A Fair Few Hours in Firenze | Florence Blog
Verdant Vistas
One of the many outlooks dotted along the path to Piazzale Michelangelo, a plaza perched upon the hill with panoramic views of Florence’s delights.
Our wake-up hour was set: 6:45am, as agreed upon the night before. And so, as morning greeted the calm banks of the River Tiber, Claire, Lauren, and I quietly grabbed our bulky bags, slipping out of our hostel before we might wake our anonymous 4th roommate slumbering in the corner.
We stood on a street corner on the east bank of Rome, scanning the streets, groggily confirming we were about to take the correct Attac bus to Roma Termini. Commuters and tourists alike started milling about the streets, the former moving with much more certainty. Rome was awakening.
At the station I sat sipping a cappuccino and eating the leftovers last night’s pizza capricciosa. The three of us discussing the plan for today. As our penultimate day in Italy, we were spending the night in Pisa before our flight out of the city. Florence was to be a stop on the journey to our final destination, and so an early start was need to fit in today’s three cities—Rome, Florence, and Pisa. Roma Termini was bustling on this Monday morning. We watched the station boards with bated breath, as our platform was announced just minutes before departure. The landscape transformed as the view from the train gradated from industrial buildings to rolling tuscan hills, as villas shrouded in pointed cypruses glinted in the wavering sunlight.
A grey Florence greeted us as we stepped out of the station two hours later. A McDonalds across the street stood as a grim reminder of iron grip of commercialization. Et tu, Firenze? In this city of gastronomic delights? Should I be comforted by these ubiquitous reminders of home, or disheartened by my inability to escape them?. I was still too sleepy to decide.
Having locked up our luggage, we set off down the street, finding blocks lined with vendors and stalls stacked with purses, trinkets, and t-shirts printed with the buttocks of Michelangelo’s David. The rain hit just as we stepped into the halls of Mercato Centrale. A feast for the senses! Piles of produce in every hue lay stacked on upon the vendors’ tables. Cold cuts and pig bodies laid bare on ice, and never before had hanging ham hocks been so tantalizing.
Mercato Centrale hails as an artifact of the risanamento period, but is a vital sign of how history flavors today. Above the ground floor is a trendy food hall, dotted with abstract scribbled branding and contactless payment kiosks. Here, artisans are attempting their own renaissance, reconnecting flavors and “produce to the heart of the food scene”. This reconnection was a bit above our humble traveling budgets, but the piles of focaccia, stacks of wine bottles, and wheels of cheeses sated my senses.
We continued our path throughout Florence, walking just a few crowded blocks to the bas of the Duomo—Florence’s iconic cathedral of white and green marble that contracts curiously like a mid-century pop art piece. Standing among the hoards of other visitors, we posed in front of these architectural marvels. I squatted and hunched in awkward positions, attempting to frame the the terracotta roof with the sun just so. Capturing people in the frame was unavoidable and I welcomed it—we are all part of the living landscape of each other’s travels.
Despite the winding cobbled streets and renaissance relics erected all around me, designer stores and commercialization crowded the city scale. The genius of Brunelleschi battles with the marketing minds behind big-box stores. Our patronage has a bit less grandeur.
[To be continued. In the meantime, enjoy some photos!]
