All posts in category Art

A Tour of…. less famous stuff

Ciao Readers!

Today is the final installment of semi-educational tours based on the more educational tours I went to with my school. Unfortunately, I’m done with school for now (but have heard that once I get through with the immigration process I qualify for free Italian lessons – yay!). So, today we will visit the oldest church in town (San Miniato) as well as the palace where the less-famous Medicis lived (Palazzo Medici Riccardi). As an added bonus I have thrown in the Bardini Gardens, which Steve and I toured solo.

San Miniato (row 1) sits on a prime location – at the top of a huge hill overlooking all of Florence. Since you’ve probably seen one-too-many shots of the Duomo from this vantage point, I won’t add another one here (just look at the main photo of my blog, above). I learned that it is not only the oldest church in town, but the only one that has never been restored in any way. It was built back around 1000 a.d. over the shrine of a beheaded martyr from 250 b.c., San Miniato (duh), who managed to carry his head to this spot after his execution (allegedly). There were additions made up until the 15th century, but everything you see is original from between those dates. Notice how the colors on the ceiling are still so vivid – never retouched – pretty cool! Okay, I have to admit that at about this point in the tour I started to lose focus – the group was large and our teacher was whispering since we were in a church and my mind (and eyes) started to wander…to the weird little inlaid serpent and demon beasts (pictured)….

Palazzo Medici Riccardi (row 2) was the semi-lavish home of some of the lesser-known Medici (the more famous ones were living at Palazzo Vecchio and then Palazzo Pitti) and built in the 1400’s. After a couple a hundred years, the Medici sold it to the Riccardi family, who made some additions, ruining its former perfect cube shape (now it is a museum and government offices). One thing that struck me in this museum was the amazing fresco “Procession of the Magi” (by Benozzo Gozzoli). Apparently every January 6th there was a huge procession through town recreating the procession of the 3 Kings – since the Medici were all rich and powerful, they got to play the 3 Kings in the procession and they are the folks pictured in the fresco. From what my teacher explained, the procession tradition persists to this day, with present-day highfaluting people getting to ride in it. Somewhere on the top floor of this museum they had a temporary exhibit of 20th century Japanese masks, which I found fascinating (pictured). My teacher didn’t find them fascinating at all (his interest stops with the 16th century) and I was left behind, missing the rest of the tour (me and my disobedient drummer).

The Bardini Gardens (row 3) are the lesser-known neighbor of the Boboli Gardens. Like the Boboli Gardens, our Uffizi card gets us free entrance (yay!); unlike the Boboli Gardens, they were not packed with tourists (double yay!). These gardens were private since they were developed, beginning in the 16th century, all the way up until the last century. After the death of the last owner in 1965 (Bardini) they were neglected until recently restored and made public. In addition to being pretty and relatively quiet, they also have an amazing view of Florence….

Thanks for coming on the tour!

4 Comments

by Newmexicotoitaly on November 8, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Art

Tagged Bardini Gardens, Gardens in Florence, Mueums in Florence, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, San Miniato

Posted by Newmexicotoitaly on November 8, 2012

https://newmexicotoitaly.com/2012/11/08/a-tour-of-less-famous-stuff/

Lunch & “Spontaneous” Art

Ciao Readers!

So, when we first arrived here we had lunch at our local osteria – Cocotrippone; I mentioned that I didn’t take photos as it was the first time we were eating there and I knew we’d be back. This is a real “mom & pop” place – simple tuscan food (complete with tripe and rabbit if ya want it) at affordable prices, with a complete staff of 2 (the husband does the cooking while the wife does everything else). We decided to go back a couple of Sundays ago.

I love eating outside in Italy (and everywhere, really) – somehow it makes it even more of an “event” to me and I can spend all afternoon people watching and relaxing. The weird thing was, the entire street on which Cocotrippone sits was blocked off and deserted (notice the street behind Steve in the picture), as were several other streets in the neighborhood. We couldn’t figure out what was going on – maybe Sunday street cleaning? In any case, while it cut down on the people-watching factor, it was really nice to have some quiet for a change (neither of us has ever lived in the middle of a city and still haven’t adjusted to the constant level of noise). I ordered the same bruschetta with fagioli and lardo I described last time (but this time you get to see photos!). I had a simple but yummy salad with that and Steve had the fresh pasta with radicchio and bacon (pictured below).

