Dale J. Norris - actor, poet, writer, photographer, film-maker - is the creator of the award winning Likeastory.com: an interactive site for creative types. Dale has recently taken to publishing some of his backpacking tales of adventure at likeastory just for fun at www.likeastory.com/travel/. Contact Dale at Dale@likeastory.com
Rested up with the wines and flavors of the Montepulciano wonderland we were all mentally prepared for our attack on Firenze. So there we stood awaiting that Fairy God Mother's Magic that would get us from the small Tuscan hill town to Firenze on Easter Monday. So packs on the back we awaited that magical pumpkin chariot (the 10 o'clock bus) to take us to the grand ball that was Firenze. Well, the Fairy God Mother arrived all right but there was no "zipidie bopidie boo" to her magic as the ten o'clock bus didn't arrive till twelve on Easter Monday. So our "gung-ho-ness excitement" degenerated quickly into bus-stop journal entries, reading, tale telling and loitering until the bus showed up. The pumpkin chariot (bus trip) ride out of Montepulciano was quite a nice treat after the wait though. It was a much longer and more scenic route than the short hop we had taken before as we went from Montepulciano all the way to Chiusi station. Before we had just hoped the bus from a station in a neighboring town to get to the hill town.
As we rode, beautiful visions of the people, towns and countryside would tell their passing stories, often setting off that wanderer's desire to hop off the bus and find out more. But just like in the Cinderella story there was that looming dark hour there in the back of my head (the hour I had to go home). So there was no time to dabble in these other lovely stories, but at that time I had but to hope toward the grand part I had reserved in the tale that was Firenze.
We awaited the fairy magic of transportation a little longer at the Chiusi station as we chatted with a lovely Danish girl and her mom to pass the time. The train arrived an hour late and was packed. We say "so-long" to our Danish friends waving bon voyage as we switched into our "degenerate compete for the space on the train" mode. My pack was just right for sitting on, as the crowded train ride from Chiusi station to Firenze on Easter Monday had no seats available and I had found an "almost comfortable" spot in the car's foyer, yet the train ride had not been even remotely relaxing. I was glad to have the junk food I had bought at Chiusi station, and was really happy to see the suburbs of Firenze after several hours of train travel. I was off that train like a rabbit when it hit the stop.
Soon, as we walked toward the place we had picked out to stay, I could feel the city beneath my street hardened combat boots and that's when my empathy clued me in on the fact that Firenze (the city itself) was ALIVE. It was as if I had, through that old fairy magic, become a symbiotic part of this lovely but still foreign living being.
Arriving on Easter Monday, we went to the Instituto Gould to find no officials there to rent us a space. We ran into Tracy, one of the Expatriated Slacker's Guild from Roma. She let us in to use the pay phone as we called around for another place to stay. We found a triple in another section of town and went trekking off after some of that obligatory flirting. We freshened up, and then went on our tango across Firenze. Our nose for the amazing and our stomachs led us to one of those nano wonders of the world, a place called Amon, and we stuffed our face with these amazing Egyptian pitas, and drank with some more of those Expatriated Slackers in some English pub.
The triple we had picked was nice and comfy, but the evil stepmother this evening was a horrible thing called "a midnight curfew". But in the worn out phase we were in after the day of travel, we didn't mind that for just one night. We wake early to hustle over to secure our spot at the Instituto Gould - a tidy big hostel full of backpackers in a great location for 20 bucks a night. Degenerate Fred and David shared a double while I rented a cheaper bunk in another part. The double room had a nice patio, and ironically (as if just for us) there was a wine shop just two doors down from the hostel and a deli not too far from that. We stock up on Orvieto Classico with plenty to share. While at the hostel, we had patio picnics with the two girls in the room adjoining the patio with wines, black olives and sandwiches. We frequently visit the wine shop and form a kind of friendship/understanding with proprietor (I guess he likes selling wine by the case. We were taking the opportunity to enjoy these cheap wines that would cost quite a bit at home.) We frequently filled up our day packs with a bottle or two for later, and found ourselves taking breaks from the beautiful dance through the history of art and culture to sit on the steps of some great church of Firenze to have our wines, people watch and charm beautiful passers by or just interesting people into joining us.
Now with that framework in mind we took in the Borgello after saying no way to the huge line at the Uffizzi, ahh beauty, ahh more beauty, ahh beauty juxtaposed aside beauty, Emmm look at beautiful her looking at beautiful that! Yep! Those were the emotions that were common for my heart when visiting the museums and churches of Firenze. The Borgello had its share of Donatello's, Michelanglelo's, and more and more. Appropriately stunned, and at this point drunk only with beauty, we stagger out for another kind of cultural icon, Vivoli on Stinky Street. Yes Vivoli was not just any gellateria, according to Degenerate Fred it was "THE Gellateria". So yes, we then experienced what was indeed the best gelato ever. Well I'm hyper now, after all that gelato, and we go to the Duomo and flirt with some beautiful Spanish girls while waiting in line to climb Brunellesci's dome. Now this dance was quite a work-out and had rhythms in it at which it became a slow dance. Yes things could get quite close and friendly to others on their way down as we squeezed by each other. It was fun and quite an experience. Wow at the views both inside and out.
