Firenze e Pisa

I will spit until I learn how to speak/

up thru the doorway as the sideboards creak

\Neutral Milk Hotel

I stepped off the plane and immediately saw scores of villas. California dreamin’… again? Had I recently been divorced and embarking on a massive home renovation project re: Diane Keaton in Under the Tuscan Sun? No, I was at the shin of the Italian boot—Tuscany, on a school field trip. From the rolling hills to the brightly colored window shutters, Italy really is (no lie) a photographers dream. With trees that point straight up to the sky, yellow and orange colored rocks and the sparkling Arno river, its hard to imagine any photo turning out badly.

The historic centre of Florence has historically been divided into four quarters, named after the most important churches in the area. The quarters of Santa Maria Novella San Giovanni and Santa Croce are on the right-hand bank of the Arno River, “di qua d’Arno” and the fourth, Santo Spirito, is “di là d’Arno” (to the left of the Arno). My compass, the Arno River, ensures direction in Florence, much like the Empire State Building of New York or the Arch of Saint Louis.

I arrived in Florence (Firenze, in Italian), ready to walk down the narrow streets, dodge Vespas (motorini) and leather jackets. The original home of Italian fashion, few fashion houses still hold their headquarters in Florence—many have hailed Milan as their recent fashion capital. Despite this, Florence’s large windowed boutiques flash Armani, Gucci, Prada, Cavalli, and Chanel. Florence can, at times, among its maze-like streets, be hidden. It is surprising at how easily one could hit—and miss its most treasured boutiques. For instance, Florence’s most famous perfumerie, Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, has a modest sign near the door and no window, which displays its wares. Incorporated in 1221 by a savvy Dominican businessman, Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella is one of the oldest pharmacies in the world. Their essences and potpurri, as well as its notorious perfumes, still follow 500 year old formulas, originally created for Italian royalty, Caterina di’ Medici.

Also dubbed “Eataly” by affectionate tourists, Florence boasts cocina Toscana in the tradition of “cucina povera,” or peasant cooking. Pure flavor, no sauces, no bullshit. I rambled around Florence and dropped into any café or pizza joint so I could have illy espresso and rustic, oven baked pizza. My favorite place was Trattoria Za za. Za za is Italian for buzz, the sound quoteth by bees the world over. The dish of choice? Pappardelle (literal translation, “gobble up”) with wild boar (Diane Keaton’s ex-husband).

After dinner, I hung out at Ponte Vecchio (old bridge), which, thank God, was not destroyed by retreating Germans in 1944 (every other bridge in Florence was). In the city where Dante, Raphael, and Da Vinci, and Galileo considered their genius, I considered my lack of genius. These thinkers, who spearheaded the Renaissance, developed modern thought. Without them, the world would be a completely different place and perhaps the democratic and secular state I lived in, would not be as it is today. I only got this history lesson upon my arrival to Florence— apparently the history of the Renaissance and classical art are what the city is best known for, not Tea with Mussolini.

The next morning brought a viewing of the Uffizi and the statues and great works by Botticelli and Michelangelo—cherubs and Venus on the Rocks. in addition to Filippo Brunelleschi, whose genius in the 14 teens led him to completely revolutionize art by pulling the two dimensional grid back which led to the creation of perspective. Brunelleschi’s dome, the Basilica di Santa Croce. I walked through room after room, admiring the pieces when I stopped. At the Gelateria, Il Gelato Vivoli located on the Via Isola delle Stinche, the line was out the door.

I stopped by the Accademia to visit my favorite male statue—the stunning David who was 17 foot of man— anatomical and uncircumcised. Typical. David was so lazy that he couldn’t even put on underwear for his millions of viewers. The scholar who gave me a tour actually did his doctoral thesis on the spending personality of Michaelangelo. Hey, you can learn a lot about a guy by looking at his receipts. Apparently the most sound and economic purchase of Michaelangelo’s life was, what do you know, his bed.

Mercato Centrale – food market I then headed to the San Lorenzo market, which, if you are a fan of leather goods at an affordable rate, is one of the best markets in the city. From leather jackets, gloves, purses, and wallets, the supply of goods at the market stretches for a quarter of a mile, lined with merchants stands, ready to bargain with shoppers.

