Firenze (Florence) Day One:

The Blue Marlin Bar redeemed itself for the ice cold red wine faux pas with some fine coffee. Lillie bought us some foccaccia at the bakery next door, which we enjoyed as we waited for the train.

The trip from Cinque Terre to Florence requires transfers in La Spezia and Padova. The Padova transfer was a little more nerve-wracking, as it was very closely-timed and we had been told that our ticket covered one type of train to Firenze but not another. We didn't want to get on the wrong train and either get booted off or hit up for an astronomical sum to make up the difference. It all worked out in the end, with no such problems.

It was an easy walk from the train station to our B&B, where roses, champagne, and chocolate awaited, along with a certificate for dinner arranged by my family and our family friend Annie. The B&B owner had gotten excited that we were honeymooners and upgraded our room to one with a private bath, where we had only reserved one with a shared bath. Very cool.

The neighborhood surrounding our lodgings was more diverse than it had been at previous cities we'd visited - there were Indians and Africans, and more kebab places than we'd seen elsewhere.

Up to this point, we'd maybe seen a few Chinese places, one Thai restaurant, the sushi joint and Hard Rock Cafe near the American Embassy in Rome, and the occasional annoyingly conspicuously-placed McDonald's (e.g. directly across from the Pantheon in Rome). In general, we had not found tons and tons of diversity to the food offerings. Aside from intellectual curiosity, we weren't particularly interested - we were going to eat Italian food during the course of our limited time in Italy - but I can imagine on a longer stay getting homesick for more international comfort food options.

On our walk to the Uffizi, we passed through the Piazza della Repubblica, a beautiful square created by tearing down the Jewish neighborhood that used to be there. We read/heard a lot - too many - of these stories on our trip. It's an embarrassment, and it's gone on all over the world. My belief in the necessity of Israel - or at least a Jewish state - deepened a bit while reflecting on this.

The sculpture garden in the vicinity of the Uffizi and the Duomo is completely free and amazing all by itself. While looking at the Renaissance sculptures, I started wondering whether the Masters had a cadre of super-buff models or if their idealized physiques were derived from cadaver study. I find it hard to imagine developing an exercise routine in those days that would chisel the human form to such an extent.

The Uffizi is amazing, but more museum than we could fully appreciate in 4 hours. It's impressive to think that the museum evolved from one family's private art collection and that it has operated as a public art museum since ten years before the Declaration of Independence. We drank (lousy) espresso at a cafe on the way to the museum and stopped for coffee midway through our visit, but we definitely felt the effects of our early morning. Nonetheless, I've stood in the presence of Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" and Michaelangelo's "Holy Family," among far too many others to recall or recount for my purposes here.

We decided to return home for a nap, and my blood sugar took one of its occasional plummets on the way. Feeling weak, we ducked into the nearest corner store for some ready-to-eat snacks and a soda. We were looking for Krik Krok brand potato chips, since the brand-name onomatopoeia amused us both. (We never did actually buy/eat a bag.) We found some other brand and Schweppes Pampelmo, which another hustler tried to "help" us get out of the refrigerated case, presumably for a fee. Seriously, we're Americans - not weaklings. We don't need help to get a soda. The hustle doesn't work on me in Chicago or Rome, and it ain't gonna work in Florence.

After a nap and getting cleaned up, we headed back out the same way to go to dinner at Quatro Leoni. Our special honeymoon meal had been arranged by my family and our friend Annie Sackler, whom we know to be a young woman of discerning tastes. Mounted next to our table were various photographs of famous people (like Dustin Hoffman) who had enjoyed meals there, and a band outside played some of the accordion music that I'd wanted to hear all trip long. The bathroom was also stellar - all of the good European amenities I admired, the American conveniences I sometimes missed, and a very cool faucet.