While we were eating, someone moved the street barrier and drove their vehicle into the street and parked – at first we thought nothing of it as we have learned that street signs, signals, barriers, etc. don’t mean much here (one day I’ll have to post a photo of the cars parked all over the street downstairs). But it kept happening. Finally, we saw the reason – the folks who parked started taking out easels and tables and ART from their vehicles – they were setting up for an art festival! We hadn’t read anything about this and were totally surprised. By the time we finished our lunch, the deserted streets had turned into a HUGE crowd (pictured below). In addition to folks selling art, they had rolls of paper on the ground on which kids could draw – pretty cool! (A few photos, below). As I have mentioned before, at times (times you are not in line at a government office) Italy does feel like one ongoing festival… I wonder what will pop up this weekend…

5 Comments

by Newmexicotoitaly on November 2, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Art, Food, Italy, here we come!

Tagged art festival, bruschetta with fagioli and lardo, Cocotrippone, Festivals in Italy, italian food, tuscan food

Posted by Newmexicotoitaly on November 2, 2012

https://newmexicotoitaly.com/2012/11/02/lunch-spontaneous-art/

The Duomo Museum (“Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo”)

Ciao Readers!

Today I am taking you on another (semi) educational tour, following the (more) educational tour I took with my school. First, a confession. When I read on the school’s activity sheet that there was an excursion to the “Museo dell’ Opera,” I thought to myself “hmmm…I’m really not that into opera…but what the heck, a tour’s a tour!” But, as I learned when we arrived at our destination, “opera” means “works” – so what we were actually going to see was the museum of the works of the Duomo (yay!).

I know I have shown you pics of the Duomo before, but to put the museum’s contents in context, below are a few more shots I took after the museum visit (they don’t even begin to capture how amazing it looks, especially at dusk when I took them). One of the things I found out in the museum was that (like many things here) the amazing artwork on the facade of the Duomo (started at the end of the 1200’s, complete with Brunelleschi’s dome in the 1400’s) was added during the Renaissance (you can see tiles from the old version inside the museum) (pictured below). (In the museum were also sketches and models of various architects’ and artists’ ideas for how the Duomo should look, as well as parts removed at some point, like Donatello’s balcony) (ditto). Here are a few of the highlights of what’s inside…

Wait. Before we get inside I need to show you one more thing – the outside doors to the Baptistry (this is not actually part of the Duomo, but across from it, and is actually a couple of hundred years older)(row 3, 1st photo). These doors (created by Ghiberti in the 1400’s) are known as “La Porta del Paradiso” because when Michelangelo saw them he thought they were so beautiful that they must truly be the doors to Paradise. Notice the crowds staring and taking photos? Well, ya know what? They’re fake (the doors, not the people)! (Well, not so much fake as very careful replicas that were installed when the real doors were moved inside in the 1980’s). I had no idea. But there inside the museum are the real doors – and without the huge throngs of tourists in front blocking my view (pictured next). Check out the amazing detail of the figures (last pic in row)!

There are two more pieces inside the museum that specifically caught my interest. The first (pics 1/2 on last row) is yet another “unfinished” piece by Michelangelo (a Pietà). He created this when he was 80 years old! (In fact, the face of Nicodemus is a self-portrait). If you notice the side view of the right, you can see where the stone looks rough (just like the statue in my post from Palazzo Vecchio and like the “prisoners” in L’Accademia you’re not allowed to photograph). On the other hand, apparently some student of Michelangelo went and “ruined” the figure on the left by finishing it! I just really dig Michelangelo’s philosophy of “freeing” the art already in existence (why can’t I “free” the already existing masterpieces in my pad of paper?!?!?).

