May 20
May 21
May 22
May 23
May 24
May 25
May 26
May 27
May 28
May 29
May 30
May 31
June 1
June 2
June 3
Wednesday 5/22/02
No one broke into our room. And, by some miracle, our missing door key showed up this morning. Wonder where it was? We never really felt completely comfortable about that room the rest of our stay there....
We met in the lobby a little before 6 and moved down to the street. Two taxis had been ordered for us for 6 am to take us back to Piazzale Michelangelo, where we spent a couple of hours shooting various scenes.
The view was lovely and the light was fantastic. The three photos above were taken from this parking lot.
We all made our own ways back to the hotel for breakfast. Betsy took the bus back. Michelle and Judy mostly retraced our path from yesterday. Not completely sure which way Bill and Shirley came back. I headed almost straight down to the river from the parking lot. There was a foot path that went almost straight down and crossed the winding road a couple of times. Then followed the river Arno back to the bridges.
There were a couple of scullers out on the river - photo on the right above - this morning (there were a couple yesterday, too). They had a limited length of the river that they could use, as there were spillways of a sort across both upstream and downstream of where I saw them. They’d row one way for a while, then return. The photo on the left shows one of the spillways that stopped the scullers. The center photo shows the Uffizi Museum and the Arno River. The scullers launched their vessels from the dock in the center of this photo.
After breakfast, Bill, Shirley, and I joined Ursula for a walk to the silversmiths. The rest of the group decided to go shopping instead. It was a fascinating visit.
They took us through as much of the shop as it was safe to visit, detailing the process every step of the way. Our guide here was Fabrizi, who is a real live wire! His enthusiasm has no bounds! He’s learning English and every time we’d provide a new word for him, he’d run over and write it on a piece of paper, along with the Italian equivalent.
First, he brought out one of their finished projects (left and right), a very large, free-standing tureen built for the Sultan of Brunei. It was almost two feet in diameter and would be used to serve caviar! The lid featured a fox with ruby eyes. The theme of the tureen was the fox and grapes. Gold lined. Just beautiful. We didn’t even ask the price.....
We were shown how they alloy the metal, then press it into sheets. Then it is cut into the rough shape, using templates. Most is then rolled and soldered into shape - pitchers and cups, for example.
They also showed us some soldered candelabra components and a silver rose. The vases are then given a hammered finish. We watched one worker (left and right) hammering for a while.
.
Another process uses disks of silver that are shaped using a lathe and mold (left). There is very little silver lost in this lathing process - it is pressed into shape. Fascinating to watch.
Then we entered Fabrizi’s domain - that’s him at work at the right.. His section does the raised work on large bowls.
First, the rough design is hammered from the inside to make a raised design. Then the bowl is filled with tar, which makes it firm, yet resilient, and they hammer the details onto the outside. When this is finished, the bowl is heated enough to loosen the tar, but not melt the silver and the tar is removed (and reused). The bowl is then given a final coat of silver and polished.
.
Fabrizi let Shirley and I take a couple of whacks at the bowl (the photos to left and right show Shirley hammering away), adding the main vein to a couple of grape leaves on the bowl he was working on. He probably had to rework them when we finished.... It’s harder than it looks!
.
The photo to the left shows Fabrizi showing me how to whack the bowl. The photo on the right shows my efforts...
Oh, one interesting thing we saw here - they have no shyness about bathrooms. The ladies room had a copper plate in the shape of a voluptuous woman on it, with the breasts quite emphasized. The mens room had a copper plate in the shape of a man with explicit genitals.... We saw this a couple of other places, too.
After the silversmiths, we hurried back to the hotel as we were meeting the others. On the way, Ursula pointed out this building with its vividly painted walls. This type of decoration is known as graffiti! The five red balls that make up part of this decoration indicates a family connection to the Medici family.
Grabbed a quick piece of pizza for lunch on the way. I hadn’t finished the bottle of water that I had bought to drink with the pizza, so stuffed the bottle into my purse. We had appointments at two museums that afternoon. With reservations, you get to skip the regular line and go directly in. Of course, it’s a little extra for this privilege...
We met up with the others and headed for the Uffizi, one of the main museums. It was very crowded and very warm, but very interesting.
Several paintings were ones that I recognized. It’s always a pleasure to see them for real. Sometimes a photo of a painting doesn’t do it justice.
We wandered around for a while, then all met up in the gift shop. As I was going to pay for my purchases, I realized that my wallet was missing. It was in my purse when I paid my admission fee. I distinctly remember how hard it was to get it back into my purse because of the water bottle. In fact, the water bottle wound up on top of the wallet! Because of the water bottle, I couldn’t quite zip the purse shut, but didn’t really give it much thought.
Obviously, I was the victim of a clever pickpocket. Fortunately, I had rearranged everything a couple of weeks earlier, removing all credit cards and id from the wallet, moving them to a case of their own. That case was in my pocket! All that was in the wallet was money, our front door key, Kelly’s front door key, the Kroger super saver card, and a couple of photographs. All of which can be easily replaced. Yes, I was out about $200 US and about the same amount in Euros, but at least I didn’t have to cancel credit cards or worry about a new driver’s license or Social Security card or medical insurance card or any of the rest of that! And the ATM card was in the pack of cards that was in my pocket.
So, after leaving the museum, I found an ATM and got some quick cash. Yes, I cried. Yes, I ranted and raved. But the storm soon passed and life goes on.
I thought about calling Carl, but knew what he’d say - it’s only money and then he’d ask how much I wanted transferred to the checking account so that the ATM would be covered. Actually, I was doing okay with the whole thing until Bill put an arm around me in sympathy. Then I completely lost it!
We had a little time before our next museum reservation, so we all went back to the hotel for a little while. I rearranged my stuff - credit card pack now went into my left front pants pocket, where it’s usually covered by a purse or a camera bag. Business card case was drafted into usage as a quick “wallet” to hold a small amount of Euros. Larger Euro bills went into the secret pocket of my shirt, where my passport was already stashed. If anyone wanted into that pocket, they’d have to unbutton the pocket, unzip the inner pocket, then dig to the bottom of the pocket, which would put their hand in up to the wrist along my breast. I think I would have felt an intrusion there....
Most of the rest of our group mentioned that they had spent that time rearranging their money, credit cards, etc., splitting them between pockets to minimize any loss. So some good came out of it....
Soon it was time for our final appointment of the day. We arrived at the Academia Gallery, where they have several of Michelangelo’s pieces.
They have all four of his “slaves”, which are unfinished pieces meant for Pope Julius’s tomb. They’re even more dynamic up close than any representation could convey.
Then, at the end of the hall, there was David. He’s fantastic. When asked to name one highlight of the trip, I think that the visit to David would be my selection. It was well worth the hassle of getting into the place. Of course, no photos were allowed, but we stood there just drinking him in for quite a while. Magnificent!
Then back to the hotel for a short rest before our last dinner in Florence. I almost fell asleep... Dinner was at a restaurant on the other side of the Ponte Vecchio. It took a while to find, but it was well worth it. It was just the five of us - Ursula was gone for the day and Bill was bushed. It was a very good dinner. I had something called funicetti which was yummy! Then back to the hotel to do a bit of packing.