Our Italian Adventure

On Saturday, May 24th, we began our last weekend in Tuscany. For each of our Italian destinations, extensive scouring of the internet occurred to find sights and activities which we might enjoy. Sometimes, the actual sight or activity turns out better than anticipated. Our first task in the morning to see “Berta” turned out to be the opposite. While researching Florence, I learned of an interesting story about a figure on the exterior of Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica. At the top of the bell tower, a female head from the late Roman period is called “Berta”. There are two legends on why this mysterious sculpture is on the bell tower exterior wall. The first legend is that it is the petrified head of a woman who had mocked a condemned man as he passed by and thus was cursed. The second legend has it that Berta represents the face of a storekeeper who generously donated her belongings to the church to make a bell that would notify merchants of the opening and closing of the city gates. As a symbol of gratitude, the Florentines dedicated her bust on the facade of the church. We looked, and we looked several times without finding the bust anywhere on the church exterior. When we asked the nearby merchants, we mostly drew a blank stare. One merchant stated the bust was on the bell tower and showed us the best view of the bell tower. Nope, we still didn’t see Berta. Maybe with binoculars. Anyway, this is what we should have seen.

After that tourist failure, we headed off to the Bargello National Museum, which I knew was still there. The Bargello was built as a fortress with battlements. Over the years, it housed the Justice Department, the Police Chief residence, a prison, and finally became a sculpture museum. Bargello is to sculptures to what the Uffizi is to paintings. The crowds in Florence over this weekend were about twice as many people as the weekdays, but fortunately they must have all been at the Uffizi, Accademia, or the Florence Duomo, as this museum was pretty calm. Some of the featured sculptures are from Donatello, Michelangelo, and Cellini. This includes Donatello’s St George & his bronze David.

Donatello’s David has been causing confusion for many scholars. What was Donatello trying to portray with this shepherd boy. Why was he nude except for his boots and a helmet. The statue is famous as it is the first unsupported standing work of a bronze cast during the Renaissance. It’s also the first freestanding nude male sculpture made since antiquity. It depicts David with a smile, posed with his foot on Goliath’s severed head.

Michelangelo’s Bacchus is very appropriate for Italy. Bacchus is the Roman god of wine. He is shown in a state of drunkenness with rolling eyes, and his staggering body almost teetering off the rocky outcrop he is standing on. Sitting behind him is a satyr who is eating a bunch of grapes.

On to another church. The Basilica of Santa Croce is the largest Franciscan church in the world. It was built outside the city walls between 1294 and 1442 in what had been marshlands. Do you think today’s insurance companies would provide insurance with today’s practices? The church is the burial place of Galileo, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and other notable Italians. There are numerous works by Donatello in the church, and some of the sixteen chapels were decorated by Giotto. Back to why building in marshy lowlands is never a good idea. In 1966, the Arno river flooded the church and caused extensive damage to the interior and exterior. Many art masterpieces were lost, but they have renovated with many of the remaining priceless art pieces high on the walls.

We finished Saturday by hiking up to the Giardino Bardini Gardens. Upon reaching the top, we relaxed in some comfortable chairs and enjoyed fantastic Florence views while having some adult beverages. The grounds probably had the most flowers of anywhere else in Florence, so it was a good ending to our day.

Giardino Bardini Gardens

On Sunday, May 25th, we started our morning by visiting Miji for breakfast. She had invited us over on the previous day. We have stayed at countless hotels, VRBO’s, Airbnb’s, and Booking.com lodgings over the past several decades. Most of our stays are positive. For a multiple day stay, we prefer to stay outside of hotels when possible. Staying in a neighborhood is normally more peaceful and rewarding than staying in a business district when traveling for leisure. The extra bonus in many cases is actually getting to meet the owner.

Migi was raised in northern Italy and has lived in Milan & London. Her English is impeccable. Her only child is her son, and he is the official manager for our VRBO in Florence. However, whenever possible, Migi is the person a guest will interact with as she lives right next door. It’s easy to describe someone as nice, but Migi really is the definition of a truly nice person. A sweetheart is even a better description. She greeted us cheerfully and led us into her beautiful apartment. Her apartment was certainly more spacious than ours. This open-concept apartment had even more windows for exceptional views of Florence. Migi had quite the spread of snacks and morning beverages. She engaged us in conversation and wanted to know what we thought of Florence. I asked her what she thought of all of the tourists and remarked that I found the beautiful city to be over-run by tourists. She agreed but neither of us had any solutions because denying tourists the opportunity to experience Florence would be a shame also. We had a lovely time with Migi. When we stood up to leave, Migi even gave Amy a scarf from a high-end Milan store as a gift. If the world was full of Migi’s, it would be a much better place. The next morning, Migi was going to the hospital for outpatient eye surgery. We wished her the best and started our last day of being a tourist in Florence. We still have fond memories of Migi. I recalled other interactions with locals and tourists during our adventures in Italy. Those experiences in my opinion are worth so much more than simply snapping pictures of sights and moving on to the next.

Just like Siena, Sunday was a option day for activities. A day trip to Lucca was on that optional list, but we chose to stay in Florence. Our first stop was to the interactive Galileo Museum which is almost right next to the Uffizi Gallery. The Renaissance not only affected artists, but also the sciences and research. Inside there were many discoveries and instruments which had been collected by the Medici family. This included the telescope that Galileo used when he discovered the moons of Jupiter. The strangest item was Galileo’s middle finger!

Yep, Galileo’s middle finger

After our Siena taxi strike, we decided to see if we could walk to the train station on Monday. We checked out a potential route and found it took 22 minutes. We decided that it was doable especially since we would be leaving in the morning and avoiding most of the crowds. Amy was also able to capture some beautiful sunset photos from Ponte Vecchio. After packing and settling down for the evening, we were ready to say goodbye to Tuscany.