Another few weeks

I guess I need another one of these posts sooner or later. Between the tour of Palazzo Vecchio's secret passageways, the trip to Torrigiani garden, Palazzo Davanzati, and a weekend visiting Fiesole and Pisa, it's been a pretty eventful few weeks. I'll try to mention most of it, but feel free to ask me if you're curious about any of the trips and I'll gladly tell you all I can remember!

I'll start with Palazzo Vecchio - the Old Palace. when it was constructed (which happened in parts, a bit at a time) there was a need for potential escape routes. As such, these passageways were built into the walls. On our tour we got to visit them and see the secret rooms contained therein. Up the passageways we found secret rooms - one for Cosimo and one for Francesco - as well as Francesco's studiolo, a place where he studied alchemy and adorned the walls and ceiling with paintings representing the elements, the seasons, the humors, the sexes, and other such patterns and thought. It's a gorgeous room, really. Also, the paintings covered secret compartments in the room, each with some simple riddle explaining what was located within. Anyway, beyond that we went into the ceiling and saw the construction that went into the huge ceiling and that has lasted for almost half a millennium.

Torrigiani Garden was absolutely gorgeous. We got a tour from the Torrigiani son who is in charge of the garden, and he was the best tour guide we've had so far. He was really funny and his English was strained but he was really relaxed at the same time. We walked along the paths to see more elemental symbolism and a tower in the center. The garden itself is private, so entry is only permitted by prearranged tours such as ours, and even they were only recently started. There was also a lot of symbolism about the garden as an enclosed place and as a spiritual center, so feel free to ask me about it sometime. I won't bore you with it right now; there's more to talk about!

Palazzo Davanzati was a fairly typical palace museum visit. The palace is maintained in a condition similar to that in which it was originally designed - we saw the bedrooms, sitting rooms, kitchen (on the top floor), and any other rooms one would expect. It was a fairly strict staff - we were not allowed to take photographs, so I do not have any visuals for this one. We also got in trouble once or twice, but we still had fun.

Last weekend turned into a busy weekend of travel that was planned on short notice. On Saturday I went with Amanda, Ian, and Eric to Fiesole (the Etruscan city just north of here and a 1.20 euro, 20-minute bus ride each way) to explore something outside Florence. It turned into a great day: the rain held off, we saw the town of Florence from high above, got some wonderful photos of the clouds, and went for a lovely hike. We explored the woods of Fiesole where Leonardo da Vinci tested his flying machine (though we didn't actually find the location) and a few of the old mining caves (which were apparently restricted, but we only saw those signs on our way out... oops). We had a wonderful hike and a great time out in the woods away from civilization, then came back and relaxed in town for a spell until the bus arrived.

Sunday's trip took me and Amanda to Pisa with an 8AM departure... I guess I survived it more or less. We left the train station and promptly got lost in the city, crossing the Arno (which is much cleaner than our part of the Arno... I'm pretty jealous), finding a beautiful park, and ending up outside the walls on the opposite side of the town from the duomo and the leaning tower. That gave us a lovely walk straight across town on the directions of a confused-looking girl and to the famous tower. However, 15 euros seemed a bit steep for a walk up the tower, so we settled for observing it from the outside. We did, however, wander inside the duomo, which was quite pretty. After that we went back to the park to sit and enjoy the sun and then went to the river to sit and enjoy the sun! From there we returned to Florence to find that people were still asleep at 3PM.

Well, there's the extent of my excitement up to Sunday the 6th. Monday was a fairly quiet day, marked primarily by a tour of a few artisan workshops (Taddei for some beautiful leather boxes and change purses and I Mosaici Di Lastrucci for mosaic-esque works done by filing and piecing together stone to create beautiful art that looks like an oil painting - look them up!). Tuesday held a trip to the Uffizi gallery (finally!) to see the famous paintings and sculptures of Florentine artists. Wednesday was quiet, with a small field trip to a pastry and coffee shop across from my apartment (what a surprise! but it was actually delicious) and to the open-air market (where I should start shopping for fresh produce and meat if I get the chance and a list...), followed by a work day at the British Institute Library, where I was actually able to get ahead on some of my homework. Yesterday we went to the Boboli Gardens again to read some of Dante's Inferno and discuss it, then to Piazzale Michelangiolo to continue after the garden closed (though we just barely missed the sunset up there). Today was a trip to Lucca for me, Ian, Professor Tom Kealy, and his son Joe, which I'll probably tell you about another time (but walking on the old wall was really fun, and I'll probably go back there again).

That's all for now, but I'm going to Milan tomorrow (at 8AM, again...) so I'll have more stories next time I remember to update!