Another early morning, our earliest of the entire cruise. There wasn’t even time to argue about how early we should get up. 7:15 AM left no wiggle room for extra sleep. It was a sentence handed down from a hanging judge for wanting to see Michelangelo’s David so damn bad. Worst of all, it was all for naught. We gathered in Studio Sea only to find out that pretty much everyone else was gathered in Studio Sea, too, so the meeting time and the departure time were far, far apart.
It was the first tender to a port, so everything moved more slowly. So far, you were divided into groups depending on when you arrived to check-in and those groups would be called in numerical order to follow a Disney Cruise Line castmember down to the bus. These were called one after the other, so that after the final member of, say, bus 19 was out the door, bus 20 would be up and ready to go. Since there was no pier for everyone to shuffle out onto and only two tenders (one forward, one aft…look how nautical I am!) to carry everyone ashore, one group would be called and then 10-15 minutes later the next group would be called, all the while the castmembers running the show would be talking into the lapels of their jackets to a crew downstairs that would update them on the traffic situation. Meeting points all around the ship were sending their groups simultaneously so the coordination on this one was far more involved than just dumping people out to waiting buses, so the wait, while frustrating, was understandable.
Once you were called, you made your way out to the tender, whose gangplank rose and fall with each ship. This held up the line far more than it should have, as the rocking on the water now had a visible counterpart to go along with the vague feeling of motion and odd creaking you’d hear when it was quiet. People were hesitant to step onto the thing, as if they would be instantly bucked off, as if they doubted the steadfastness of their own legs. Disney Castmembers and the crew of the tender were prodding people to action, though, more or less tossing the people from one end of the platform to the other, resembling the support team on one of those empowerment retreats for businessmen where you walk on coals. Everyone clap for Jenny, she needs your help!
My desire to sit on top of the ship in the open air was trumped by Lisa’s desire to not walk any more than she had to and we sat on the bench running alongside the walls of the boat. Chivalry was dead at this hour of the morning and, while I tried to give up my seat a few times while the ship was not too full and was politely refused, I noticed that no one else was extending such a courtesy so I hunkered down and enjoyed my seat. Everyone else either slept or stared out the window.
My need to photograph dragged me out of my non-comfy chair and out onto the front of the boat. La Spezia, like pretty much all the Italian ports we’d docked in so far, was inhospitably hilly, so that you wonder how long you’d have to have been on a boat before you decided that you’d rather climb your way onto land than to sail to somewhere flatter. You couldn’t deny its beauty, though, especially on the morning of our arrival, with the shadows of clouds darkening parts of the hillside while others shimmered in the sunlight.
We got off the boat onto the long pier of the marina, the hundreds of sailboats and other seacraft of the La Spezians in their designated area off to the side. The Disney Magic sat in the distance, alone in the water except for some unsightly industrial ship, daring everyone with a camera to stray from the group to snap their pictures. Everyone with a camera did. The distraction was welcome, though, since our buses waited on the street and the street and its accompanying sidewalk were separated from the pier by a seemingly unending stretch of grass and foliage which the native La Spezians were allowed to cross at will but us tourists were forbidden to set foot on. Our guides led us several hundred feet from where we got off the boat to a clearing in the greenery just out of sight from where we originally stood.
Our bus was comfortable, but not comfortable enough for a two hour ride this early in the morning. Luckily for Lisa and I, no one had claimed the four seats in the very back of the bus and, after giving large families ample time to take residence there, we scurried to the back and made it our own, each sitting at the window, our legs draped luxuriously over the seats between us. Everyone else was a sucker for not thinking of it first.
Our guide for this leg of the journey was a genial Italian woman with a funky accent and an apologetic nature for what we were about to embark upon. My commute every morning is over an hour, so two was not daunting in the slightest, but others shifted in their seats, preparing for a journey of epic proportions. The guide informed us that we would have a rest stop in the middle of the trip for those with weak bladders or confinement issues and we were off.
We ascended into the hills. Where else was there to go but up? Every so often the rock walls flanking the highway would give way to trees and these trees would give way to a view overlooking a valley, where a town or a city lay nestled below. Sometimes there would be flat land for miles, and you could tell how happy the residents were to find it. The towns first clumped together, exhausted and happy to be down on the ground, at the base of the hills. Then, slowly, as the land unfolded before them and they realized there were no more inclines to surmount, the space between houses grew and grew, until, in the distance, more hills caused them all to clump back together into a city again.