We changed partners over to The Uffizzi and did a "wait in line" dance for about an hour. Of course running into people we knew from somewhere and, after a comment from degenerate Fred, "It's a small World After All" was stuck in my musical head leaving me groaning for a few minutes until I was distracted by some street artist doing a live portrait of a beautiful young lady. Now the Uffizzi was one of the grandest dances in Firenze as Leonardo, Raphael, Botticelli, Michelangelo, and many more of the greatest Muses of all time were there.
Well "I'd like to thank the Academia" for it was there we found Michelangelo's David, Yes, you hear hype, hype and some more hype about the David, but you will have no choice but to dismiss all that as this awesome sight dwarfs all hype and stuns your tail right there in public. Yes this dance has simple moves to it:
1. Walk down the amazing hall of Michelangelo's slaves,
2. Stop, Awe,
3. Stop, Awe ,
4. Stop, Awe (at each slave)
5. Then (seeing The David)
6. Open mouth,
7. Stand still.
The Rain Dance:
Inspiration and that night owl nature was running amuck within us as we had a vino picnic at the Instituto Gould, and any deterrents from fun like that misty and rainy Firenze air we had that evening quickly faded away after a few shared bottles. Out for some yummies (food that is) and then on to, well, where ever. We came across some musicians who had taken over a porch at the Uffizzi and there, we befriended some boozing Belgians; young, passionate and babbling about politics through that blurbing barrier of compete drunkenness. We felt right at home with that. We loiter, jump around, drink and watch the local police guys screw around with the guys selling posters illegally just by walking by. Every time a uniformed police would walk by the poster guys would stash all their posters away, then get them out again when the police guy was gone. They were doing a performance art comedy routine and didn't even know it. This was one of the nights we almost turned into a pumpkin as we barely made Instituto's 1:30 ish curfew.
The Pick Pocket Waltz:
Those ballroom waltz spins I learned can really come in handy when exiting the churches of Firenze. Yes, there was Santa Croce, another one of the myriads of beautiful, awe inspiring churches full of great works and the burial spot of several of "the greats" including Michelangelo. I was exiting this great place when we encountered what I came to call "the prop comics of Firenze". A couple of gypsy women approach us. Now the gypsy pickpockets in Firenze all have some kind of prop (tightly wrapped babies, laundry bags, and newspapers etc). This was a common theme to all of them.
Exiting Santa Croce I do a quick Viennese turn around the one with the laundry approaching me, spin around some more and then am confronted with one with a newspaper in my face. I issued an instant "go away" command in the Italian and pushed right through the newspaper. All of my gear with the exception of a side pouch I kept a camera lens in was well protected. The lens pouch is what she went for. And amazingly managed to get the thing halfway open in that split second she confronted me. Wow! But she had encountered that tiny safety pin I had through the zipper of the thing, and went away with nothing Ha! Ha! Now the jokes of these "Prop Comics" can be really cruel if you are not prepared for them. Don't let the joke be on you.
The Last Dance is a Slow One:
We take in more of the Duomo, and experience Ponte Vecchio. Fred had described Ponte Vecchio, the shop filled bridge that crosses the river, as a kind of market for cheap gold trinkets. Now I, being from the home of the first gold rush, which is all about touristy shops that sell cheap gold trinkets, did not feel that I would find anything of interest there, but we went anyway. The shops aside, this place was neat especially for a thespian and lover of the Dionysian arts. Yes there were performance artists here and there doing their street shows on the bridge. The beautiful costumes, music and dancing, turned out to be nothing like the tacky shops at my hometown. I loved it.
We were to return to Roma after our magnificent stay in Firenze. Much talk of living there came and went during the stay. Yet none of us would have the resources it would take to set up house keeping (not even the poor house). One last jaunt by the Duomo and Vivoli, and then on to the train back to Roma for a day or two as that looming hour approached when we had to return home. And we, like Cinderella, left something behind in Firenze. No it wasn't a shoe! Instead it was a kind a cultural innocence or naïveté of what the great works were really about, for none of our collegiate learning, readings or photo books had prepared us for the experience of a living city whose heart dwells in the beauty of the renaissance and also in the contemporary world of tomorrow's art and inspiration. The last dance is a slow one and it still isn't over, as the visions within this beautiful city shall have an intimate touch with me for some time to come.
By Dale J. Norris
Dale J. Norris' - actor, poet, writer, photographer, film-maker - is the creator of the award winning Likeastory.com: an interactive site for creative types. Dale has recently taken to publishing some of his back-packing tales of adventure at likeastory just for fun at www.likeastory.com/travel/ . Contact Dale at Dale@likeastory.com
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