Part 1: In which the nature of the Florentine system of addressing buildings is subjected to scrutiny and ridicule

Mrs. Sloucho and I arrived in Florence knowing only that the address of our hotel was 22 Via Nazionale. We soon found ourselves wondering how many 22 Via Nazionales one city is allowed to have.

The bus from the airport dropped us off at a station that was about two blocks from Via Nazionale. I was relieved that we were so close to that street because it was insufferably hot and our bags were insufferably heavy. The first time we came to 22 Via Nazionale, I drooped against the building with joy. I had been awake for thirty hours; I had eaten three of those airplane meals; I had been carrying two suitcases stuffed with a fortnight's living essentials for two people; and I was burning to see any part of Italy that was not an airport, a bus station, or a road to my hotel.

I soon began to wonder if I was getting part (and only the very last part) of my wish because after three 22 Via Nazionales, I was no longer certain that we were on the road to my hotel. If the Florentines did not object to using the same numbers over and over, why should they scruple over street names? Perhaps the Via Nazionale we wanted was the fourth Via Nazionale down from the station, to be found two blocks east of the sixth Via Guelpha and one block past the second Via Ghibbelina. So I plopped down on top of my bags (not immediately in front of a doorway--by way of signaling that I was not French) and studied the map until I had satisfied myself that there was only one Via Nazionale.

A few steps further and our hotel came into view.

Part 2: In which our accommodations are evaluated for the purpose of animadverting against American beverages

I will describe our hotel because we stayed in four during the course of our visit to Italy and because they varied so widely in quality and tended to influence our behavior. To start, you should know that we made our hotel reservations through an agency that promised us 1) a private bathroom, 2) a complimentary continental breakfast, and 3) beds large enough or numerous enough for two people.

Our hotel in Florence, in my mind, provided more than it was obliged to because the continental breakfast included juice (when I had expected simply coffee) and the bathroom contained a tub (whereas I had expected no more than a shower stall). The juice was not worth drinking; but it didn't have to be any good because it was a perq and because the coffee was so delicious, which point leads me to European Maxim Number One. Americans have many names for water: Coffee, beer, and vinegar are just a few.

Can anyone explain why Americans settle for the diluted beverages that we settle for? Everyone makes coffee as strong as European coffee at home and complains about the coffee served in restaurants because it is so weak. And yet the restaurants continue to serve colored water that is despised by the people who serve it as well as the clients who order it because we have some sort of natural bent towards the bland. And as for beer, well it seems that the craft brew revolution is on its way to righting the wrong that we Americans have been living with for decades.

But to return to the subject of our hotel. Our four days in Florence started at 7:30 every morning because that was when breakfast was first available. The coffee and rolls were very good, worth getting up for, and made starting our day early an enjoyable thing to do. In Florence--not so much because it was Florence as because it was not New Jersey--I began to ease up a bit in my hatred for humanity and the human condition. I found myself looking forward to waking hours rather than sleeping ones (a change of pace for me) because the city had so much to offer. I got to look at incredible artifacts and contemplate the economic and historical significance of the rise of the Medici and then to have a marvelous lunch somewhere and then to go back to learning more stuff. Learning is fun when there is invariably a good meal waiting at the end of it. I looked forward to being hungry and eating; to being tired and resting; to one good glass of beer after another; to salads with vinegar that was a little bit acidic. That is not such a bad way to live life; and it's easy to approach life in such a way in such a perfect jewel box of a city as Florence.

Part 3: In which Sloucho reflects upon museums and acknowledges the failure of his own aesthetic perspicacity

Now this Michelangelo character--is he dead? (Question put to a tour guide by a 40-something American tourist.)

Mrs. Sloucho and I spent our time in Florence doing the museum thing when we weren't doing the palazzo thing--and the cathedral thing when we weren't doing either. The best things in Florence are free: Ghiberti's baptistry doors and the Laurentian Library, for example {2}. Except for the view from the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, the stuff that costs money wasn't as exciting for me as it was for Mrs. Sloucho. She thinks Michelangelo is a god of sculpture. I think he is a god of sculpture too; but then I can't imagine what's so great about being a god of sculpture.

Woody Allen has a marvelous short story about an art connoisseur who defines himself by appreciating every art form known to man--except mime. Allen pads his story by having this character misinterpret the gestures of various mimes; but the thrust of the story hits home with me because I can't imagine why anyone likes to see mimes do the little things they do. "You see; he's climbing a ladder. You'd swear that he's at least ten feet off the ground by now!" The only response that this exclamation can bring from me is, "So what!"

Mime-haters, however, are abundant. Once every few centuries a person is born who actually likes mimes or clowns or parades; and someday someone will come along who likes all three. That circumstance, I assure you, will signify the eminent destruction of the world. The abundance of mime haters makes them vociferous in their hatred and prompts them to join together for the purpose of deriding mimes with glee.

But those of us who fail to appreciate sculpture are doomed to a life of loneliness and shame. As we stand before the David in the Galleria Accademia, our companions command us to behold the statue. We do so submissively--and then await further instructions. Our eyes unconsciously roll toward our companions, who see us staring at them and repeat, "Just look at it!" And so we look at it again, waiting for the impressive thing that they are seeing to make its way onto our part of the statue. "Isn't that impressive?" we are asked. And we have to tell our inquisitors to wait for a response because whatever it is that we are supposed to see is sure to come into our line of sight momentarily. But it doesn't come.