We drove and drove. The fact that the highway was an impression in the hills meant that there was nothing much to see at all, so that when we made our rest stop only Lisa got off the bus to stretch. I had Puzzle Quest and Deep Vein Thrombosis was an acceptable risk. Lisa assured me once she got back on the bus that the rest area was a wonderland of culinary delights, with Italian motorists, in respite from their crazy driving, gathered around espresso machines and chatted amongst one another, some with helmets slung by their hips. They were enemies on the road but friends here and they united in gawking at the American tourists who were buying up all the paninis and snack foods for the remaining hour’s drive.
The bus dropped us off in a designated bus drop-off area that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, on a sidestreet that seemed randomly picked to be a receptacle of tourists. Here we met our guide, a spry woman with several years under her belt and an accent that couldn’t be placed on a map. She led us out of the unremarkable sidestreet and, after a few blocks, onto the Piazza di San Marco. It was only to look at, though, not explore, for we had an early morning appointment at the Galleria dell’Academia to see Michelangelo’s David.
The entrance for the Galleria dell’Academia, at least the entrance for the tour groups, is in a narrow, pedestrian-only street lined with little shops determined to sell you a reproduction of David. Enterprising street vendors would stop alongside the line to enter (there was still a line despite the appointment, but we waited a maximum of 15 minutes, tops) and lay out their paintings at our feet, giving the impression that we were arriving here as the town was waking up. Their setting up to sell was no an indication of a late start to the day, though, it was because they were doing this illegally, and soon the cops were along to shoo them away, only to have them return as soon as the cops strolled out of sight. It was charming, but we found out later from people on different excursions that this was not the norm: elsewhere, at the first sight of the cops, the merchants would sweep up their carefully laid goods into their arms and run like hell so they weren’t tackled to the ground and handcuffed like one slow seller they witnessed.
There weren’t any pictures allowed in the museum, so you’ll have to take my word alone on what we saw inside. We were first led into a room that at first seemed to be grandly appointed, with a beautifully painted fresco on the domed ceiling and highly ornate walls, with alcoves and beveled edges poking out at you. If you caught it at the right angle, though, or studied it further beyond your initial impression, it became clear that it was all just painted on four flat walls and the flat ceiling, which was impressive in spite of the disappointment that came along with it. We weren’t in Disney, we were in Florence, we weren’t expecting reproductions, we were expecting the real thing (although, as we’d see later, a surprising amount of what we see are quiet reproductions). There was a giftshop taking up half the room, an odd location as no one would exit here, only enter, but it seemed to be doing good business. We weren’t interested in it, at least not yet, not before we saw David.
We shuffled through the door opposite the entrance (the door to the left would lead us directly to Michelangelo’s David, but we weren’t ready yet) and were standing in a room full of paintings that were to be ignored because at its center was Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabine Woman. The sculpture depicts a group of three nudes, a struggling woman held aloft by a young man intent on carrying her away, an elderly man held helpless and horrified underneath his foot. The sculpture was a demonstration of Giambologna’s ability, sculpted from a single block of marble (the vertical alignment of the figures spawned from this) and demonstrating his ability to create a sculptural group that can be viewed from any angle, a technique that had come into vogue recently (historically, at least) in response to traditional sculpture, which was meant to be viewed from a single, privileged vantage point. Lisa and I circled the statue, pointing out the details to one another: the folds of flesh where the old man was hunched over, the depression where the flesh of the young woman yielded to the grasp of the man’s hand. It was one thing to look at a photograph of a sculpture, entirely something else to walk around it up close, something that would become even more apparent in the next room.
The tour guide led us into the hallway beside this room and suddenly there was David. Michelangelo’s Slaves, plaster casts of some of Michelangelo’s unfinished minor works, lined the hall leading up to David and our tour guide stopped at each one to speak on each. We did not stay with the tour group. Instead, we inched our way toward David, mesmerized by the sculpture, pulled forth until we finally broke free, standing beneath it and basking in its magnificence.
There’s nothing I can say that could express what it felt like to stand beneath it. Everyone has seen it. I’d seen it thousands of times before I actually saw it, and it sounds hokey and hyperbolic, but I really had never seen it until I was there in its presence. Nothing was in the immediate area surrounding it, and the ceiling was raised to accommodate it, the sunlight shining through the windows of the dome illuminating it. The sculpture looked every inch of its 17 foot height. The Empire State Building is the tallest building in New York City, but it doesn’t look all that impressive because of the massive structures surrounding it. Perspective would even lead you to believe that some of the other buildings are taller. There’s nothing like that here, nothing to diminish from its immense size, so that as you crane your neck to bask in its glory it fills your vision, all that there is to see is David. I may have used the word “chiseled” to describe someone with a particularly impressive musculature before, but now I know what it truly means. Every inch is strength, composure, perfection, captured in the moment before battle, the moment where he realizes, “I can take this guy…”. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, and now, as I sit and look at pictures of it on the internet, I realize why: you can’t capture it. You just can’t. You have to stand beneath it, see the veins on its hands, look into its eyes, feel small and awed, to understand why we consider it art, why it’s the most recognizable statue in history.
