Monday Firenze 20111024. Dear Lynn, Florence is where all the good hand bags are born, convene, lounge, hang out on glass shelves, and occasionally move to faraway lands with kind and adoring friends. Bags are us, every kind of leather bag you can imagine, all for the very expensive buying. This is definitely not the Coach retail outlet in Vegas.
I started the day at Il Duomo, or the St Mary of pretty little flowers church. An extravagant multilayer stacked Viennese torte of marble exterior, and a stern interior of mosaic and frescoes that were Italian liturgical understatement. It was cool and dim, and I could sit quietly. Buddah/yoga lady sat beside me in classic meditation pose, thumb and forefinger closed to a circle. Where St. Mark's was a joyful hallelujah, this space was contemplative. Not hugely busy, I was able to take my time exploring. Further down the road, I came to a small museum, palazzo Davanzati, what had once been a wealthy person's house had become a poor house and rescued in the early 20th century by basically an art restorer. It was an interesting space to be in, heavy square and maybe five large stories high, inner courtyard, walls decorated with painted motifs, carved ceilings, and a dumb waiter/interior pulley system. I saw the oldest bridge over the Arno, that the occupying German commander had been convinced to not destroy as allied troops advanced on the city. I walked through the collonade. I have now officially retail overloaded. Today I saw the shop windows of more luxury designer retailer than I have ever seen in one place. I get it. Florence isn't just art, it's shopping! I went into Hermes to price a cashmere/silk pashmina, arbre de vie, still less expensive here than in Toronto. Hmmmmm, I really have to think about that one. Stephanie, i wish i was experiencing it through your sensibilities. I can barely do thirty minutes in a thrift shop, and after hours of beautiful after beautiful I want an iced washcloth over my eyes. Tooooo much. It's not entirely wasted on me, because I'm clearer on my own aesthetic, and ready to move from stretchy pants to something a little more expressive.
This is why I don't think I'm a great traveller. I window shop the lifestyle and choices, and want to bring it home. I think real travellers let it wash over them (thank you ali), and live in the moment. Almost twenty years ago I was in the south of France, and my overwhelming response to that trip was to live better, to drink the fresh squeezed orange juice at my own table set with pretty flowers, rather than sacrificing years of good living for two weeks of vacation travel. When I got back I moved to the apartment of my dreams in the beaches, stopped drinking and living an Epicurean fantasy in my head when I was coming home alone to dry crackers and an empty fridge. This trip is doing the same thing, maybe less aesthetically and more internally. The hoarding is over. The living can no longer be a window pane away. It's breaking my heart. It has to be as solid and real as I can manage.
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