I spent the rest of the evening with friends—a tradition the Florentines, who, beautiful and xx, must meet mom for dinner. Dinner with loved ones, particularly with family on Sunday afternoon, make up the cultural backbone of Italy. This was a culture change I was ready and willing to embrace—along with my fettuccine Alfredo. Wine (Chianti, Florence’s famous export) was cheaper than any beverage, in some cases even water. It was a different but welcome exchange, due to Italy’s countless vineyards and true grasp of how wine was to be mastered.

Pisa, home of the famous leaning tower, originally a famous merchant town, thrived for the greater part of the 1200s and 1300s, Pisa became less prominent when Genoa took over as the main competitor of merchant cities but Pisa has, that tower. When Pisa is not too windy, it opens up its spiraling tower so that you may, like I did, climb the winding staircase nearly 300 steps to the top. Overlooking the Piazza dei Miracoli, also called Campo dei Miracoli (in English, the “field of miracles”) takes its name from poet Gabriele d’Annunzio’L’Ardea roteò nel cielo di Cristo, sul prato dei Miracoli’ “The Ardea rotated over the sky of Christ, over the meadow of Miracles. »

The city was a tourist’s haven, but still had preserved the charm of a small and quaint Italian town.

It had been a fantastic trip—with the weather steady at 60 degrees with sun, it was a welcome break from the misty and cold London. It was clear at the end, however, that I had not done Italy justice, and the minute I got to my London flat, I began planning my next journey. If you need a guide of Italy, please do not visit Firenze Turismo for more information.

Courtauld Gallery at the end of the universe

Suggested reading:  The Bloomsbury Group

The Courtauld Gallery is not one of the most widely known or highly publicized, in England but is, nonetheless, full of hidden treasures by famous Western artists such as Matisse, Picasso, Renoir, Van Gogh, and countless others. It is situated in the heart of Central London, a fifteen-minute walk from Trafalgar Square off of the red line’s Holborn station. It is well worth a visit and could serve as the basis for a day of sketching and artistic amusement. They also have very nice museum pamphlets. Where on earth did you get that lovely thumbnail version of Renoir’s La Loge?

As the University of London’s main gallery and situated in what remains of the Royal Academy, the Courtauld Gallery is London’s quintessential sophisticated gallery. Students of Art History convene in its central courtyard, a perfect place for social exchange and the culmination of academic ideas and inspirations. It is not difficult to understand why this gallery and its school are so successful. The gallery was created by its very generous first donor, Samuel Courtauld, after whom the gallery was named. The continual progression of bequested gifts in the 19th and 20th centuries have kept the gallery’s collection one of London’s best. Gifts comprise nearly all of the gallery’s collections, ranging from medieval art and religious iconography to artwork by the infamous Bloomsbury group. Primary donors include Samuel Courtauld (1876-1947), Roger Fry (1866-1934), Thomas Gambier Parry (1816-88), Viscount Lee of Fareham (1868-1947) and Count Antoine Seilern (1901-78). The gallery atypically curates by collector rather than by chronology (National Portrait Gallery arranges its works by chronology and the Natural History Museum arranges its specimens by theme), and appropriately displays the interests and tastes of past collectors. An original non-profit organization with, what must have been a commanding board of directors, the gallery does incur a small fee. Uncharacteristic of most museums in London, which due to city law mandating social cohesion, subsidizes its museums so that spectators can enter all its main museums for free. After viewing A Bar at the Folies-Bergère and van Gogh’s Self-Portrait, you may very well feel as if you have stumbled upon a feather in the cap of England.

In February 2007, a collection of Rembrandt sketches served as the gallery’s primary exhibition, the Guercino conceptual exhibit, its second. Constantly updating its collection and hosting a number of temporary and traveling exhibits, in addition to sponsoring lectures presented by experts, Courtauld has been providing academic and artistic excellence to the public for nearly 75 years (a relatively new operation). Lectures and educational initiatives give insight to Old Master works and Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings—a true university offering. Also important to note is that lectures and exhibits are open to everyone, not just the professors and students. How is that for social cohesion, eh? 