Finally, we have Donatello’s haunting “Penitent Mary Magdelene” (1457). The figure is shocking, meant to convey how worn down she became by fasting and through true penitence. You can read more about it here. The weird thing is, I could swear I’ve seen this statue somewhere else before (it’s kinda hard to forget), but I can’t find any record of it leaving this museum (if you know more, please let me know). By the way, this is made of wood!

Well, that was my tour of the “opera” museum. Thank you, as always, for coming along!

2 Comments

by Newmexicotoitaly on October 11, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Art

Tagged baptistry doors, donatello, doors of paradise, Duomo, Duomo Museum, Ghiberti, Michelangelo, Museo dell' opera del duomo, penitent mary magdelene, pieta

Posted by Newmexicotoitaly on October 11, 2012

https://newmexicotoitaly.com/2012/10/11/the-duomo-museum-museo-dellopera-del-duomo/

Una Passeggiata

Ciao Readers!

Okay, I am past my prickliness from last week and excited to share one of the many things I love about living here in Florence – the “passeggiata.” While this literally means “a walk,” it’s really so much more. The passeggiata is the time when everyone in the community is out and about – walking, chatting, stopping at bars for drinks and snacks, meeting up to enjoy a gelato (yay – more excuses to eat gelato!), and basically unwinding from the day. This is pretty much a nightly event, which gives even a work-night the feel of a festival. I have never lived anywhere where you can go out on the town at 9:00 on a Tuesday night and enjoy such a jovial and family-friendly atmosphere. To be honest, until now, we were most likely to be on the couch watching t.v. at 9:00 p.m. on a Tuesday (or most any day). I love walking around this town at that time of the evening – it is such a fantastic novelty!

While I think the evening walk is most appropriately termed a “passesggiata,” anytime is a great time to saunter around town. It is still amazing what we get to see on a daily basis – famous art and architecture, outdoor markets, people from literally everywhere in the world, and more. It is really impossible to describe the richness of a simple stroll. So, instead of telling you about a walk through town, I will “show” you around. (You may have noticed that you rarely get an up-close view of individual folks in my blog (other than us) – that is because I have decided not to include clear facial photos of folks unless I ask their permission first (like the proprietors of the places we’ve eaten), so more photos of things than people is the result).

Below are shots (in this order) of the Duomo (famous landmark by Brunelleschi, c. 1436); the Saturday market in the Piazza della Santissima Annunziate (another Brunelleschi creation and where the roundels, or “mummy-babies” are); Santa Croce Church (I walk right past this on the way to my new Italian language school every day!); the Ponte Vecchio (as I mentioned in an earlier post, the only bridge not blown up by Hitler’s troops); a beautiful carousel in the Piazza della Repubblica (a great place for an evening stroll, complete with street musicians); and just a random shot down any street with a peak-a-boo view of the top of the Duomo. Pretty impressive scenery, no?!

4 Comments

by Newmexicotoitaly on September 17, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Art

Tagged Duomo, passaggiata, Piazza della Repubblica, Piazza della Santissima Annunziata, Ponte Vecchio

Posted by Newmexicotoitaly on September 17, 2012

https://newmexicotoitaly.com/2012/09/17/una-passeggiata/

Italy as a Buddhist Meditation (or “the Green Day concert that wasn’t”)

Interesting title, yes? I will try to explain…

Sunday we went to Bologna for the I-Day Festival, with our favorite band headlining – Green Day. I had bought the tickets online months ago (95 euros) and even talked about it in an earlier blog. This was a big deal to us and we had been looking forward to it since before we moved here (imagine your own all-time favorite – the Beatles or the Boss or Lada Gaga). Here’s what it took to go to the festival: 1) since the last train back from Bologna leaves about the time Green Day was to take the stage, we had to figure out how to get home (couldn’t stay overnight as Steve had work in the morning), so 2) we decided to rent a car (98 euros, plus gas and tolls); 3) to get the car we left home a little after 8:30 a.m. and walked 40 minutes to the bus station, took a bus (12 euros) to the Florence airport, then took the shuttle bus to the rental car place (will be repeating in reverse to return); 4) Steve bravely navigated us to the outskirts of Bologna where we promptly got lost and 5) in my baby-Italian eventually got directions from some nice pedestrians. We made it to the fair grounds about 1:00.

