We had not planned on going to Florence, but a friend in Marseille moved our rendezvous from Tuesday to Thursday so we had one day to kill. Since we were already there, I could not, in good conscience, let H go to Tuscany without seeing Firenze.
I must admit, I had an agenda. I was here five years ago, for a day and a half, and it coincided with the day that the museums were closed. I wanted my second chance to see Boticelli's The Birth of Venus at the Uffizi, and Michaelangelo's David at the Galleria dell'Accademia. Here plainly was Hermes, god of travel, finally smiling down on me.
But the god of travel is also prankster, a cruel, sadistic bastard, because that day the lines for both museums stretched for two blocks. It was impossible to go inside both, and if we fell in line for at least one, we'd be stuck in Florence until beddy-bye time instead of Portofino, where we had planned to spend the night.
I died a little inside that day. Two unsuccessful attempts in five years! I should have known it would be next to impossible to get into the museums in the height of summer. I couldn't get why H was in good spirits.
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| A pogi (handsome) Manila boy |
I suppose it was enough for him to have seen Florence and to confirm that it is indeed a city of unparalleled beauty. Seeing the artworks hauled by the great galleries were just the cherry on the top.
It was, after all, the birthplace of the Renaissance.
From its womb flourished great scholars, musicians, painters and sculptors.
For centuries, it was the most important city in Europe, largely due to the Medicis and their strong ties to the pope.
Not to mention their deep pockets.
Still rich and still feuding, descendants of the Medicis still hold royal titles up to this day. Their family chapel boasts of commissioned works from Michelangelo, and looks as it did centuries ago. The city itself seems no different than in the 14th century (with the exception of a few shops, which is something you would expect anyway). It seems that in Florence, they found out how to make time stand still. The world could go to rot and it will stay standing. Florence ain't going nowhere.
Which is why I am confident that in five more years, I could come back (zombie apocalypse notwithstanding) -- and see the Boticelli at last. In Firenze time, five years are but minutes.
Tragically, when we got to Piazza della Signoria, our still camera died. So I am forced to show you pictures I took with my old handy-dandy camera, the one stolen in Laos :'(
Our trip to Portofino was short, but the road going there was long. We thought we could save on gasoline by taking a little road and refueling there, but we got off the highway at the worst time, because the road branched off into the mountains. The road was longer, and so remote that there were no gasoline stations, and we feared that we would run out of gasoline before we found our way out.
Eventually, we made it to Portofino in one piece.
Portofino is a small, former fishing village in Genoa. Its one tiny street going to the port is just one designer boutique after another. And the shops don't even hold much stock (the Pucci outlet had 20 dresses at the most), they're mostly just there for show.
Instead of smelling of brine, it smells like money.
But there was a time when men hiding under white hoods would give food to the needy on that same narrow street, masking their faces so that their good deeds would remain anonymous.
Rich merchants and poor fishermen, all equal in the eyes of God.
In the 50s, expensive villas replaced the modest fishing houses -- and a new playground of the rich and famous was born. Now it's a pricey stopover for yachts in the Italian Riviera.
We camped in Genoa that evening, and met a group of Pinoys who were working and studying in Turin. It was our last night in Italy and I'd been missing our bed in Paris; but something would happen in Marseille that would keep us from home a little longer than planned.
Up Next: Marseille Away With Me
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