Post montepulciano I spent two weekends in Florence trying to figure out the city known as the cradle of the renaissance. Conclusion: it is beautiful. it is large. It is full of art, history and culture. In fact the only thing that outnumbers the famous works nowadays are Americans. Loud, English speaking, picture snapping, touristy folks from the good old u s of a. now let me reassure you that I am indeed proud to be an american. I’m the girl who mouths the words to the national anthem and tears up listening to god bless America. But an afternoon in Florence has me cringing in my uggs because I share a country with some of these people. let me qualify this by explaining that these are mostly students. 20 year old coeds that despite the opportunity to immerse themselves in the Italian culture can’t inconvenience themselves to say "per favore" or "grazie" instead of “haha I can’t understand him”. And unfortunately the people of Florence have grown accustomed to america’s ugly face. Despite my best efforts to speak Italian everywhere I go, I am repeatedly frustrated by the shop owner/panino maker/bus driver who insists on “hello can I help you” instead of the customary “prego?”. So the real conclusion is that florence’s beauty lacks charm. There are occasional reminders that I am living in a different country (namely my wonderful host mamma and luca at antico noe who always humors us with Italian) but while in Florence, I am overwhelmingly aware of the feeling that someone has secretly substituted the Italian culture with the equivalent of a theme park. Roller coasters replaced by museums, popcorn sellers by fake designer purse vendors and everywhere the constant presence of a crowd pushing through to be first in line.
Don’t let this rather pessimistic view of Florence deceive you, I am delighted to be in italy and am getting more than my fair share of "la dolce vita", just in a different way. After conquering six flags Florence I knew my best bet was to throw myself onto a train and see where I would find the italy I wanted, the italy I came here to discover. And I found it one weekend in a little Umbrian town called Assisi.
Kathleen flew in from London for this particular adventure and after giving her the abbreviated and necessary highlights of Florence tour we hopped on a train with tess. We were armed with lets go! and rick steves and had rented a room from quite possibly the nicest Italian woman in the world (as determined by our phone conversation). En route to said woman’s house we received a free ride and well-intentioned directions (in Italian!) from an assisian bus driver who was delighted to be of service. After wandering through the tiny and completely empty streets of the town’s center for a bit we found our humble abode in a little courtyard off the street. After a warm greeting we set off for dinner and sampled Umbrian cuisine at its finest. An early bedtime promised early rising for a chance to explore the town. Before we even made it to assisi’s pilgrimage site, the basilica of San Francesco, we were amazed by the wonderful serenity Assisi had to offer. It was quite the foil to Florence. Empty streets and kind Italian words greeted us everywhere we went. And then the church. San Francesco is the famous resting place of Saint Francis, a figure not only of religious importance but also art historical. the basilica is decorated with influential frescoes by giotto and cimabue that also provided convenient study material for my upcoming art history midterm. Tess and I got to dazzle Kathleen with our extensive art history knowledge and remind ourselves that we actually are learning a lot on our study abroad, not just traveling. We then went down into the tomb of saint francis himself. I can’t quite describe the experience but my best attempt is by saying that it was intense to say the least. The air seemed to become thicker and heavier as one descended to the tomb and an eerie buzzing noise almost emanated from the room. It left me with an unspoken understanding of the great importance this place holds as a pilgrimage site. The girls and I then took a train to nearby perugia, the childhood home of my favorite Italian teacher, Giovanni Tempesta. Perugia was not at all what I expected. At that point in my travels, it was the most urban city I had come across, but also one full of international students. Perugia not only provided a playground for a younger tempesta but also for the students of its famous international university. After a good hour hike up the hill, we were struck by the excited buzz that never ceased on the main drag. Not once did we see the streets empty. But this was not the pushy crowd of Florence; a much younger, rowdier group paraded up and down perugia’s center at all hours. We popped into the main church which we discovered houses the virgin mary’s wedding ring. It is kept under lock and key so we contented ourselves with lord of the ring jokes and then moved on. After sampling and purchasing perugia’s famous chocolate we met up with emma and Jamie for what turned out to be the neverending dinner. The five of us laughed our way through the meal as the waiters brought us course after course. We befriended a 2 year old Italian girl who wanted nothing more then to be photographed and we were more than happy to oblige. We all made it back to our room in one piece but kat turned out to be a little worse for the wear. She was up sick most of the night with what was later diagnosed as a bad case of the flu but I think we did an okay job trying to make her feel better by deliriously quoting love actually. the next morning I saw her off at the train station and dropped in on a mass at one of assisi's numerous churches.
I returned to home base to finally meet the aforementioned nicest Italian woman in the world who turned out to be just that. she chatted with me about studying abroad and showered me with compliments for studying economics and being nice. It was quite silly. The girls and I packed up, had a nice leisurely breakfast in a caffe and then saw the rest of the sights. Once again, the landscapes were just breathtaking. The train ride back to Florence provided the appropriate bookend to the most peaceful weekend spent in italy.My next weekend took me north to the fashion capital of the world, Milan. This was our first affectionately termed “bing trip”. Named after the donors who finance them, these weekends are provided to all Stanford study abroad students free of charge. After dropping off our belongings at our plush hotel, we set off to find lunch. six of us knowingly walked into a tourist trap allowing our waiter to choose our wine and food for us with the comfort that we never have expensive Saturday night dinners and that if we don’t go a little broke, we won’t do italy right. My 25 euro meal was well worth it and provided the much needed energy for the 3 hour tour that followed. We power walked all over the city with our art history professor as a guide, his booming voice illuminating the subtleties of the cathedral that has one of the nails from christ’s cross. We were lucky to have a beautiful 60 degree day as opposed to the cold wintery Milan we were warned about.
After the tour we hurried back to the hotel to doll ourselves up for the evening’s adventure: an opera at La Scala.Tess’s family was in town and treated us to a fancy dinner at their hotel, making us feel like we belonged at La Scala with the who’s who of Milan. Rigoletto was quite the opera, although I am sad to say that our seats were not exactly the best in the house. I think I stood for the majority of the time but was just so delighted to be where I was, doing what I was doing that I hardly noticed.The next day we had a nice little alumni lunch at a local restaurant and then got to see Da Vinci’s Last Supper. It really was even more remarkable than I had expected.
I cannot fathom how Da Vinci was able to make the fresco ro realistic: The light really seemed to glow outside the windows of the scene. What remained of Saturday afternoon was spent wandering the Galleria and attempting to shop. When this proved unsuccessful due to the mass amounts of people with the same intention, we contented ourselves with McFlurries. (yes I will boldly proclaim that I went to McDonalds in Milan- it was absolutely necessary!) Tess and I miraculously made it back to the train station in time to catch our train and spent the majority of the trip sharing a bottle of wine with her family and chatting. That evening we had a spectacular dinner with her family and the caspers. We joked that somehow I had become the 6th garton, a trend that continued for the remainder of the garton’s trip. That brings us halfway to today but the rest will have to wait. Coming next time are lake como, the Olympics and rome!
