Letters from the Lighthouse: Travel Edition: Firenze!

My Florence experience was wonderful! After the bigness of Rome, Florence was a little more down to earth, although still quite touristy at the major attractions. I can’t complain because I was a part of that throng of tourists.

My first real European train ride, Rome to Florence. It was awesome!

I learned in Rome that I was not going to be able to walk everywhere like I thought. Rome just about killed me, blisters and all. So as soon as I arrived at the train station in Florence I followed the signs to the taxis. Thank goodness as every time I tried to walk someplace I got lost, and from all the crazy turns the taxi driver took, I would have been lost for sure. It was a 10 euro trip by cab so it wasn’t as “walkable” as I thought.

I checked into my Florence monastery which was so different from the one in Rome. The monastery in Rome was like a hotel, with someone at the front desk 24/7 and everything. The one in Florence was truly what I thought a monastery stay was going to be like. It was a tiny little entrance, tiny little “lobby” and I saw no one but the nuns. In Rome I took an elevator up to my third floor room; in Florence I hauled my luggage up two flights of stairs. Amy warned me about stairs in the monastery’s so I wasn’t completely surprised. But my room was just as plain and simple as the room in Rome. I loved opening the wooden shutters every day to welcome the morning. It made me feel so European! Via G. Giusti, 35 Florence was my address. It just happened to be pretty much next door to a soccer field and we know how much the Italians love their soccer! There was a game every night. Made me smile. The passionate, hour long Italian conversation on my first night did not make me smile. Loud and long!

The streets of Florence are much like Rome - small, cobblestone, and curvy. And it is absolutely amazing walking down an old street, surrounded by old buildings, and then running into a glitzy shop.

I got into town with a little bit of time after checking in, so I started out on my first Florence adventure, and of course got lost. But I eventually found the Santa Croce church. It wasn’t too far (which is subjective). Believe me, there are NO STRAIGHT STREETS in Florence, even if it shows straight on the map. And if it curves, it changes names.

This is what I knew about Basilica Santa Croce that made me put this on my “to see” list: It houses the tomb of . . . wait for it . . . Michelangelo!

Many different Renaissance artists contributed to the actually sculpting of the tomb, it was Vasari who designed it. Very interesting - Michelangelo lived until he was 88 years old. He was discovered by the Medici family when he was just 12 years old, and basically fostered him and supported him in his career as an artist. Michelangelo never went to "art school." He most definitely had a God-given talent and a reason to be on this earth and live as long as he did.

Michelangelo is not the only one entombed in Santa Croce.

Galileo Galilei

Galileo was born in Pisa. He was an Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher and mathematician whom, we know, played in major part in the scientific revolution during the Renaissance.

Nicholus Machiavelli

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian Renaissance historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist, and writer. He has often been called the founder of modern political science. He was born and he died in Florence.

Giachino Rossini

Gioachini Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces. He was considered "the Italian Mozart." His best known opera is The Barber of Seville.

A monument to Dante Alighieri. We know him simply as Dante,

the author of the Divine Comedy.

Dante was born in Florence but he died in Ravenna and his bones are in Ravenna. This is not his tomb but a monument because the people of Florence believe he was one of “their own” and didn’t belong to Ravenna. Others buried at Santa Croce are Machiavelli, Marconi, Lorenzo Ghiberti and several more. Because of this, Basilica Santa Croce is known also as the Temple of the Italian Glories.

Along with some very cool people being buried here, the church itself is also quite beautiful.

Really cool wooden ceiling

Beautiful carvings . . .

. . . and paintings

I love the story of the Woman at the Well, but what really caught my eye on this was
the big crack running through the middle. Old.

It felt kind of weird walking on this floor. And some of these are dimensional - bumpy.

It was getting a little dark after I spent quite a long time in Santa Croce, but I was so close (again, subjective) to the home of Dante. Just using my map I started trying to find the roads/streets/alleyways to find it. These are the kind of out-of-the-way places I like to go find. This one was down a very small alleyway and there was nobody else around.