We could’ve sat there all day just looking at it, understanding the human form better through something inhuman, but at the same time more human than we’ll ever be. We could’ve, but we couldn’t. We were given 15 minutes free time before we met at the exit. We wandered back to look at the Slaves, but we were cheating on them, glancing back at David, still not done admiring it. There were a few more rooms to explore, including a room full of sculpture and marble busts that was locked off from the public by a gate, so that you could peek in the room and marvel at its offerings and wonder why they would taunt you like that. They were showing an exhibit on decorative instruments throughout the ages, but we walked through it in a haze: all our admiration had been spent on David, something I’m sure they realized was the case for most who entered the museum, as the place is actually quite small: no more than 10 rooms.
I made my way through the gift shop, troubled as always by the seeming cheapness of the trinkets on offer in comparison to the magnificence they tried to capture. I settled on two bookmarks, one for myself, one for my mother, and a book detailing the entire collection of the museum with, thankfully, pictures. After a quick bathroom break for myself, we rejoined the group and were on our way.
Our next stop was the Santa Maria del Fiori cathedral, home of Brunelleschi’s Duomo. We lined up along the side of the cathedral facing a street, and the motor traffic that was constantly barreling past the church was showing on its white, green and pink marble. The entire side of the building was caked in soot, still magnificent in its ornate construction, but looking as if it was left to the ages. It could do with a good power-washing. After about a 10-minute wait, we were inside the church with the third longest nave in the world (the nave is the main hall of the church, where all the congregation would normally sit…they always make you walk for the good stuff). We made our way directly to the Duomo (most of the art was in the attached museum, which we wouldn’t be venturing into) which was covered in one of the Renaissance’s largest paintings, the Last Judgment, a favorite of the church to remind the faithful what being on the winning team meant (and where the losing team went, too). The real showpiece was not the inside of the church, but the outside, and that’s where we went next.
This view of the church had only pedestrian traffic alongside it and so the white of the marble was blindingly white as intended, with the greens and the pinks a bit faded by time but still serving their purpose beautifully. Here we gathered against the wall of a building directly across from the church to allow us to take as much in as possible. The dome was an architectural marvel, the largest masonry dome in the world, created using techniques invented by Brunelleschi. The use of concrete seen in the Pantheon was long forgotten by Brunelleschi’s time and so he built his out of bricks, requiring special tools invented by Brunelleschi (Da Vinci even got in on the action, inventing a special hoisting mechanism designed specifically for the Dome’s construction). The dome, however, was not the only marvel to gaze upon here. We stood in the shadow of Giotto’s Bell Tower, the campanile, looming above us, covered in sculpture and colored marble. It seemed from where we stood taller than the Duomo even though it isn’t, as the structure is unchallenged by its much smaller surroundings, fairly slender in its hugeness, while the Duomo is wide and massive, placed on a giant support structure that makes it seem squat in comparison to the campanile. The sky was ridiculously blue and so the tower was framed against it, glinting in the sun, making our true admiration for Brunelleschi’s achievement have to wait for a return trip.
We made our way to the front of the church, the true entrance, and stood between it and the Baptistery and faced the Gates of Paradise, golden doors designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti with ten panels depicting scenes from the Old Testament. The panels are richly detailed, with numerous techniques used to make the mostly flat panels appear three dimensional, so that the figures depicted seemed to be miniature sculptures set in a boxed scene receding into the door. The face of the church across from the Baptistery was also free from the pollution of the traffic by the side we entered on, so that it retained the beauty that was created for it in the late 19th century (it had a different façade when originally finished in the late 16th century, but it was dismantled when its design fell out of fashion and attempts to build a new one were marked by scandal, so it was left bare).
We walked down several little streets, passing a triumphal arch, the Orsanmichele (St. Michael’s church, once a grain market, now with statues by Donatello lining its walls) and, both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, a Disney Store, until we entered the Piazza della Signoria. Here we would have our second round of free time, with plenty to see: the Palazzo Vecchio stood before us, massive (is there another adjective so overused in describing the monuments of Europe?), its lone castle turret towering unchallenged above. It’s the town hall of Florence but it was once the home of the Medicis. We weren’t going in, but we were standing at the steps that were flanked on one side by the mundane Hercules and Cacus, a response by the Medicis to the replica that lay across from it, Michelangelo’s David. David, of course, outshone it, but here in its original spot, towered over by the Palazzo Vecchio, it seemed smaller, less special. Perhaps it’s because it was a replica, perhaps it’s because it’s significantly more filthy than the original. Either way, we were able to get some pictures of it, pictures that don’t do the original justice, furthering my theory that’s why pictures weren’t allowed in the first place.
