On Tuesday, August 21st, we took the regional train back to Bologna, then the fast train to Florence, arriving a little after noon. We walked from the station into the San Lorenzo neighborhood, ending up at an apartment building, on a street of other apartment buildings. There we rang the bell for Soggiorno Pezzati and were let in. There was a dark, narrow hallway back to the stairs, with two private apartments on the ground floor, another two on the first floor (second, in America) and finally, on the second floor (American third) was the heavy metal door for Soggiorno Pezzati B&B. There we were met not by Signora Pezzati, who, like most other Italians, was away on vacation, but by a very pleasant young woman (apparently of South Asian ancestry), who checked us in and showed us into our room (one of the apartments on that floor). Since there was some question as to whether she would be there when we would leave on Thursday morning, it was decided to pay her immediately.
The room was very pleasant, with the picture of God giving life to Adam, from the Sistine Chapel, over the bed. The bathroom was small, but the fixtures (including a bidet, as in all our Italian accommodations except Al Campaniel in Venice) were new and modern in style. The light coming in through the large window reminded me of the film A Room With a View, which was set in Florence. The only view that we had, however, was of some roofs and a neigbor’s balcony. That was true throughout this trip. None of our rooms looked out onto scenery. They tended to be quiet and interior-facing, which was fine with us..
It was lunch time, so we went out in search of a Lonely Planet-approved sandwich shop. First we looked in our own neighborhood, around the Mercato Centrale, which was a block-and-a half south of our B&B. By now lunchtime was over and there wasn’t anything of interest around the market, except, for Mary Joy, the stalls full of purses, scarves, etc., in the streets surrounding the market.
So went down the Via dei Tornabuoni (a high-class shopping street) toward the river and turned into the Via del Parione, looking for a particular sandwich shop. It simply wasn’t there, as far as we could tell. We went up and down the street a few times, and while there appeared to be two separate street-numbering systems, one in the teens and the other in the thirties, neither of them included the number we were looking for.
Plan C: we went down to the Lungarno (the street along the river Arno) and turned left, toward the Uffizi Gallery, and in a side street a block from the gallery, we found ‘Ino, a tiny place with a counter, where you picked up your sandwich and wine, and a small adjoining room, where you sat at one of several barrels or tables or along a counter, facing out a long window. We did the last, eating our very good sandwiches and drinking our white wine while watching through the window as tour groups of Poles or Britons were led past, in the adjoining underpass, by their tour directors, holding aloft the umbrella or brightly colored book or other highly-visible article that functioned as the banner under which he or she led the little troop into the fray, against the hordes of other tourists.
We then wandered into the Piazza Della Signoria, the main public square of Florence, with its copy of Michelangelo’s David next to the Palazzo Vecchio (Old Palace), once the seat of republican government, then the seat of the Medici Grand Dukes of Tuscany, now site of the mayor’s office.
While Mary Joy watched a street clown, who had gathered a large crowd and was getting a lot of laughs, I sat in the Loggia dei Lanzi among a crowd of statues (the best being Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus). I was feeling vaguely unwell.
Next, we visited the free public areas of the Palazzo Vecchia. Then, we decided to visit the Bargello, the former jail that was now the principal sculpture museum. All I remembered from our last time there, in 2001, were the Donatello statues and the Della Robbia ceramic sculptures. These were still the highlights of the collection, in particular, the famous Donatello David, from the 1440s, the first nude statue in Europe in a thousand years.
I was still feeling not quite right, and now so did Mary Joy. It was very hot outside. The high temperature that afternoon and the next, I discovered later, was 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). We got a 1½-liter bottle of cold water and drank two-thirds of it in ten minutes, immediately feeling much better. So we went to the Grom in the narrow streets south of the Piazza del Duomo and had our gelato fix.
Then we went into the Duomo, or cathedral, overwhelming on the outside, but less impressive on the inside. Afterwards, we went into the Baptistery, its dome filled with wonderful 13th-century mosaics.
Over the time we were in Florence, we found ourselves going back and forth a number of times between our room and the Piazza del Duomo, to the point that we had the not-long-but-fairly-complicated route memorized. The Piazza itself, large as it is, even with the huge cathedral, the tall bell tower and the Baptistery, filling the center, was never jam-packed by its crowds of tourists. On the north side, near the horse-drawn buggies waiting for paying passengers, was a line of six ambulances. Occasionally, one would pick up a heat-stroked tourist and head off, leaving a gap in the lineup.
In the piazza and its side streets, as was the case wherever we went in Italy, were the street vendors, mostly African or North African, selling pretty much the same stuff everywhere. You would pass someone standing with a blue or beige ball in his hand and he would suddenly throw it down onto a board. Splat! It would be spread out, a semi-liquid, gooey mess. Then, it would draw itself together again and in a few seconds there would be the original ball, like a movie monster that you think has been obliterated, but its constituent molecules pull themselves together and suddenly the creature is whole again and ready for mayhem!
Or you would be dragging your luggage up the steps of a hump-backed bridge in Venice, and at the top would be an African tending his pile of purses. Or a pair of vendors would scoop up the prints of famous local (and not-so-local) paintings that they had laid out near the Loggia dei Lanzi: the police had been seen nearby!
But most common, especially where there were kids, were the vendors of the little toy (I never got close enough to see exactly what it was) that you would throw high up in the air and it would flash and sparkle with blue lights.
Our route back to our room led from the northwest corner of the Piazza del Duomo, up the Borgo San Lorenzo, past its restaurants, with street terraces, shops, street vendors and crowds, to San Lorenzo itself, the parish church and burial place of the Medici. The streets and piazzas along the north and west sides of the church were filled with vendor stands, mostly with goods from adjoining shops. Most common was leather, for which Florence is famous: dozens of stands, carrying hundreds of leather jackets, thousands of purses, millions (well, maybe not) of belts, in all shapes, sizes and colors.
Interestingly, this bazaar shuts down at 8 p.m., and the stalls are cleared of their goods, taken into the neighboring shops, and dismantled. Soon nothing is left in the streets but bottles, wrappers and other trash. And eventually the street-sweeping machines come along.
After running this gantlet along the long north side of San Lorenzo, we would turn right and go up a block, where it would begin again with the stalls in the streets around the Mercato Centrale.
This Central Market is a large, indoor food market. The streets outside, however, are dedicated to the same leather goods, scarves, souvenirs, etc. that you find around San Lorenzo. But after navigating the streets on the south and west sides of the market, we’re finally clear of the stalls and in the home stretch. This part of Via Panicale is the corner of an immigrant neighborhood. There are Pakistani groceries and restaurants and African beauty salons. At the end of the street some African men would usually hang out, but we never felt threatened, even at the time when there was a police car there and somebody was being arrested. We certainly never had the urge to walk down the middle of the street shouting operatic arias.
We would cross the Via Guelfa to Via San Zanobi, and in half a block we would be at Soggiorno Pezzati.
After freshening up, we headed back toward the Duomo, and to the south, near Grom, we found another Lonely Planet recommendation, Coquinarius, which, luckily, had an opening. It’s basically a wine bar with a large menu of appetizers and primi, and a very small selection of main courses. Mary Joy had a carpaccio (marinated raw beef) plate, which she liked very much, while I had a salad with chicken breast, also very good. Then, rather late in the evening, we returned to our room.
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