In Firenze

(On the title: I cannot say Firenze, Florence's Italian name, without thinking of this song. THAT IS AN EXCELLENT THING. Go listen to that musical, then get back here)

It's fine I guess it's whatever.

As I made plans for this trip, my excellent sister Kathryn told me that of all the towns she visited in Italy during a semester in Orvieto, Florence was the one she most wanted to spend time in. “I could stay there for months,” she said. I mostly knew of Florence as a city with a heavy-duty collection of Renaissance art collections, and as that’s not an area I’m especially invested in, I shrugged, gave it a little under a week, and moved on.

Well, I get it now. I think I do. Thoughts, pictures, video after the jump!

Music here is a recording of a tune that was GORGEOUSLY and wildly performed at Teatro del Sale, a kind of dinner theater/concert venue that my friends Kate J and Stuart had sent me to. An incredible feast and a superb concert. As usual, the studio version doesn't catch the wild energy or the driving percussion of the live rendition, but it gives a flavor of the soundtrack I had in my head for the week!

I was briefly joined in Florence by my friend Jenna. Though we’d overlapped at Northwestern briefly, we didn’t know each other well, and our twenty-four hours together were full of thick discussions of life, relationships, our relationships with food, performing, travel, and points beyond. I bring Jenna up because late at night, as we walked the cobbled streets back to our AirBnB, she asked me what my favorite city in Italy had been thus far. I gave a typically meandering response, doubling back and revising and re-interrogating until I found what I think was true: I think I felt I'd gotten the most out of Rome, but I liked Florence the best. It was elusive, hard to get a handle on, and it was – and thus far remains – the city I most want to return to in order to refract it anew. 

Jenna and me, suffering through ANOTHER cup of gelato. Wah life is hard etc

 Culturally the city is a fascinating hodgepodge. In early June, a horde of students taking a semester abroad cohabitate with backpackers and middle-aged tourists, most filling the historic center (the Duomo, the Uffizi gallery). And pushed out to the sides, Oltrarno to the south and Sant’Ambrogio to the east, not to mention the outer suburbs, Florentines still live day-to-day. People like Patrizia, my host for a dinner party in the near suburbs. She cooked a delicious meal for me and a family of international teachers - a great night to meet fellow travelers and get to share the table with people from an array of cultural backgrounds. If you get a chance to dine in somebody's home in Italy, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Just a li'l ol' duomo hiding behind a wacky facade from the 19th century! This piazza is gorgeous at dawn, and chaotic and stupid midday.

Finding ways to connect with people who just live and work in Florence - that’s the bit that I found intriguing, a little elusive, and  a lot addictive. It’s a city of workshops, of artisans at work restoring furniture, painting, sculpting, creating gorgeous leather and paper goods. Most are open to the public, and by far my happiest moments were just exploring the fringes, finding small shops and workshops and seeing people devoting case and attention to their craft.

Scuola del Cuoio, the leatherworking school of Florence. Started as an apprenticeship program for orphans, it's now just a straight up training center, but it's cool to stop in and see people stitching and embossing and generally makin' with the leather goods. Craftsmanship times!

 On a return visit, I’d probably do a bit more museum-ing (a mixed-bag Uffizi visit was my only real stop on that front). The Bargello sounds like my jam, and the Strozi had a great-looking exhibit (“From Kandinsky to Pollock”) that’s right up my alley. But really, I’d love to take a full week in the off season (to the degree that there is such a thing in Florence) to keep poking my head in and seeing how the world works here.

One last thought – I did take a Tuscan tour (along with an upcoming tour in Emilia-Romagna, my major splurge of the trip) exploring Siena and San Gimignano, visiting a winery and an agriturismo, and as much as I loved Umbria, I gotta admit: the countryside here is gorgeous. I could spend a week on one of these estates, easily, driving and exploring and breathing easy as I relax outside of the frenzy of the city.

San Gimignano in the background, agriturismo loveliness in the fore. It was supposed to rain this entire day but it did NOT! Miraculous happenings are everywhere if you know where to look for them!

VINES WITHIN WHEELS!

Me and this guy made friends. I have a pen pal in Tuscany now!!!

It was, in short, a great break.

OK. Last photos below, and then eventually on to Emilia Romagna! SPOILER: it’s been nice, but temperatures in the 90s virtually guaranteed that I would not enjoy this leg as much as the earlier, perfectly-temperate weeks of Italy. (Staying in a home with no fans and noisy neighbors has not made this a perfect situation.) Still, a fascinating new cultural context (several, even!) and lots of adventures to stitch together into something vaguely coherent! Stay tuned, or whatever! 

Oh man the charcuterie in Italy, and the people who are passionate about it, and the way they just hang this stuff like oh yeah this is just a thing I have in the shop, why, do you want some

Street art is the best. This is my favorite of the (MANY) great pieces in Florence. Many many more in the video above.