There was already quite the line of folks waiting to stake out a good spot on the lawn (all open seating). Green Day wasn’t scheduled to appear until about 9:00 (there were earlier bands), so we had planned to go into town on a bus to have lunch and go to my (still) favorite gelateria – La Sorbetteria. At this point I’ll make the long story shorter – after unsuccessfully trying to get into town on a bus, we gave up and decided just to go into the fair grounds and pay too much for crumby fair food. After quite a wait in line I was reminded that some bathrooms (in this case porta-potties) in Europe are still the hole-in-the-floor kind (ACK!).

MUCH to our surprise, the fair grounds were huge, and had an impressive array of (normally priced) food selections from across the globe. There was sushi and African food and Indian food, and of course, many varieties of Italian food, to name a few (photo, below). We chose a seafood restaurant (yes, they pretty much built an entire restaurant in a huge tent) and had the most delicious, typically leisurely (2 hour) Italian meal. Never in a million years did I expect to get to eat mussels in a garlic and white wine broth and the yummiest assortment of fried seafood (“frito misto,” pictured below) at a Green Day concert! So far, so good (well, after the bathroom part)…

At about 5:00, after seeing how many people had entered the actual concert area, we decided we’d better go stake out a spot and hunker down until Green Day arrived. Just staking out a place was its own cultural experience, but there we were – the anticipation building. From the number of Green Day t-shirts in the massive crowd (pictured below), it was apparent we were among fellow fans (we had also spotted shirts on the bus and in the airport in Florence). From the title of this post, you already know where this is going, but that’s almost beside the point – it’s what happened after that that’s the real moral of the story.

At about 7:30 (after Social Distortion left the stage), someone came out and matter-of-factly announced (I wasn’t sure I was understanding correctly, but I was) that the lead singer of Green Day was ill, the concert was cancelled and please exit to your left. Steve and I were in shock – what the heck?!?!? Were they serious?!?!?! Was this a joke?!?!?! After all the time and effort and expense it took to get here?!?!?! And then it happened – we expected to look around at 20,000 other upset people, all angry and disappointed (and maybe an overturned porta potty or two) – but everyone else looked….fine. More than fine – they looked to be in the same happy, festival-going mood they were in 5 minutes earlier. Wow. It was a little hard to comprehend….

And then we wondered – how could we let ourselves be angry and upset and disappointed when everyone else looked so nonplussed? We couldn’t. And that is how Italy is a form of Buddhist mediation – teaching by example how to let go of attachment and expectation and suffering, and just going with the universe as it unfolds.

Ciao.

4 Comments

by Newmexicotoitaly on September 4, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Art, Culture Shock, Food, Italy, here we come!

Tagged Bologna, Buddhist meditation, frito misto, Green Day, I-Day Festival

Posted by Newmexicotoitaly on September 4, 2012

https://newmexicotoitaly.com/2012/09/04/italy-as-a-buddhist-meditation-or-the-green-day-concert-that-wasnt/

Membership (to the Uffizi) has its Privileges

Ciao Tutti!

As I have mentioned in a previous post, we became members of the Uffizi (Amici degli Uffizi). As I have not mentioned in a previous post, we have been “popping in” on some of the world’s greatest art in between the projects and appointments. That sounds so weird – but we have literally been “popping in” – just saying “Ciao” to Michelangelo’s David (at L’Accademia) and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (at the Uffizi). The Uffizi cards are too cool! Not only do we walk past the long lines of folks without reservations (photo below), but also past the shorter lines of those with the knowledge/foresight to make reservations. We literally just walk right up to the front, flash our cards, and get let in! At the Accademia they opened the rope blocking the front door for us, which Steve likened to being super VIP’s at some swank night club. I have to admit I felt many eyes on us today as we bypassed the pictured line and walked right in!

