Thursday, December 27, 2018

Guided tour of Florence

Wednesday morning we got to relax a bit in our hotel room. The free hotel breakfast was nice. Chiara got up late when her alarm didn't go off, so Dee brought her some food from the buffet. Her response was clever, vintage Chiara:
Mom, the breakfast croissant you brought me is buttery, flaky, filled with custard, and sprinkled with sugar. I love Italy and never want to go home again.
We headed out just before noon. Our tour was to start at 1:30pm, so we walked up to Piazza San Marco where we would meet the tour guide, and then looked for a restaurant nearby. We found a nice place right on the square, with a very fun young waiter from Kosovo. It was fun kidding with each other. At one point my wife told him everything was "bello" (handsome), and he replied that only his mother said that to him. We also saw a little cafe named Chiara, so we had to take a picture.
Our tour group was small, only six of us. The guide was Mat, who was born and raised in Florence, with a German father and a French mother. His English was wonderful, very easy to understand, which is not always a given. He obviously loves his city and his job, with lots of great knowledge, insights, and stories to tell. I have been fighting a cold, which continues to threaten to get worse, but remains very minor. So I thought that I might go back to the hotel after seeing Michelangelo's statue of David, my favorite thing to see in all of Italy, which was our first stop. However, Mat was so good that I stayed for the whole three hours, enjoying the walking all over the city. We had wireless headsets to listen to Mat as we walked. He took time to show us some other old Florentine art, with lots of explanations as to the meanings of backgrounds, colors, religious and historical context.
L-R: Mat, Dee, Chiara
From there we went to the main cathedral and baptistery, without going in (the lines are too long). The doors by Ghiberti are breathtaking, and Mat had lots of artistic, historic, and religious explanations for everything.
We walked across downtown, stopping at several places to discuss key points of interest and ending up at Ponte Vecchio on the Arno river. Mat got a big tip from us for his wonderful tour. Mat really brought things to life. For example, I loved learning that white=faith, green=hope, red=charity. Did you know that Michelangelo's David used to have gold on his hair? Or that women in his day plucked out their front hair and singed off the rest  of their front hair with a candle to look more intelligent? Their hair had to be blond, too. So, paintings of Mary in that time are usually blond with a large forehead, too. And of course, white skin.
From there I walked straight back to the hotel, about 15 minutes, to rest. It was chilly outside, with me wearing a sweater and a heavy jacket, but Chiara in shirtsleeves. I was cold and needed down time. The girls stayed out, walking home more slowly, doing some shopping.

When I got to the hotel, I asked the front desk clerk how to turn on the heat, as it hadn't come on overnight. His first comment was, "did you close the windows?"  Italians love to open windows, so from that perspective it made sense, but to us it seems like a silly question. He came up and checked. Turns out that apparently the thermostat temp is mis-calibrated, so if I just turned it up to about 80 degrees, it came on. Strange, but it was nice to get warm finally.

The girls found a restaurant right down the street, Ristorante Nerone, so we went there after they got back. It looked like a hole-in-the-wall from outside, but inside it was surprisingly large, and we enjoyed visiting and eating. For appetizer, we ordered prosciutto and canteloupe, an Italian favorite, which Chiara had never heard of but quite enjoyed. She ordered pizza, which was bigger than the large plate, which was a shock to her. I ordered rabbit, since I like to try something new whenever I can. It was rolled around cooked spinach or something and bathed in salty gravy. Not a winner. The decor was really cute, with a dozen chandeliers of all types.

While Doug rested, Chiara and I went out to seek a purple David refrigerator magnet for her collection. She collects magnets from the places she visits, and also little teddy bears with the I heart [town].  I keep thinking I should want something in leather--but so far, I really don't.

We hunted down our tour guide's favorite ice cream shop (Perchè no!), but I am not that excited by ice cream at this point. I miss having stuff in my ice cream, like nuts or other crunchy things. USA, here I come!