Friday, August 21, 2015

Italy's Big Cities and Small Towns: Florence

As one of our three weeks included our special family Tuscan holiday, we knew amidst the down time we would incorporate a few day trips to Italy's fine cities. While Jordan had been to Europe on a whirlwind tour with other students three years ago, Isabelle had never witnessed the beauty of ancient Rome, the canals of Venice or the art that is Florence. However, our public transportation options once deposited into the hillsides of Tuscany were fairly limited, so we learned to read the countryside bus schedule that would get us to Florence in order for us to get to the train station, or on one day rent a car to reach faraway towns off the limits of a train schedule. Beyond the beautiful quiet wine-filled villa, we decided to visit Florence, Parma, Cremona, Venice, and our departure point-Milan. Rome, for Izzy, will have to wait as that trip would take us too far south in the time we had.


August 8: Florence. 
Hot. Florence in the summertime is very very hot. Its honestly hard to enjoy the city amidst thousands of sweaty tourists (ourselves included). However, we knew this would be the condition as we exited our bus, and we steeled ourselves for the somewhat obligatory event of walking around the city in search of food, in search of 'special'. While I feel responsible for everyone enjoying themselves, I sometimes have to go to my own "quiet" place in my head to remember that we will each have our own experiences, and sometimes, we embark on these excursions to check it off the list. While my first visit to Florence eight years ago seems much more magical, this second visit was tempered by even hotter temperatures (yes, the globe has warmed since 2007) and a lack of advance reservations for the hot ticket Florence museums - Uffizi Gallery, Museo Gallileo, or Accademia Gallery in Florence where Michaelangelo's David stands in all his naked glory. I am sure David, at least, was the coolest individual in the sweltering heat. 

We did manage to seek shelter in the Museo degli Argenti, also known as Palazzo Pitti and the summer home of the influential Florentine Medici family. The home is also a display route for hundreds of original pieces of religious Florentine art, and at this time they were displaying the work of Carlo Dolci, a respected Florentine artist favored by the family, so the entire house looks like the Sistine Chapel.


The construction of Italy's cities strongly accounted for the context in which the cities were located-scale, color, and shapes helped create the lasting architecture of views and buildings that draw so many in the world to appreciate its gifts. Across the Arno River that runs west through Florence to the Tiberian Sea are several bridges-the oldest is the Ponte Vecchio and is the designated shopping street filled with tourists, a few street vendors, and lined with old shops selling leather, jewelry, glass sculpture, gelato, and tee shirts. My favorite aspect of Florence is the view from Ponte alla Carraia looking east toward the Vecchio that I only got on the bus coming into town, but the river shapes the city beautifully and the scale of architecture-both older Florentine as well as the new modern dialectic-is appealing to the eye. Shoppers come to shop here and whether they are conscious of it or not, they go to this place because it is beautiful, it is timeless, it is forever. 

Comparing Florence to modern cities like Vancouver or even my own Denver is probably not fair, as architecture of old is everlasting in Italy and preservation is par for the course, while younger cities struggle to ascertain the importance of their historic structures when shiny new objects and modern closet space trends hot among milennials. Density is accommodated primarily through midrise multifamily structures in all of the cities we visited, even the small towns. As is the case in Denver, the debate is downright vitriolic between those witnessing the rise of new architecture considered thoughtless and a violation of neighborhood scale, and those who make a living building new homes for the hoards of incomers who want to call Denver home. Florence and other Italian cities reinforce my appreciation for the science and art of dwellings and public spaces. It has been all but lost in today's quick buck environment, but at least in my profession over the past 22 years, I've seen professional planners, architects and builders inspired by places of old, and hope these inspirations are recognized in reality with the rise of new structures to accommodate our growing population. I do wonder, however, what all the villagers said when the duomo Santa Maria del Fiore was constructed...

-Cousins Kevin and Mary with Ivan and Isabelle at Santa Maria del Fiore


-Ponte Vecchio and it's tourists-

As we wandered through the beautiful streets (again, filtering out the crowds), we turned corners for other streets that appeared to head in the general direction we wanted to go - in all Italian cities, we found it doesn't really matter where you wander. These cities are set up to allow wandering in all directions, and there is always a piazza or public square to greet you at the other end of a street. The forted walls of these ancient cities contain the wandering souls for the most part, but an easy bus ride outside into the country provides context and opens horizons to the Tuscan hills beyond Florence.









No comments:

Post a Comment