This morning we had arranged to meet Lisa at the Piazza Della Signoria in order to expedite a trip to the Bargello Museum.
Their current exhibition was of Bronze Sculptures by Vincenzo Danti (yes… the Vincenzo Danti) so after clearing yet more of the washing backlog, in the process rinsing some rather grey water out of our clothes, we made our way down the piazza in question, which is lined with famous statues.
Not the least of which is a near-identical copy of the David. It was under that statue that we met Lisa, after waiting a whole 5 minutes in line to reserve out tickets for the Uffizi in person, and it’s safe to say that she was as happy to see us as we were to see her. First priority was to sit down and have a coffee, where both Lisa and Alice were surprised to find that Iced Coffee over here is not Iced Coffee at all but rather very cold coffee. Served in a champagne flute.
Moving on.
The Bargello museum used to be, I think, the building occupied by the chief of police, but now it’s occupied by a large collection of marble and bronze statues and relief plates etc., of various figures including Bacchus, St Paul, Venus, St Mary (with or without child) and also several differing variations on the theme of Honour triumphant over Deceipt. And a lot of statues that used to be part of fountains (which makes the holes in the nipples and other parts seem less unusual).
Then we strolled over to the Ponte Santa Trinita to wait for the bus up the hill to the Villa Romana. Lisa’s friend Silke is doing a 1-year internship at the Villa Romana, which for those interested to look on the map is just past Porta Romana (Porta meaning gate I think). Anyway there is a big roundabout with a big arch-type gate near it, and a little but up the hill is the villa.
The bus actually leaves from the next bridge up the river (oops) but we had a nice sit there for half an hour watching people (and other buses) go past.
The villa itself exists (currently) in order to support artists; they offer four 10-month residencies each year and, given that it’s a four story villa with it’s own vegetable garden, fig trees, olive groves and ornamental bamboo etc, they usually fill those four places.
We sat in the courtyard and had a a wonderful spaghetti for lunch, which Silke made. The sauce was a combination of tomatoes, garlic, capers, raisins, sunflower seeds and parsley. And that, really, was the Florence we had been looking for – lunch in the courtyard of a villa, looking over the hills, with friends.
Silke is doing a 1-year internship at the villa (much like the internship Lisa did at Gadfly) so she did eventually have to go back to the various bits of office work awaiting her attention in the afternoon. In the meanwhile we had a tour of the garden (and of the fresh figs from the tree) with Lisa, then made our way up many narrow stairs to the rooftop balcony. From up there we could see basically all of Florence. So when pizza for dinner was suggested we were inclined to agree.
We whiled away the evening meeting two of the residents (a German named Sylvia and a Russian named Vlada) walking down the road to order pizza, drinking wine and lounging on the rooftop, and having a hilarious time trying to explain to people of varying English-speaking capacity exactly what ‘dodgy’ means.
Vlada couldn’t believe we were going to catch a train across Russia, and also warned us that signs are generally not in English.
‘I hate the trains in Russia! I really hate them!’, and so on.
Sooner or later it’s past midnight and you have to think about how you’re planning to get home. What with the no buses and everyone having had too much to drink we caught a taxi, which was (drum roll) unsurprisingly expensive. But we were relieved to find that we could still get into our hotel upon arrival.
All in all, just about the best night of the trip so far.
Greg
