It is not only is achingly beautiful and awesomely executed, it is totally organic, growing directly out [...]]]> The Basilica San Lorenzo (also known as The Dom or the cathedral), at the heart of Florence – no it is not at the heart, I’d say it is the heart – is an astounding piece of art.

It is not only is achingly beautiful and awesomely executed, it is totally organic, growing directly out of its time and place. The moment in time in which it was created, the ideas, the hopes, the fears, the social and religious attitudes – all are right there.

But there still are questions whose answers I haven’t yet found in any books.

In the plaza, at the side of the main building, directly in front of the front door, is the Medici’s private chapel. Why is it separate and not within the Dom itself? What’s inside it? I’ll come back to that further down below a few pix inside the Dom itself.

After passing around and through city streets, stopping next to shuttered churches and in empty city squares, the bus cut across the river and up a winding road that climbs a high [...]]]> We took a tour after dinner on one of those double-deck buses. Two hours, I recall. Maybe 8pm when we started. Dark out.

After passing around and through city streets, stopping next to shuttered churches and in empty city squares, the bus cut across the river and up a winding road that climbs a high hill. As we neared the top, the private homes and hotels became luxurious and sprawling.

At the top was a broad, flat parking area and a look-out with a walled promenade overlooking nighttime Florence. A bronze copy of Michelangelo’s David dominated the view.

It was a warm evening. A group of Chilean musicians, probably all cousins to the ones performing at this same time on Lower Broadway, just off Houston, were gathered under a lamp.

Off to the side, a male fortune teller was explaining their future to an eager young couple.

The recorded guide was unintelligible. The sound was not much more than “blurg garble blah schmoob, waz facicrank.” So I took the annoying things out of my ears. My companion, in an attitude I’d become to realize as too controlling, tried to “help” me by forcing her own earplug set on my head. It took some serious and forceful repetition of “no” before she stopped.

Things are getting tense. We leave for Rome (at her persistence insistence) tomorrow.

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Did DaVinci [...]]]> On the day that I was walking past the tourist trap DaVinci “museum” in Florence, I did not know that the wooden bike out front was a phony. By phony, I do not mean it is not the original made by Leonardo himself. I mean  that the whole concept is fake.

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Did DaVinci design a bicycle? Read this and then come back here for a few minutes of soap opera in which an already shaky and fragile relationship takes one big step right off a cliff.  Or ignore the link and keep on reading. Names may be changed and events elided, but nothing else.

Our few days en route to Florence had been difficult.  Problems began in Amsterdam that were a red flag. I should have broken off the joint trip right there and gone on alone. Whenever I think about that failure, I am amazed at my stupidity in not recognizing those incidents as serious warnings.

Example?  The Italian-operated, overnight train from Paris to Florence, as previously reported, was a mess, old, dirty, poor service, the usual. To aggravate matters, for all the privacy they provided the sleeping compartments may as well been divided by loosely hanging curtains.

You could clearly hear normal conversations from one compartment  to another. The previously reported dispute during which the dining car operator threatened the students took place in the passageway at the far end of the car. Our compartment was at one end. Every word of that dispute was heard even though the doors to our compartment and theirs were closed.

Given that lack of privacy, a prudent and private person like me will speak in a soft, quiet voice. Despite my adventurous life, I am very private about my bumpity-bump.

There is no delicate way to say this. Eve was a screamer. When we were in a solid room in upscale hotels in New York and Amsterdam, she was vocal and loud about what she wanted, when she wanted it, how hard she wanted it and how she felt about things in general.  I did my happy priapic best to respond and provide my own part of a good dialog. Explicit, noisy, messy, satisfying communication was had by all.

The trouble in the train began when she said she did not care if anyone might hear us. My problem was, not that anyone might hear us. My problem was I knew that *everyone* would hear us.

I cared about that, both as a matter of privacy and propriety.

The verbal battering I got for saying that was a hard shock. It went on far too long and became increasingly loud. It became as bad as it might have had we actually gone ahead and done it anyway. I thought she was being outrageous and pathetic.  That was one of the most unpleasant nights I’d ever spent with a woman.

But, trains being as relentless as they are, even if they are Italian, they eventually arrive, as did we, into the harsh morning of noisy, touristy Florence.  I could not help thinking that overnight, literally, this woman had  become that most burdensome of all things, an intimate stranger.  Similies of being chained to a rabid animal came to mind.

We found our hotel. As soon as we were in the room, we agreed that we would be civil and make the best of what was a bad situation for both of us. We headed out to find breakfast and stop at the local tourist office.

Along the way, walking on one of the main streets, I saw that full-sized copy of the purported Da Vinci bike parked across the street. In the interest of the pretense of harmony and pleasantness I said, “Oh look, there’s a copy of the Da Vinci bike.”

She never turned her head, neither towards the bike nor me. She continued walking and facing straight ahead as she snarled, “If I want a fucking tour guide, I’ll hire one. And if he doesn’t want to fuck, I’ll hire a different one.”

We parted company permanently, as quickly after that as I could.  The rest of my trip through Italy was only slightly lonesome, but otherwise, genuinely pleasant.

Fake though it may have been, DaVinci’s wooden bike got me where I needed to be.

Don’t mention the WiFi that didn’t work. It provided a reminder of the bad old days of any Italian public service. I can remember there was a time (I swear, [...]]]> The EuroStar train ride from Florence to Milan was predictably uneventful.  It was that way because the service is perfect. Well, almost.

Don’t mention the WiFi that didn’t work. It provided a reminder of the bad old days of any Italian public service. I can remember there was a time (I swear, this is true) when the Italian Post Office got so far behind in delivering the mail that they solved the problem by dumping tons of it in the Tiber River.

Modern communications gets no better respect on EuroStar. The conductor’s response when I asked why it wasn’t working was the internationally understood raised and sharply turned handgesture that says, “Why the fuck are you asking me?”

I did not press him because I had already pulled off a serious deception by traveling on a EuroPass without the required companion with whom I’d bought the hugely discounted package. (That’s another story told elsewhere.)

When he asked where she was, I pointed to the toilet and deliberately chose to speak in English, “She’s been in the toilet for the last 15 minutes. I think she’s vomiting.”  And, to make the point, I put a hand up to my throat and made the expected sounds. He punched the tickets and scuttled away, never to return.

The dining car apparently either closes very early in the trip or isn’t open at all. It was maybe just over an hour out of Florence when I headed for it. It was deserted except for a railway employee.  I asked if I might order some food. She gave me the feminine version of the same “WTFAYAM?” hand gesture, complete with The Shoulder Hunch.

But I sat down and took out my camera. Just as I was about to take a photo of the handsomely designed interior, she rushed up and blocked my view. “No photo. No photo. No Photo.”

But why not?

“Privacy, privacy. No photo. ”

Privacy for whom? There’s no one else here and if you will please get out of the way your privacy will be assured.

“No photo. No photo.”

So I waited until she walked away and started taking picture using the timer, with the camera sitting on the table, figuring she would not realize what I was doing.

She didn’t react when I took a few shots but my heart was not in it. If EuroStar wants to keep secret the handsome burgundy, gray and black stripes of the dining car decor, who am I to out them?