One of the lyrics that Bernie Taupin wrote for Elton John is only meaningful for the one percent of the world's population that fails to understand sculpture: "If I were a sculptor--but then again, no."

Plenty of people find that line interesting without understanding that it is dead serious despite its humor. Mrs. Sloucho asks me if I know of anyone apart from Michelangelo who could make a block of marble look so much like human flesh. "Look at the arms;" she says, "they're perfect." And they are perfect--after a fashion, the fashion of sculpture. The ribs are perfect and the nipples are perfect and I don't know of anyone else who could work marble so perfectly and I certainly couldn't work it as well--not in a million years. But the question remains: Why on earth would I want to? I have never tried to sculpt marble; but if I picked it up and turned out to be better at it than Michelangelo, I would only do it for as long as it took me to make the money that I require to retire and pursue the things that interest me. People could come from all over the world to view the work of my hands--and I would feel precisely as though I had thrown some bread crumbs to so many ducks. One can hardly pride oneself on one's bread crumbs. If I were a sculptor--but then again, no.

Part 4: In which Sloucho comes to terms with the touristic nature of tourism and accepts to do as an appropriate infinitive for use in conjunction with touring

I am about to use a word that I thought a lot about as I considered writing up these reflections on my vacation. I am about to tell you how Mrs. Sloucho and I went about doing Florence. It seems pompous enough when someone claims to "know" a city; but it is flippantly pompous--simultaneously superficial and demeaning and unflatteringly self-revelatory--when a person claims to have "done" one.

But I am going to use "did" because it is such a tremendously honest word. What Mrs. Sloucho and I did to Italy when we did Italy was superficial and demeaning and unflatteringly self-revelatory. It is as ridiculous to spend two weeks in Italy as it is for the old fool in The Age of Innocence to announce that "it requires three weeks to do India properly." There is something in the verb "do" that announces the user of it to be a sightseer who is conscious of himself as a sightseer--so that it is perhaps less pompous than it seems. With that in mind, I will tell you which monuments of Florence we did and how well we did them.

Part 5: In which Sloucho finally says something that might possibly be of interest to someone planning a trip to Florence

Our doing of the Bargello, the Uffizi, and the Boboli Gardens was embarrasingly superficial. But we did the Accademia Gallery and Santa Maria del Fiore and the Baptistry and the Church of San Lorenzo and the Medici Chapels and the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo and the Palazzo Vecchio and Santa Croce to my satisfaction. I really do like smaller museums. I walked away from the Accademia Gallery feeling as though I had a pretty good handle on the building and its contents--much the way I felt the first time I emerged from the Guggenheim. But I walked away from the Uffizi feeling as though I had been chewed up and spat out--precisely the way I felt after my first visit to the Met--and the way I was to feel after my visit to the Vatican Museum.

I think it was good that we did Florence first because it was the most museum-oriented of the cities we visited; and I could not have absorbed as much of it as I did if I had come to it from, say, Rome. Ascending the domes and campaniles of Italy, in fact, proved far more rewarding than I would have expected it to be simply because a three-dimensional panoroma can be such a welcome break from paintings and sculptures. But everyone from Mark Twain to the Fodor's Guidebook editor talks about taking a break from the museums, which makes it sound as though places like Florence are somehow disappointing. I want to say emphatically that one has no alternative but to be impressed by Florence. My visit was rewarding beyond anything I had imagined--apart from being both essential and educational.


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{1}Because my trip to Italy was my first European experience, it seemed fitting to me to read Twain's hilarious Innocents Abroad as I traveled. I have modelled my reflections on Italy upon the Italian section of Twain's work, hence my enigmatic title.

{2}I'm grateful to stephen_murray for reminding me that Ghiberti's original plates for the baptistry doors (called the "Gates of Paradise" by Michelangelo) are housed in the Museo dell'Opera dell Duomo. The plates on the actual baptistry doors are copies. Considering the value that our culture places on an artwork's unique location in time and space, I recommend paying a visit to the originals (considered by many to be the inaugural works of the Italian Renaissance), but the museum display, because it breaks the doors up into separate panels, is less impressive to me than the copies on the baptistry doors; and what is most impressive about Ghiberti's work is that it was meant to be displayed out in the open, with all of its delicacy exposed to the elements and the citizens of Florence. Speaking of copies, some people fail to realize that the David on display in Florence's Piazza della Signoria is a copy of the statue that once stood there, but has since been moved to the Galleria Accademia.

This is the 3rd part of a projected 6-part review. Parts 1 & 2 (concerning the vagaries of international flight and the pitfalls of guided tours) are forthcoming.

Part 4, concerning Venice, can be found here:
http://www.epinions.com/content_21884407428

Part 5, concerning Rome, can be found here:
http://www.epinions.com/content_21895876228

Part 6, concerning Naples, can be found here:
http://www.epinions.com/content_21902298756



Recommended: Yes

Best Suited For: Students
Best Time to Travel Here: Sep - Nov