PLANET MOORES: To Milano and Firenze

We fly to Milan via Larnaca, Cyprus (it was cheaper). Cyprus Airlines planes have names! We pass Nikolis and Onislos as we taxi in to Larnaca. Ours to Milan is Chalkanor.

It is Good Friday in Italy, and also a national day of mourning for the 290 people earthquake victims of last week. We wonder if we will see damage--we will be passing within 50 km of L’Aquila that suffered the most damage.

Green! It’s the first thing that hits me. In the train station, four colored recycling bins: STYLE and EARTH awareness. Ah, but some have garbage in them--educating the masses remains a challenge even here.

Here is T enjoying his first doppio

Milano Centrale (train station) has changed since we were here in 2001, for the better. Still a ponderous, elaborate Franco edifice on the outside, complete with mammoth winged horses, it is elegant and the art more refined on the inside. That’s one thing

that is so remarkable about Italy--public art is valued, and is everywhere.

Heading to Florence, I note we have managed to spend ~$50 in our 4 hour transit in Milan: airport bus, take out coffee and sandwiches. Sigh. We find ourselves on the Eurostar, rapid, comfy train--full on this Good Friday. The Eurostar has push button power doors, internet hookup, reclining seats with adjustable headrests, folding table trays, and even tasteful lighting in the toilets.

The countryside passes by and I drink it in: super highways, straight, with lines and big signs; large fields; neat, walled factories; trees, trees, trees; tree-lined roads. ORDER. These are all items of wonder for my Beirut eyes. A nun is standing on the train, no one offers her their seat. You can see her behind cruel me in the shot above.

The internet café in Florence where we stop sells beer, wine and Red Bull, also water and Pringles.

Here is T at the computer--have we heard from Cam yet??

Firenze!

That's Ponte Vecchio

A fellow ACS teacher had told Tom, “you’ve got to get out of the Middle East every now and then.” It was time. Order, predictability, safety (different safety--e.g. road and product--but an element of crime--e.g. theft--that we don’t have in Beirut), art.

A lady in a frilly skirt riding a motor bike and smoking a cigarette. A man in a suit riding a bike and texting. Bikes parked on--but not blocking--sidewalks. Condom vending machines (cheap!). Small wooden balconies. Polished brass apartment buzzer panels (I stifle the urge to press them). Artistic trash cans. PARKS! BENCHES! Lots of parks, small and large. Ambulances!

We go to see Michelangelo’s David. T points out that he isn’t circumcised, and he was Jewish. We go around back to check out the rear view… The David is carved from a huge chunk of marble 5 meters (16 feet) high. He holds a barely visible sling and a rock in his hand. We weren’t allowed to take pictures.

We are struck by four incomplete statues of “souls imprisoned in flesh” = slaves, breaking free, in the hall in front of David. So powerful, they strain against the marble. Some have no faces but it is easy to feel their struggle.

Upstairs in the same building (the Academia), there are lots of 14th Century Russian icon paintings --they sure had ugly babies back then, squarish heads. There are ornate, red velvet-seated, gold legged stools to sit on whilst admiring the paintings, themselves encased in elaborate window-like gold painted frames.

Here are assorted street statues:

Watch out for this guy (Machiavelli):

The Duomo! Began in 1296, it took 150 years to complete. Enormous, the outside reminds Tom of a 3D jigsaw puzzle with a thousand pieces--it is incredibly ornate. It spans a city block. While very elaborate on the outside, it is relatively simple on the inside. The nave is closed off for Easter preparations.

Boboli Gardens. Actually a large city park, free to Florence residents., 10 € for us. Trees and trees, birds singing--four different kinds that I can hear, at once (unbelievable for us coming from Lebanon, where in the city there are but a few in cages--not enough trees to support them, and hunters seem to have taken all the ones in the country).

Pitti Palace is inside Boboli Gardens, and houses several museums. In one, incredibly elaborate ceilings (covered with paintings or carved wood), fabric covered walls, amazing chandeliers, and furniture such as a corner table supported by a gold leaf winged figure, a green room, a red room, a blue and gold room, a celery and white room, marble and/or parquet floors, marble baseboards--all distract me from the stated object of the museum: clothing.

Another museum, the Argenti (silver), has incredible trompe d’oeil--how to we say that in English--trick of the eye? Celilings, where through masterful use of shading and perspective you can’t tell what is carved and what ispainted. Typical is an area where there are columns you can tell are painted but corners of the ceiling (cornices?) are real. Four rooms are done that way (sorry, no pix allowed), and they get weirder--cherubs perched on painted curlicues, holding up platters. There are up to five layers of false depths.

Later… We went to a really authentic osteria (think trattoria). Tom had the best crème brulee (flan) he’s ever had (and it came flaming to the table), and I had pesto made not with basil but roca (arugla)--fabulous. It was a basic, non-fancy place. They take food so seriously here! The proprieter gives us a licorice aperitivo on the way out.

We walk back to the hotel and I marvel at the rows of motorcylces parked in designated areas on many streets.