A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou. Oh and some of that ham. That cheese looks good too...

[sacredchao]

No entry typed up yesterday as we basically got back to the hotel and fell over. I’d walked my feet into screaming nubs and basically just wanted liquids and inactivity. It wasn't a horrible day by any means, but I wasn't at all up for mental effort. One of the main highlights of the day came early. We rose early and grabbed croissants in finest Italian fashion on the way to the Galleria dell' Accademia. Getting there half an hour before it opened meant that we were second in the queue and had a completely clear view down the hall as we approached Michaelangelo's David. If you're in Firenze at any point ever, get up early and do this. I looked down the same hall 15 minutes later and it was a completely different experience. You get the endlessly repeated view from the front as you walk down the hall which at first my brain reported as another picture of Michaelangelo's David. Then as we got closer the labelling centres of the brain suddenly realised that this wasn't a static image and a quick dip into the reference part of the brain wasn't going to be sufficient this time. This resulted in a sudden and slightly dumbfounding shift in perspective. It's huge and astonishingly good. I've never seen sculpture this convincing. It took a long time to finish looking at it. Other than that we tramped around Firenze, climbed the basilica to the very top and generally saw a great deal of the city before getting back to the hotel and falling over. There was a surprise display of 16th century clothing that we found as well but I'll leave it to doushkasmum to relate the particular funkiness of those.

This morning, up and to the station. Breakfasted on railway croissant and coffee which was surprisingly good and cost me €2.80 for two croissant and the cup of coffee. A leisurely train trip to Lucca, and after a fairly uneventful checkin to the hotel, met doushkasmum's parents and after climbing a local tower for a funky view, continued on to lunch. Entree of carpaccio beef with porcino mushrooms and a couple of pieces of a hard cheese of some sort. Most tasty. I followed that with spelt pasta and rabbit sauce. It was a more extravagant lunch than usual, but I really can't find it in myself to complain, especially as it appears that someone else paid. More sightseeing afterwards, including under a local church where they've been paring away the earth under the floor to reveal several layers of previous church (12th, 9th and 5th century) and the Roman baths and home that were there before that. There was also another museum with various pretty things and a greater variety of media than most. Lots of gold and silver and textiles. Dinner tonight was simple after luch, but rather nice. We found a local deli where we bought locally made and nicely aged prosciutto and an unpasturised pecorino that had been rolled in straw when it was made and has clearly been given some time to settle into the idea of being cheese. Both of these were extra nice and teamed with some bread and a longneck of Morelli beer (dirt cheap at €1.60) made for a delightful meal, taken al fresco in a piazza that used to be a Roman ampitheatre, long since vanished, but still an oval space ringed with buildings now some centuries old. I ate excellent meat and cheese, sipped cold beer and watched swallows and pigeons flit between the houses. A nice thing indeed.

Comments

[quatrefoil.livejournal.com]

Ha - I remember the bloody stubs of feet and the dehydration from walking and walking and walking in Florence! And that astonishing jolt you keep getting in Europe where you keep thinking 'Gosh, they're doing really good medieval recreation here - no, they're not, it's real', as well as the astonishment of how much *more* the originals of things are when you have seen them a million times in pictures.

And that reminds me - I forgot to ask you, but I'm really happy to pay for copies of postcards of any medieval and renaissance textiles that you find - including postage if you send them back en mass - I'd be really grateful. Also, if you're going to Pienza - I'd really like some pics of the Opus Anglicanum cope of St Margaret of Antioch - I believe it's in the cathedral treasury.

I can't tell you how sick with envy I am of your trip!

[alliette-d.livejournal.com]

There was a surprise display of 16th century clothing that we found as well but I'll leave it to [info]doushkasmum to relate the particular funkiness of those.

Oooh, oooh, oooh - can't wait and I hope you guys took some pictures of those!

By the way - sorry, but no sympathy for tired/sore feet caused by having a huge cultural experience :-) Have fun!

[sacred-chao.livejournal.com]

Sadly, this was a no photos venue or I certainly would have. Famous exhumation finds splayed out carefully like textile based disections...most funky.