"Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita..."
Thus begins "The Divine Comedy", the central work of Italian literature, written by Florence native Dante Alighieri. It's the book to which we owe the phrase "abandon hope all ye who enter here". That first line quoted above translates roughly as "halfway along the path of our life". Perhaps "halfway" is a bit optimistic where I'm concerned. The start of my sixth decade is coming at me like a train. If I wanted to make it to 100 then I'd probably have to give up booze or Greggs, or both.
I was going to describe Dante as 'Florence's most famous resident', but it's a crowded field: Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, etc. This is the birthplace of the Renaissance, and apart from classical Greece and Rome, there really is nothing in the history of Western civilisation that can compare with the glory days of Florence during the middle centuries of the last millenium. It's one of those places where you can only ever scratch the surface as a visitor, even when you spend a full week here, as I did.
Confession time: I don't like ticking boxes, and I don't like standing in queues, and I'm not a connoisseur of painting or sculpture. And I'm a cheapskate. As such, I didn't bother with the Uffizi galleries (containing Botticelli's 'Birth Of Venus' among many other things) or Michelangelo's 'David' statue. I prefer to spend the money on food instead. I forgot to take a picture of it, but I had a delightful plate of posh pappardelle pasta with wild boar. Is there such a thing as tame boar?
I did shell out 30 euros on the full package for visiting the Duomo (cathedral). You get to see the crypt and the Baptistry and the nearby museum, and you can also enjoy the view from the top of the dome. There's no lift: it can only be attained by a rather claustrophobic 91-metre climb. It's 463 steps. I may be past halfway along the path of our life, and my days of doing Great North Runs may be far behind me, but when I'm hiking in Scotland I take on mountains ten times that size and I get through three or four of them in a day. Here in Florence, I ascended the Duomo at a jog.
First, of course, I had to politely push past several coachloads of wheezing American tourists. For many of them, those 463 steps probably represented the supreme athletic achievement of their adult lives, and frankly I'm not sure if they all made it back down alive. If not, were they destined for il paradiso, il purgatario, or l'inferno? Maybe it depends on how they voted...But let's not go there.
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| Il Duomo Originally completed in 1436, but the facade is from the late 19th century. |
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| Uffizi museum courtyard |
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| Looking north-west over Florence from the Piazzale Michelangelo. Cathedral dome and Giotto tower to the right. |
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| Palazzo Pitti |
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| Looking down on the inside of the Duomo |
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| View of the Giotto tower from the cathedral dome |
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| Reverse view of the picture above |
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| Edd vs Food #140 I can't remember what they called it in Italian, but basically it's Dauphinoise potatoes with ham. At the Gianno Bistrot, more or less next door to my Florence apartment. |
