Friday, April 12, 2002 23:20
Weather: Rainy morning, cloudy afternoon.
Location: Room 3, Auberge Montreal, Florence.

A very full day, but as it's already late and I have to get up very early I'm going to try and keep this short.

I headed out of Vernazza on the 9.12 train to La Spezia, in the company of a young American couple from Florida (bound for Rome) and an older Canadian couple from B.C. (heading west overland from La Spezia). About seven minutes after my arrival in La Spezia, I was on another train, an Intercity to Pisa Centrale and Rome, together with the Americans.

Also in our compartment was another American woman, on her way to meet a group of friends in Pisa, and a young nurse from Switzerland, Monika, on a day trip to Pisa. Since we were both on our own, Monika and I teamed up to explore the town.

It was pouring rain, and my €3 umbrella from Lisbon was falling apart. Every time I opened it another strut or support would break. This was an endless source of amusement for Monika, and possibly why she put up with me with such good humour.

The cathedral, with its famous leaning bell tower, was all the way at the other end of the downtown area. Fortunately Pisa is not all that big, so it only took us 15 minutes or so to walk there. After a brief exploration we found the ticket office and bought tickets to the tower (€15! Steep!!) and the cathedral (€2! Cheap!!). The tower is only accessible in scheduled groups, so we killed some time taking pictures.

There's not much to see on the tower climb--basically, a staircase runs up between the outer wall and an inner wall, leading to a covered balcony, with a smaller spiral stair to the roof. Obviously, the appeal is in taking pictures that highlight the lean of the building, which I duly did, though I imagine the whole experience would have been a lot more interesting before they closed the thing to partially level it. At least now the cables and weights are gone.

The cathedral had a wonderful interior, with massive paintings on most of the walls and a lot of gold paint.

We had lunch in an ugly, but tasty and cheap, restaurant on a side street near the university, then walked back to the train station where I said goodbye to Monika (who was headed back to La Spezia) and hopped on the train to Florence.

Things worked out very well in Florence--I like the city already. It didn't hurt that the rain had stopped. I made it out of the train station without being robbed even once, and soon found my hotel about 2 blocks away. I checked in and was given a nice single room with a sink, and shown the shared bathroom down the hall. I dumped the clothes pack and headed out.

First stop was the tourist office. A helpful lady gave me a "what's on" guide, which (to her confusion) listed a symphony concert for today that hadn't made it onto their daily summary sheet. I headed over to the Teatro Verdi to try and buy a ticket, passing by the incredibly huge Duomo (cathedral) en route. The ticket office was not, however, selling tickets to the concert (wrong company or something) but said I could come back at 7:30 to buy one.

To assuage hunger I walked over to the Piazza de la Republica (which has a huge victory arch) and had a pastry in the très luxe Gille café. Then, realizing that wasn't going to cut it as dinner, I followed it up with a slice of pizza and a glass of red wine at a small place down the street.

I wandered into the Piazza della Signoria, took a photo of the Palazzo Vecchio, and wandered past the Uffizi museum to the river. I had a great view of the Ponte Vecchio to the right, though I think the light will be better in the morning. I crossed it, walked back along the other shore, and came back over at the Ponte alle Grazie, from where I got a shot of the Vecchio.

After another brief stop, for gelato, it was finally time for the concert. The Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Florentino, one of Florence's two top-tier orchestras, had an inspired programme: Tchaikovski's Romeo & Juliet (overture & fantasia), Sibelius' Concerto in D minor for violin & orchestra, and Tchaikovski's Symphony #6 ("Pathétique"). It was an extraordinary concert, one of the best I've ever seen live. The violin soloist, Leonidas Kavakos, was stunning throughout the Sibelius and afterwards had to take 6 curtain calls and perform two solo encores. It's on again tomorrow--I may just go see it again.

Anyway, I must get to bed. The alarm's set for 6am--must get to the Uffizi before the line gets too long.
posted by Tom at 11:59 PM | link |