Buon Compleanno a Roberto!

We arrived in Firenze (Florence) on Thursday. We took a cab into the old city center to the Piazza Santa Maria Novella - the entire city is grouped into little neighborhoods that surround these massive open piazzas - and checked into the hotel Santa Maria Novella. The people at the counter couldn't have been nicer, even when I forgot my impromptu Italian that I had learned on the plane down. I don't know how such an easy word as prenotazione (reservation) escaped me, but it did. The people here are exponentially nicer than in Paris. The lady was happy to speak with us in English, and then when she took our passwords and figured out it was Bob's birthday she prompted wished him a 'buon compleanno' and upgraded our room to a two-story one! The picture below is a view from Bob & Deb's room of the Piazza Santa Maria Novella outside. The hotel itself is beautiful and features a bunch of reading rooms, libraries, and drawing rooms all covered in gorgeous artwork, fireplaces, and bookshelves. Definately want to just take a book and a bottle of wine down one evening and relax.

We got situated and immediately plowed out into the city to take advantage of the three hours of daylight we still had. We set out west from Santa Maria Novella to the Duomo, the Cathedral named Santa Maria del Fiore that features Bernelleschi's impressive dome (constructed over 30 years in the 1400s) and Giotto's campanile bell tower (constructed in the late 1300s). The entire church took over 200 years to complete and was impacted by a good deal of the Renaissance masters we know today. We got gelatto at a little place called Grom, recommended to me by a girl from Country Day that lives here now, and then walked around the Duomo up toward Piazza del Annunziata (of the Annunciation). We decided to stop in and see Michaelangelo's David at the Galleria del Accademia. By far the most impressive piece of artwork I've ever seen in my life. Unlike the Mona Lisa, which is talked up and then leaves you semi-disappointed with its appearance in reality, David absolutely blows you away. The detail is astounding, you can walk around him all 360 degrees, and the sheer size - 17 feet tall - is incredible. We spent probably 20 or so minutes just looking at the incredible details: the veins on his hand and arm, the intricacy of the slingshot, and the curls of his hair were all just beyond us in how someone can carve that out of marble. The rest of the Galleria featured early Renaissance artwork that was still developing out of the Byzantine era.

After the Galleria del Accademia, we walked south again and perused the Mercato Centrale, a massive open-air market where people are hawking a variety of goods. We stumbled into a little wine shop that happened to be one of Firenze's coolest little places. It was operated by a woman from Iowa who had studied abroad in Firenze and married a man she met there, and she sold wine, balsamic vinegrettes, olive oils, pastas, spices, etc etc. Needless to say my dad and I had a field day, and I came away with some olive oil, balsamic, and a bottle of after-dinner lemon liquor that is uniquely Italian. We then headed to Buca Mario, a restaurant our concierge recommended, for Bob's birthday dinner, but we figured out that it wasn't open yet and so got a drink in the hotel Bagliano bar to waste a little time. Our second trip back to Buca Mario was more successful and we were able to get a table without a reservation - a luxury, we noticed, that we would not have been afforded if we'd come 30 minutes later. The place is obviously popular with locals and was packed shortly thereafter. The Italian tradition is to get two main courses per person: a pasta dish and a meat dish. I got a fettuccine to start with and then veal cutlets in a white wine sauce. We also got two bottles of the house wine (literally made for the restaurant) and some desserts. All in all, the dinner took about 2 1/2 hours, which is supposedly typical for Italy. At the end, we were treated to a surprise when all the waiters came out with a birthday dish with a Roman candle in it and started singing happy birthday to Bob. Except some of them changed his name to Roberto, and some of them changed it to Bobito, so it was pretty funny toward the end. The owner of the restaurant, a little gray-haired old lady, also came out with goodie basks of bruschetta and kissed him on the cheek. We about died laughing and then had a round of the lemon liquor that I mentioned earlier.

After that huge meal Debbie was about worn out, so she took the bruschetta and went back to Santa Maria Novella while Bob and I took our cameras and headed down to walk the Arno. The entire city is tiny compared to Paris - only 500,000 inhabitants and the ability to walk clear across town in 15 minutes. Compared to the sprawling metropolis of Paris, it was a welcome surprise. We walked from the west side of town along the Arno to the Ponte Vecchio, a 1200-year-old bridge covered with three stories of jewelers and goldsmiths, then cut north through the Piazza della Signoria to see the Palazzio Vecchio (one of the Medici houses and the original home of Michelangelo's David). Then we kind of wandered until we found the Duomo again, which isn't hard with the small size of the city and the fact that Bernelleschi's dome absolutely dominates the town, and headed home for good. Overall, an amazing - and way more productive than I would have thought - first day.