Last month I went on holiday to Italy with the express aim of taking a marble sculpting course. My trip was nearly three weeks with the course taking up two of those weeks.
I spent the first night in Pisa, a town that failed to impress. I can’t say that I saw much of it since I went from the airport to my hotel and then to the train station the next morning, so I reserved judgement until I was able to get a better view. I took a morning train to Florence, checked my bag at the station and wandered off to the Uffizi Gallery. I must say that I found Florence a charming town with a sense of history all around. The Uffizi Gallery was quite impressive, though overwhelming. The crowds and the security were a bit much for me and made it difficult to get into the right mindset for viewing art. I took my time, though and saw some amazing works.
Eventually I left the gallery behind and drifted back to the station to get my bag. I spent a fair amount of time just wandering the streets of Florence on this trip; it is a city that is very comfortable to walk about. Florence is a city that is steeped in history. Much of the town is setup for tourists and there are many pedestrian only routes. The marble work on many of the historic buildings is damaged by pollution so they have restricted traffic around many of these sites.
Oddly enough, as I wandered the streets of Florence, surrounded by renaissance art and architecture, I kept expecting to see my undergrad Art History teacher pop out of the crowd and start telling me about this building or that piece of art. It didn’t happen, but I would not have been surprised if it had.
In the evening, I met up with my friend Eric who is studying art in Florence at the Angel Academy, an English-speaking art school. Since it was the end of the school year, Eric’s housing situation was in transition; since he was returning home for the summer, his roommates had taken on his replacement early, and his flat was cramped. Instead, he had arranged for me to stay with another friend of his, a wonderful lady named Wendy who also attended Angel. We got on well and I was very fortunate to get such nice accommodation.
Eric showed me around Florence on a labyrinthine walking tour. Sadly my phone, which was the only accessible camera I had since my good one was buried in my luggage, ran out of power and I was unable to photograph much of the walk. After a stop at the grocery, we ended up the tour at Wendy’s (the person, not the fast food joint), where we had dinner and settled in for the evening.
Saturday I traipsed about Florence on my own for a while, visiting the Bargello, a marvellous sculpture museum, Santa Croce, a cathedral filled with artwork including frescos by Giotto, and the Museum del Duomo which has artwork that has been removed from the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore for safety or storage. It seems that every building in Florence contains renaissance treasures and you only need to pay €6 to see them. Unfortunately, I could not pay to enter every building I passed, so I am certain I missed much.
Outside of Santa Croce stands a statue of Dante Aligheri. I found this rather bizarre since Florence sentenced Dante to perpetual exile in 1302 and he never returned to the city (although his exile was finally lifted by the Florentine city council in 2008). It seems to me that erecting a statue of him would be like the French erecting a statue of Wellington at Waterloo- if not in bad taste, at least ironic. But Florence is a city filled with contradictions, and I suppose that modern Florence regrets the choice made in 1302.
Sunday afternoon I was scheduled to leave for Carrara by train. Prior to that, we attended an open studio for Inga Loyeva, one of Eric’s instructors at Angel who was leaving to pursue her MFA. I was able to meet some of the other students and was really taken by her artwork.
Finally the time came for me to board the train to Carrara. To Florence and Eric, I bid “arrivederci” and hope I get the chance to return there soon.