Here’s Allen in his cups again…no, really, this is Allen in a glass of wine! I put a magic spell on him and …all right, I just took a picture of him through the glass. Well, we’ve really hit the heights (or is it lows?) of hedonism and debauchery. After spending a day wandering through a Medici palace (more on that below), we headed up to Michelangelo’s plaza in the hills overlooking Florence and drank glasses of wine while watching the sun set over the Arno River. (To make ourselves feel holy about this, we stopped first in a monastery at the very top and listened to the monks chant their daily mass – well, part of it, anyway. To be honest, they sounded more like Orthodox Jews davening than like the monks on our Gregorian chants album.) At dusk we made the rigorous trek down the hill, past all the stations of the cross in reverse order, and searched for another gluten-free restaurant I’ve been wanting to try, but of course this one turned out to be closed Tuesdays AND Wednesdays. (There’s a rule in our household: whatever day we want to try a new restaurant, that’s the day it’s closed. I guess the fact that they weren’t answering the phone ought to have been a clue.) So we ended up in a cute little trattoria with a full bottle of wine, a three-course meal, and I won’t tell you how many desserts Allen ordered. I’ll just say that he did not appreciate my suggestion that he try the local specialty, known as cantucci di prato con vinsanto, hard almond biscotti dipped in a rich dessert wine made from raisins. He said it was a waste of stale bread and bad wine, and followed it with three scoops of gelato smothered in brandy. So, there you have it. But don’t imagine we’re not paying for this. All my fat clothes are tight and everything has food stains on it. Let's not mention the bank account.
The afternoon, to get back to it, we spent exploring the Palazzo Vecchio, which we somehow had missed during our visit to Florence four years ago. We got the special “Secret Routes” tour, which they only do a couple of times a week in English and limit to 20 people, that took us through stairwells hidden in the walls that were used by the Medicis as an emergency escape route, private studies with secret panels that open up to store valuables, servants’ quarters, and the attic with an elaborate system of beams to hold up the enormous ceiling full of oil paintings on wood panels. It wasn’t until after we finished the tour that we realized we should also visit the non-secret part of the palace, so we came back after a lunch break and saw 25 more rooms full of exquisite frescoes, oil paintings, carved ceilings, furniture and sculptures from the 14th-15th centuries. We’ve posted more photos on the link from April 13. This is actually the fourth Medici palace we’ve seen in Florence so far, which makes one wonder, how exactly did they manage to acquire such fabulous wealth? They were bankers and doctors, but that could not account for the fortune they amassed. And in front of each palace (and every church and supermarket), today there sit Roma women (previously known as “gypsies”), begging for coins and sometimes displaying physical maladies, as well as young African immigrants hawking art posters, pirated designer handbags, and pocket packs of tissues.
P.S. In response to popular demand, an explanation for how I took the photo in the previous posting: The putti (baby angels) were painted on a mirror. I stood in front of the mirror and took a photo of my own reflection, but held the camera down below my face and looked at the mirror, not through the viewfinder. Anyone offering me a new career as a trick photographer?