The dinner Annie planned for us was a delicious Tuscan meal, and the number of courses and portion sizes were more food than we could possibly eat. We completely and enthusiastically cleaned off our plates for the appetizer (a selection of crostini) and pasta courses, at which point the waiter announced, "Now you have a big problem!" and brought out an absolutely enormous hunk of beef, roughly equivalent to five 8 oz steaks.

He laid several substantial slices of perfectly seasoned and cooked steak on each of our plates. Lillie's more of a chicken eater, so she offloaded a few of her slices on to my plate. Knowing that I couldn't handle that much red meat, I discreetly moved one of my slices back onto the main serving tray. Each time the waiter came around, he moved that slice back onto my plate and I would wait until he was out of sight, and then discreetly move it back onto the main plate.

Finally, I had to say, "Basta!" The waiter seemed heartbroken at request for doggy-bag, and expressed concern about eating it later. We explained to him that we had a kitchen at our B&B, and could safely and decently re-heat it, so he gave detailed instructions about how best to do so. I ate steak sandwiches for two more days and loved them. Waste not, want not. I couldn't feed the sacred cow to starving children in India, so I might as well enjoy it a few more days.

If there was any downside to our experience, it was the young Americans seated next to us. It seemed to be a first date between two Americans in Italy, which is probably a story in and of itself, and the clearly and overly self-impressed 20-something guy seemed to be running down his whole sexual history to the young girl. When his visit to the WC and mine coincided, I thought about clueing him in on what a tool he sounded like, and Lillie thought about telling the girl to run. We both opted to keep our mouths shut.

Nonetheless, there did seem to be this phenomenon where foreigners in Italy - or at least English speaking foreigners, specifically Americans - held conversations about inappropriate topics or expressed ignorance, apparently not realizing or caring that they were speaking loud enough for anyone to hear.

Here's a thought: If your waiter speaks fluent English to take your order, then (1) he understands English well enough to grasp the lurid details he hears, and (2) there are pretty good odds that many of the customers are native English speakers. If you wouldn't say it out loud at your local restaurant back home, don't say it out loud elsewhere.

Then again, maybe these are the same people who have the same inappropriate conversations loudly on their cell phone while on the CTA bus or train, back home. I guess they figure they have some sort of "anonymity bubble" that follows them around and scrambles their conversation into some form of code that no one else can understand when going on about lurid sexual details.

We dallied a little bit on the Ponte Vecchio before continuing on towards the B&B. There was an intense-sounding political rally in Piazza della Republica and we passed a couple of beer bars and dance clubs with younger crowds. There was a pair of younger people on the curb - one sitting and minding his prostrate friend more or less lying in a pool of his own vomit.

Sleep was pretty decent. Ever since we left Rome, the weather was generally cooler and more conducive to sleep. We started a load of wash before going to sleep.

Firenze Day Two:

As with Vernazza, the night's quiet abruptly ends with the first morning bell.

We went a few doors down for some sandwich and breakfast makings, including some yogurt. I fried my steak up, so that I'd have it available for lunches. Given yesterday's low-blood-sugar experience, I figured that it would be a good idea to keep sandwiches with us. We hung our laundry out to dry before leaving.

As a random sort of thing, we went into the McDonald's at the train station, to see if it scratched our American-style coffee itch. Nope. Flavorless here, too. We got better coffee - espresso and cappuccino, naturally - in a square around the corner from the Academia.

Lillie and I felt that the exhibits at the Academia were more informative than the ones at the Uffizi. Many of the placards contained comparisons between a detail of the painting they described and details from other works from which the artist had drawn inspiration.

The main event, of course, is Michaelangelo's David, which is truly massive and beautiful in person. We enjoyed the other exhibits, which - interestingly enough - included photographs by controversial American photographer Robert Maplethorpe, whose figurative work on display actually sat quite nicely with the nude sculptures on display. It was interesting to think of Maplethorpe as a classicist, given that I had chiefly known of him as a photographer of rock stars and for his role in the American "culture wars" of the 1980s.