We took some time out for Gelato before we headed over to explore the Loggia del Lanzi, the open air columned structure that housed quite a bit of statuary, including a copy of the Rape of the Sabine Woman we had seen in the Academia. It was equally impressive outside than in, perhaps because it wasn’t dwarfed like David was. We admired the other statuary, unfortunately at a loss for their names as we were at it alone with no guidebook in hand (I do remember asking about Perseus, hoisting aloft the head of Medusa, the Gorgon he had just slain, and finding out its name was…Perseus) and snapped a few pictures by the fountain of Neptune alongside the Palazzo Vecchio before returning to the group.
We walked through the Uffizi Courtyard, flanked on either side by Florentines who changed the world as we know it:
- Giotto, who built the campanile we had seen earlier
- Donatello, whose sculptures we had passed at the Orsanmichele
- Leonardo Da Vinci, unfortunately untouched by our tour except for his association with the Duomo
- Michelangelo Buonaroti, who forever enshrined the essence of mankind in his David
- Dante Allighieri, who we would visit later in the day, making me regret I stopped with the Inferno, reminding me to dig the others out of the book closet
- Macchiavelli, looking like the devilish bastard he was
- Gallileo Galilei, who we’d also visit later in the day, revered to this day in his spot at the end of the courtyard, with many leaving the group just to get a shot of his statue
And plenty more who escaped my camera on the quick walk through. At the end, before we exited the courtyard, was a piece of renegade art that had startled our guide: a red drum with two gold-faced figures hanging from its sides that she assured us had not been there the previous day and probably wouldn’t be there the next.
The Uffizi Courtyard ended at the Arno River, where we were afforded a view of the Ponte Vecchio. It was a great view of the famous bridge, but we longed to go visit it, despite the warnings of tacky tourism.
It was time for lunch now, but not before a stop in the square where Santa Croce was located. We would return to this spot after lunch for our final bit of free time before ending the tour, and they wanted to get us a bit acquainted with the area before they abandoned us to it. I, of course, wandered away from the group to take pictures. It was here the oddest coincidence of the vacation so far happened: I was taking my pictures of Santa Croce church when I lowered my camera and Andy and Laura were standing in front of me. They had done Florence on their own and they not only happened to be in Santa Croce square at the exact moment we were, but they happened to be in front of the exact spot I had wandered off to take pictures from. They had noticed me first, and I laughed and said I must’ve had them center frame without even realizing it, and sure enough I’ve got Andy recognizing me in the bottom left of one of my pictures. We talked for a bit, they were enjoying Florence immensely, having much the same experience we were: it was a lot less crowded and a lot less hectic than Rome and therefore a lot more enjoyable. There was a Disney castmember on their bus to Florence and they had offered to show them around a bit and take them to a good place for lunch. They didn’t seem to be too enthused about the whole idea, but I thought it was cool they got a tour for (relatively) free. We parted ways when I realized that I had been left behind, and it was only the extended Mickey hand that let me know where to go.
We passed by the place where Michelangelo lived as a child, which would’ve gone unnoticed except for the plaque saying it was so. It wasn’t impressive except for what it once housed. We didn’t linger here, though, as we had been promised lunch, and all desire to experience history and culture is set aside when food is offered.
We would dine in the Palazzo Borghese, a real, honest-to-goodness palace. Here was the last place we would see our Florentine tour guide, which made for an awkward goodbye as we were all more concerned with filling our stomachs than tearful goodbyes, and the tips given to her seemed more in the spirit of “leave us to eat, please” than thanks. The palace was, well, palatial, with chandeliers and art in every room, and there were plenty of rooms, so many that there seemed to be rooms whose sole purpose was to exist and be pretty. The dining hall where we ate was grand and lavishly decorated, every inch of it gilded or painted or sculpted. This more than made up for the lackluster food we were served. The good company also helped, as we sat with fellow DISers (more active than we are, but that’s not hard). There’s a better chance that Lisa will remember their names, but she’s not here at the moment, so you’ll have to settle for a husband and wife, one of their mothers, whose name I believe was Irene, and their two sons. The father and the sons were desperate to have pizza before they left Italy. They had failed in Sicily, Naples, Rome and even Olbia, and this was their last chance before we headed off to France, so they excused themselves to go on a quest for pizza. (A quick aside: the pizza place they settled on, one of who knows how many in Florence, was the same pizza place that Andy and Laura had been taken to by their tour guide for lunch) We chatted with the mother and Irene about how wonderful the trip had been so far. They had quite a few more speedbumps than we had, including a tour guide that didn’t feel like speaking above a whisper and a driver who tried to hide his alcoholism by holding his wine bottle out the window, I guess where he believed it invisible to the passengers. We talked about politics, and Irene had some strong opinions that had the DISer wife (this is where I regret not knowing names) making some makeshift earmuffs for her and regretting that the subject was even broached. Damn that crappy little faux newspaper they shoved under our door in the morning!
