support system of the dome itself, which as far as I know hasn’t ever been completely taken apart, and it would make sense to have such stairs for maintenance. They’re pretty cool, in a strange and practical kind of way. The last leg literally has a –vertical- handrail it’s so steep, but then…

You emerge and you feel like you’re on top of the world. I think you might be on the highest point in all of Florence, one of the most historically and culturally important cities in Europe. And more than that, you are on top of one of the most famously innovative feats of engineering of the pre-modern era with a gorgeous view and a brilliantly designed piece of architecture beneath your feet and nearly 500 dangerous steps behind you. It’s utterly exhilirating. Pun unintended (or perhaps not) I felt like I was on such a high, just hanging out up there for a long while, my back against the cupola, the sun shining down, and me eating my apple and cheese. It’s also luckily one of the few places in Italy I would trust a stranger to take my picture and not steal my camera, as it would be impossible for them to run away with it. :) So I have a bit more proof that I’m actually here in Italy! It was also cool because I got to do some small talk with other tourists over camera exchanges not only in Italian and English, but also in Japanese and French, which was fun, although I have become very aware while here how bad my oral/aural skils in French have gotten relative to my maintained reading ability, which is sad. But it was still pretty enjoyable to hang out up there for a while until the after-lunch crowd showed up – and then on the way down you go back through most of those same narrow stairwells, this time filled with people stuck on their way up, plus a close up walkway of the bottom of the painted interior and finally… freedom into the air of the piazza.

And then I went and did the same, albeit somewhat easier hike, up the belltower of the Duomo right nearby (414 steps), designed by Giotto, who is basically the first major artist of the Renaissance – which then gave a great view of Duomo itself, although that climb wasn’t quite as satisfying as the first. But going up both towers and then back down, if I’ve counted right, should be 1754 steps total, which is pretty good. I am so thankful for some decent shoes and my well-supported backpack, especially as my day wasn’t over.

Rest of Florence

My camera ran out of batteries then, too, which is too bad because the rest of the trip doesn’t make much to talk about, although there were some neat scenes seen by this particular wanderer, mainly in the Loggia and the outside the Uffizi, where people-watching on my way through proved to be very interesting. I will have to plan another trip to visit the Uffizi and the Academia with reservations before hand, as I would feel lacking in my Renaissance knowledge if I never made it there.

I did get to the Medici Palace, which I was too overwhelmed by to be impressed with – it’s enormous, with thousands of paintings out for view at a time (I don’t know if they even follow normal museum procedure and switch them out for preservation/ viewing purposes…) with three up a wall and much of each wall covered in room after room on a path that squiggles from one to another – and it’s easier to find your way out by continuing along the endless maze than to go back. But there was just too much, and almost everything from one of my least favorite periods of art – 1500s to early 1800s (I just don’t get much emotional reaction from it) – and I was exhausted and the few rooms used by the Medici you get to see are only semi-interesting. Pretty, but not that fascinating and almost completely lacking in historical/cultural information. It seems that museum labels here really like to talk about who owned what and then sold it to whom and where things were made and changed and then sold again, and so they aren’t (at least the ones in Florence) weren’t even interesting or informative to read. So the Palace doesn’t get really high marks in my view, at least in comparison with some of the other things you can do in Florence. It was maybe worth visiting, but not returning to, I’ll say that – and then maybe only if you can deal with that much art from what the Italians call the “modern” era (what we call the modern era they call the contemporary one, with modern extending almost a half-millenium prior)… Meh.

An Immigrant Problem

The other noteworthy occurance of the trip was actually when I got back to Ferrara, and which has justified my previous decisions to not ever return here late at night. I had no food in my kitchenette with which I could make dinner, so I decided to go into the center and give myself one more treat for the weekend. I must have looked very tired, though, because I had –two- men come up and haress me, one on my way from the station but very near to the center and in a well lit area with people not too far away, and the other one actually at the restaurant in one of the piazzas. So not cool. One was Pakistani and one African, and I don’t point that out to be racist, but it was more of that they used that as a talking point to get my attention in the first place, and could hardly speak Italian at all. They each spoke pretty terrible English, but could tell that I understood them enough, even if I answered in my clearly non-native Italian, which I think they could tell also was confusing me.

The first men started by asking me how to get to the train station, which I thought was a valid enough question, but ignored my answer, and started telling me about his apartment and how beautiful I was and asking me questions about my family and where they were and if I knew anyone in Ferrara and uncomfortable things like that, even though I wasn’t answering his questions and forcefully told him to leave me alone. I eventually got him to stop following me and got into the center alright, but then when I was reading and waiting for my food at the (outdoor) restaurant, an African guy, selling bags but mostly not at that moment, came up and started asking very similar questions – and if I were 15 years old yet and why was I so shy and would I talk to the police if there was every something wrong. So not cool, to say the least. Being exhausted I wasn’t very good at getting him to go away either, but luckily I got the waiter to come over and help shoo the man away. And these two incidents were only around 7:30 to 8:30, which was surprisingly early. I do not like creepy people. I do not like being haressed. I am not staying out late or coming back late here in the future. Rarrr. I’m just glad that doesn’t happen regularly in Ferrara during the day and I can usually brush the haressing street merchants off.

So that was an awkward end to the day, but in general it was a very fun trip and a great chance to explore a place both so different from Ferrara and so historically important. And then came classes again and a mild sickness but nothing to complain too much about. And another class cancelled. But, Leah wanted to do a girls’ night on Friday, so we hung out for the afternoon and made falafel for dinner, which came out pretty well for our first attempt. She had been planning on going to Verona for a short weekend trip, and what she described sounded interesting and reasonably-priced enough to convince me to join her. But that will be another post for another time.