After taking in the Academia, we walked back over towards the Duomo, which is directly adjacent to the Uffizi. After taking in the Duomo, we searched out Grom, a much-vaunted gelateria with outposts in Florence, Milan, and NYC. We waited in line behind school-children and got hassled by a mime, but it was all worth it. I got my chocolate fix and Lillie got her hazelnut fix, and we were sugared-up and happy again. Grom was the best gelateria on our trip.

beer and a prosecco at an American-themed joint we'd passed on the way back from Quatro Leoni, the night before. It turns out that the bar was owned and operated by Italian-raised Chinese guy. I was amused to find graffiti in the bathroom related to Pennsylvania college football.

By this time, I was getting really annoyed by what seemed to be a standard configuration of young female American tourists. Everywhere we turned, it seemed that there were four young American (or Canadian) women walking down the street in cute little dresses it looks like they either bought on the trip or specifically for the trip. We'd see them coming 2 blocks off and sort of hold our tongues and our breath as we passed by, inevitable hearing English with American accents. Of course, I'm sure that the American honeymooning couple is its own cliche, but it was getting annoyingly predictable.

After a beer and a prosecco, we went on to the Pitti Palace, where we took in an exhibit of period costumes and then roamed around the gardens. I was in need of another green-space fix, since Italian cities are long on paved public squares but very very short on public places with grass or other vegetation. It really gets to me after a while to not look at trees or anything wild. The gardens were very impressive, although - as with the Borghese Gardens - not in the same way that you'd expect from a French garden or either of the conservatories Lillie and I know best.

We had a wonderful dinner at the Golden View Open Bar, which overlooks the Arno and the Ponte Vecchio. In addition to wonderful food and views, this place also had top-notch bathroom facilities. I suspect that Lillie's and my eating in Florence may simply have skewed higher-end than it did for much of the rest of our Italian sojourn.

I had a salad with pears and a pasta course with gnocchi, sausage, and porcini mushrooms. As was often the case, they provided menus with English language explanations of the dishes.

Unfortunately, that was not sufficient for one member of a group of - you guessed it - four American girls in their cute little dresses. Lillie overheard this cute little Ugly American ask, "What's guh-knock-ee?" The girl then ordered the same pasta dish I got, then sent it back when she realized it had mushrooms in it - despite the fact that mushrooms were CLEARLY spelled out in ENGLISH in the menu. It's a good thing that Lillie relayed the story to me after we'd have left - I might have had to have gone over to their table and had words with her. Apparently, the ugly American phenomenon also includes illiteracy in your supposed first language. Why do people like this decide to go abroad? Can't you be a moron at home?

We passed by the set-up process for more political rallies on way home. We popped into another convenience store for a few more breakfast items for the next day. The Indian-Italian shopkeep seemed somewhat morose, which was unusual. We were used to brusque or upbeat, but not sad. It was weird. He offered us stuffed olives to try. The one I tried was good, but I simply had no more room for food that night, and no practical use for a stuffed olive the next day.

We did, however, have room for the champagne that Annie had left for us, polishing off the bottle while folding underwear and socks in the courtyard garden. In a spectacularly clutzy move on my part, I managed to knock my champagne glass off the table while folding boxer briefs.

We watched the MTV movie awards - in English, with Italian subtitles - before going to bed. I wonder if the various jokes translate to an Italian sense of humor, whatever that is/means. It's all pretty stupid, but it was some native-language pabulum to help me wind down.

You say you want to spend the winter in Firenze,
You're so afraid to catch a dose of influenza

Ponte Vecchio

Merry-go-round in Piazza della Repubblica

What gym did these Renaissance figure models go to?

"Basta!" So much of a good thing.

Apparently, Homer Simpson buys beer in Florence. Who knew?

The Duomo

Garden gargoyle and other cool sculpture in the Pitti Palace

Lillie on the Arno. There were guys playing soccer on the concrete vetements by the river, and rowing crews practicing.

Doing my best Paul Giammati in Sideways

All material copyright Ethan Sellers unless otherwise indicated.