We were, I guess, entirely too leisurely about our chatting, since it turned out that our guide coming over to our table several times to say she would accompany us personally back to Santa Croce square was not good service, but a subtle hint that we were the only ones left from our group still in the place. At a break in the conversation we looked up and the entire half of the huge hall was gone except for us, leaving only non-Disney tour groups in the other half. We hurried our way out back to the exit. It turned out our guide had found some stragglers in the immense bathroom line (the resolve of people to stand for literally half-hour long waits for bathrooms amazes me) so she couldn’t accompany us but gave us the direction that we were making a left out of the palace and turning right at the second stoplight.
There was, of course, no second stoplight. We came to accept this only after we had walked to Montana, but with the help of some creative navigation by my blushing bride, we were back in Santa Croce square. You have to pay to get into the church here, but it was a no-brainer since you were getting a three-for-one deal: Michelangelo, Galileo and Dante were all buried here (well, Dante wasn’t really buried here, but there was a very nice tomb where they would’ve if he’d have let them).
We did our death tourism, and there was plenty to see because it was customary to either bury notable Florentines here or to at least construct a monument here, something we weren’t told but figured out on our own after coming upon a fairly unassuming plaque marking Leonardo DaVinci’s death, something that was deserving of more than the tiny attention they gave it.
Michelangelo’s funerary monument was fittingly sculpted from marble, with beautiful statues female statues mourning his death. Dante’s tomb had similarly elaborate sculptures, although it was nowhere near as ornate. Galileo is across the way, honored respectfully despite the number that the church did on him a hundred years before they reburied him here as their way of apologizing without really apologizing. There were plenty of other tombs here, enough to spend a whole day admiring (or less if you spent half the time wishing you could translate the inscriptions) and one of the more interesting ones was for Pio Fedi, who I’m entirely unfamiliar with, because it shows a depiction of Lady Liberty before she was the Statue of Liberty. She’s striking her iconic pose, sans torch, and even has the beginnings of her crown atop her head. I wandered my way to the front of the church where I marveled in the frescoes painted by Giotto and his students, but time was not on our side and we made our way out, or at least tried to. The exit from the church led us into the first cloister of the church and the Cappella dei Pazzi. We were unable to enter, but we were able to admire it, including the vaulted ceilings of its entryway, beautifully decorated. It was here that we noticed an entryway to a crypt beneath the church. We were not yet sick of graves so we ventured forth into the dark, empty corridor lined on all sides by the names of the dead, sometimes accompanied by a bust, including one especially creepy one that seemed to follow you as you passed.
This was it, though, and sadly we boarded the bus for our return to the ship. Florence was easily our favorite excursion: although we had the least time here of any of the big name ports, it actually seemed more leisurely because the tour was entirely pedestrian, so that we lingered in each site for as long as necessary, knowing that we didn’t have a bus idling, illegally parked in the street outside. As previously mentioned, it seemed less busy than Rome, where the personal space was constantly under attack, and the people of Florence seemed more relaxed and nicer. We were shocked that the tour had gotten bad reviews from previous DISers since we enjoyed it so thoroughly, but it turns out that Lisa misread and the people were complaining about Florence and Pisa. I imagine having to divide your time between the two places meant an unsatisfactory time at both.
Laurel had finished our room early (he left us a monkey), and after a brief chat with him and a coworker on the magnificence of David (they had been off the boat recently to see him and wholeheartedly agreed with my awe and wonder) we made our way into the room for a quick shower before dinner. Dinner for me was a Goat Cheese Crispy Roll, a cream of Garbanzo Bean soup, a seared Strip Loin with Cotes du Rhone and Porcini Sauce, and Roast Duck, Cabbage and Potato cake Catalan and Banynuts sauce. Lisa’s got no recollection of what she had, but I’m sure she ate heartily as well, enough that we went into our long-awaited coma when we returned to the room.
We said goodbye to Italy with a wonderful last day. Now we were to set foot for the first time in France.