It’s a little surreal. I remember the first time I saw these amazing works of art I stayed and stared – thinking it might be my only chance to ever see them. That was 2006, and as Steve confirmed, not in a million years did he think at that time we would be living here (though I am guessing those thoughts at least entered my head). Now, in stark contrast, we just “pop in,” knowing we can come back and view the other pieces at our leisure (and in cooler weather – it’s even HOT in the museums!). I have decided to just try and absorb a few pieces a visit. Today a piece I have never seen before caught my attention, as much for its name as for the art itself – “Saint Nicholas Resurrecting Youths who had been Pickled” (by Gentile da Fabriano, 1425) (yes, that says “pickled,” not a type-o). You can read the tale here. No photos are allowed in the museums, though they do have a realistic (not) replica of David in the courtyard for photo purposes (below). I am close to having tried enough gelato for a full review post…close….

3 Comments

by Newmexicotoitaly on August 23, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Art, Italy, here we come!

Tagged Amici degli Uffici, Botticelli's "Birth of Venus", L'Accademia, Michelangelo's David, Saint Nicholas, Uffizi

Posted by Newmexicotoitaly on August 23, 2012

https://newmexicotoitaly.com/2012/08/23/membership-to-the-uffizi-has-its-privileges/

Are We There Yet?!?

I am getting antsy. My body is still here in Albuquerque, but my mind keeps wondering off to Italy. Like right now. I have papers to grade. But here I am writing about Italy. I just can’t help it…

So I am going to allow myself a short daydream about some of the Italy things to which I am looking forward…

I am looking forward to the day after we arrive at our new home in Florence (the day itself involves 3 plane trips on separate flights with cats and a drive from Rome to Florence, then 4 flights of stairs with cats and bags, and presumably serious jet-lag – hence the “day after”). From Google Earth it looks like there are at least three pizza places within a block, 2 supermarcati and the Sant’ Ambrogio market I have written about in an earlier post, all close by. (And probably some cool non-food things, too). I can’t wait to explore OUR neighborhood! (Wow – seriously – FLORENCE, ITALY will soon be “OUR neighborhood” – surreal – super cool – Wow…). And after we eat, we can take a walk and use our “Friends of the Uffizi” cards to see the “Birth of Venus” and “David” and…Wow…Wow… I am seriously blowing my own mind!!! Just a walk from our home:

I can’t wait to go back to school (yes, I am a geek, but hear me out). My Italian has seriously been slipping away. I was having Skype classes on Fridays, but now that I am working full time, the only days I could manage a class were Memorial Day and one last class on the Fourth of July. It’s definitely not enough to learn anything new and really not even enough to maintain what I’ve learned. So, because I really want to become fluent, and NOT because I am a geek, I can’t wait to get back into language school. We have three to visit (and choose from) once we get settled. Me going to school in Bologna: We are totally looking forward to Sunday, September 2nd when we are taking a trip back to Bologna to see Green Day (and eat, of course). Green Day (one of both Steve and my all time favorites) is the headliner at the I-Day Festival in Bologna on the Sunday before Steve’s school starts (I still can’t figure out what the “I” stands for – any ideas?). We can get there as quickly as 37 minutes (on the fastest, most expensive train), but will likely take a slow/cheap inter-city train and enjoy the trip (and begin a more frugal life on one salary, for now). Before the concert I will get to take Steve to one of the amazing restaurants I discovered when I was in Bologna for school, and of course there will be a trip to La Sorbetteria Castiglione (insert daydream about flavors of gelato here). How cool is it that our favorite band is playing in one of our favorite towns with the world’s best gelato, shortly after we arrive in Italy?!? Too cool for words, that’s how cool!!! Green Day (& Steve in well-worn Green Day concert t-shirt – pics of gelato flavors to follow once we arrive):

Okay, I think I have daydreamed about Italy enough to sustain me through another week of not being in Italy. As always, thanks for coming along for the ride! Ciao!