There’s a yellow rose in Scotland

Watching: Rob Roy Trailer

 

Our page in the Haggis tour book

In February of 2007 I booked an extensive tour of Scottish Highlands, land of kilts, scotch, haggis, Hagrid, Braveheart, and its progeny, America. Although not my first choice destination, I wanted to visit as many places as I could afford, so, what the hell. I booked it. It’s travel. It’s close to London. Right, like Iceland is close to London. Negative thoughts aside, I was not prepared for what came next: rich tradition and myth, wilderness and 10,000 “lochs,” or lakes, dotting Scotland’s mountainous terrain. Loch Ness is the biggest, most famous and arguably the most mysterious of all the lochs in Scotland, for one big obvious reason. Full of wildlife and creatures, known and unknown, many Scots, in this case, my tour guide, had, over his long tenure with our touring company, become obsessed with conjuring Nessie from her murky lair. This “rousing ritual” included a special coordinated and synchronized dance, and featured our tour mascot, a stuffed dragon appropriately named “Nessie’s baby,” which we used as “bait.” After Nessie’s baby mimicked our dance, provided the group’s ringleader (brave soul or innocent victim) moved the dragon’s arms and legs to the dance steps, would, at the very end, raise Nessie’s baby into the air and scream “I’m going to eat your baby!” After the ringleader finished bellowing, our group paused and the lake’s glassy top met with thirty sets of eyes eagerly panning the water. Instantly a figure (what I later learned to be duck), shaped like Nessie’s head, swam merrily and eagerly across the loch, dove for a fish, and disappeared. That could have been Nessie, right?

It is perhaps the pride that keeps us all believing in the Loch Ness monster, which so exemplifies the pride of Scottish people. Their history and destiny is deeply interwoven into the social fabric of the United States, and the millions of Americans with Scottish roots. Please see: Appalachia and any Catholic church with a 45 minute mass. There exist dozens of films depicting the battle for “Scottish independence”—a bloody, sad and rarely victorious tale, recounted for centuries. The ends are always predictable and familiar—everyone knows there is no such thing as a happy ending in Scotland. If there is, it must not be Scottish or the man must’ve told a wee lie. Warring clans, loss of heroes and their extremities (Scottish brawls were a chop fest), and the eventual defeat of the Jacobites in the mid-1700s, repeat that Scottish history is certainly brave, but never clean. This is significant because, if not for the loss of the tribal way of life caused by centuries of continual defeat, there would be a large part of American life missing. The great wave of Scottish emigration in the 1800s occurred because of forced displacements dubed the “Highland Clearances.”

            My Scottish travel destinations, from day one to seven, is a long and confusing catalog of Gaelic town names, each destination coupled with a dark myth from Scottish folklore— some legitimate and some, I am convinced, created out of boredom by my tour guide. Faeries, Skelkies, cabbages and kings. My favorite, explains the creation of great Ben na Caillich (all mountains in Scotland begin with “Ben”) or “Old Man of Storr,” which tells of a man transformed into a protruding cliff rock by vindictive dark elves (he ceased to tell them bedtime stories, no seriously), while his wife, weeping at the loss of her old man, is immortally transformed into a streaming river. Other notable stories include lovely Skelkies (Scottish mer-folk) hiding in black rubbery suits to escape unjust betrothals and of a magical creek that, if bathed in, will make you beautiful. It’s a legend, trust me, I decided to bathe in the lake in the middle of February and all I witnessed was a nasty cold two days later. The rest of the trip progressed as such: dressed in swaddling clothes with a fifth of scotch in one hand and Nessie’s baby in the other, our tour bus drove through Stirling, home of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce (yes, the one related to John McCain), which featured a statue of Will that held an uncanny resemblance to Mel Gibson. FREEDOM!! Our bus meandered through Glencoe– its creeks, waterfalls and coffee stops and drove in the shadow of snow- covered Ben Nevis (Britain’s highest mountain peak). At our stop in Fort Augustus we learned from a Glaswegian ex-pat, who chose to live like a McLeod, how much clan life sucks. After he dressed Heather (Air Force, please see: Barcelona) in a kilt, a garment 24 feet long, we left, passing Viking fortresses, spray-painted sheep (and photogenic Eilean Donan Castle, which was, featured in that one James Bond film. You know, that one.

In conclusion, Scottish legends and tragedies reach to the end of the nineteenth century (that’s when I stopped listening) during construction of The Forth Rail Bridge, a stunning man-made addition to the landscape of Scotland. It is, in fact, so tragic that a logbook of accidents and sicknesses from the bridge’s construction had 26,000 separate entries. We heard of the macabre stories of men who died while working on one of the finest bridges in the entire world, only to fall among beams, far out of reach. “Mikey? Mikey boy, are you alive? We’ll lower y’down a sandwich!”

Deep breath. Ahh, whiskey.

BAR-the-lona

Listening to: Barcelona- Giulia y Los Tellarini

 

            After I landed in Reus, Spain a city reminiscent of California’s brown hills, I was exhausted and nauseous from 2 hours of my bumpy, rowdy, lawless and crowded Ryanair flight. Why, oh why, did I have to be so cheap? Is 50 pounds really that important to save? Being the tightly wound American I am, the idea of landing directly on the runway, absent of air traffic control, seemed like a terrible idea. It’s not unsafe it’s just… Europe. At least the cheeseburgers were good. I traveled with a member of the Air Force Reserves who, decked in steel-toed boots and an orthopedic neck pillow, carried an oddly sewn stuffed cat named Helter Skelter, who was to be photographed a great deal more than me over the coming days. (“At least Helter Skelter smiles.”) Heather was, to my horror, gearing up to walk 10 miles in two days (“The trains just aren’t anywhere we need to be”) I patched my evident and bleeding weakness. Reus, located in troublesome and secessionist Cataluña, was childhood home to Antoni Gaudi, famous architect and Spanish demi-god. I arrived in the afternoon to empty streets and closed shops. Curious why everything had shut down (sheriff come to town?), I quickly learned Siesta had arrived an hour before—a slow and thorough daily feasting event, Siesta embodies Spanish culture. The daily “fiesta” usually lasts about three hours.

            After reaching Barcelona (BAR-the-lona), I was enthralled by its narrow streets, brightly colored apartments, and long strings of fresh laundry that had been hung to dry in the afternoon sun. It was 65 degrees and breezy—perfect weather for boating and fishing at Barcelona’s many docks and piers. Couples quietly beaching dotted the shores of Barcelona’s Mediterranean coast occasionally glancing up from the throes of romance to watch troupes of skateboarders tackle and trick Barcelona’s bridges and concrete gaps. Heather and I visited a café in La Ramblas, sitting on the street, in the middle of the bustling dinner crowd, and shared a pitcher of Sangria. Luxury cars skulked along the narrow roads passing street performers—either painted entirely in gold, stand still for what seemed like hours, or bouncing to techno music wearing a V (film: V for Vendetta) mask. We ate tapas and sat watching the dealers at the markets banter among hanging sausages, freshly caught seafood and mountains of organic fruit, day’s fare from the Spanish countryside.

            The following day we embarked on a tour of “everything Gaudí,” the man who revolutionized Barcelona—defying all preconceived notions of standardized architecture. There is nothing in the world like Gaudí architecture—it is physically constructed poetry. His two most famous houses, built for a pretty penny, were pocket change compared to the breath-taking, yet unfinished, church of La Sagrada Familia. Being constructed to this day, pilgrims and beggars flock to the church, meandering through its passageways that stretch to the top of its 18 spires. Intended as a beacon of Christendom, the church appears as if it could have come from Lord of the Rings, as temple to Lord Sauron. Its figure is haunting. After hiking the city—twice—we ascended to Montjuïc, which, sitting at the top of a hill overlooking the city, is Barcelona’s largest park. Ciutadella Park which houses the old military citadel Parliament building, left me crawling uphill. I sauntered to Parc Güell, home of the world’s longest mosaic bench, and laid across it as Heather politely asked me to situate Helter Skelter “away from the daft city smog.” The park, which took 13 years for Gaudí to design, sits on the top of a huge hill (surprise, surprise). Terrible to hike, but celebrated when conquered, the park is filled with massive sloping columns of carved stone, intricate mosaic work and sprawling acres of green space.

After looking over the city from its highest point during sunset, I noticed a completely different facet of Barcelona. Dancing, singing, and partying begin around 2 a.m. and lasts until sunrise. If you love to dance Sardana, disotecas (discothèques, clubs, meatmarkets) transform Barcelona from a lady in the day into an unrecognizable creature of the night. Happy and exhausted tourists venture to bed, to be greeted by café, Lucky Strikes and ZARA when they wake in the early afternoon.

            The next days were spent like many Spanish spend their weekends—lazy, slow and unambitious. My most eccentric—yet notable, tourist event during the remaining days was taken next to a crude sculpture of Dali’s egg! Long tenures in cafes was, for me, the basis of understanding how Spanish culture differs from the United States. Devoid of speed and stress, there is a sense of serene and profound calm—a true focus on nature, atmosphere and beauty. I was greatly distressed when a heaping pile of papers and deadlines greeted me upon my arrival to my London flat. I am convinced, though, that even though I am far away, Spain’s deep Mediterranean roots and strumming guitarras never truly leaves one who has visited.