Monthly Archives: April 2018

Apr16

Christmas in Italy – The DaVinci Museum

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Christmas in Italy – The DaVinci Museum

In keeping with the tradition of adventure, Sarah and I went on a big trip for Christmas and New Years!

This year, we met up with Sarah’s family in Italy, traveling to Rome and Florence; not quite a perfect midpoint for everyone, but it was close enough. And, also, you know. Rome. Florence. Amazing!

Please forgive me for some of these being a bit out of order… the posts are organized somewhat chronologically… but also organized by theme and location.  Some may not be exactly in chronological order, so for reference please see the initial summary post, which has a complete day-by-day, blow-by-blow account of the adventure.

 

 

Saturday, 30-Dec-2017

 

As we wandered the city on Saturday, we unexpectedly stumbled across one of the spots that I’d earmarked for later in the week – the Leonardo DaVinci museum. Since we didn’t have any specific plans for the morning, our original plan of seeing The Duomo being derailed by sold-out tickets, we stopped in to explore.

This museum was a bit smaller than the large art galleries that we’d been seeing so far – it was honestly mostly luck that we noticed it at all, catching sight of the small placard on the wall and by the street corner. As a specialized museum it didn’t seem to draw in the same crowds as the Uffizi or Academie… but we quickly learned (to my joy and everyone else’s slight concern) that this “specialized” museum was actually targetted directly to the 4 year old in me.

 

Seriously. I was transported to when I was little, giggling and playing with tinker toys, legos, and rocks and ropes in the woods. This museum was a playhouse for me, and I never wanted to leave.

 

The DaVinci museum was, obviously, dedicated to Leonardo DaVinci, but specifically to interactive recreations of his mechanical inventions. Where Galileo was known for advancing science, DaVinci advanced engineering, using known principles in unexpected ways to solve countless problems faced in Renaissance life. And this museum was full of those solutions… most of which I could play with.

So, I stayed and giggled and acted like a giddy toddler on Christmas morning.

I ended up staying a fair while after everyone else had headed out – going through each individual project, seeing how each one solved a specific problem in a novel way, and trying to somehow absorb Leonardo’s ingenuity by touching his creations.

The picture gallery included has snapshots of almost everything in the museum, but a few standouts that bear mentioning:

  • A workout machine. You know those Cybex machines that you find in gyms? Leonardo created one purely to study human motion, and which muscles were activated by which actions.
    Sarah and I got a quick workout in.
  • A hydraulic saw. Using a water-wheel for power, this was effectively the precursor to present-day lumber mills, automatically loading, advancing, and cutting trees down for lumber.
  • An underwater breathing apparatus. Not a SCUBA kit, technically, but this would allow divers to breath underwater by pumping air through a suit.

Short version – Ben could not even. Continued not-evening even after everyone else had left. Bought a book on not being able to even, and reads it every so often. Still cannot even to this day.

Apr15

Christmas in Italy – The Uffizi gallery, and a quick walking tour of the city

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Christmas in Italy – The Uffizi gallery, and a quick walking tour of the city

In keeping with the tradition of adventure, Sarah and I went on a big trip for Christmas and New Years!

This year, we met up with Sarah’s family in Italy, traveling to Rome and Florence; not quite a perfect midpoint for everyone, but it was close enough. And, also, you know. Rome. Florence. Amazing!

Please forgive me for some of these being a bit out of order… the posts are organized somewhat chronologically… but also organized by theme and location.  Some may not be exactly in chronological order, so for reference please see the initial summary post, which has a complete day-by-day, blow-by-blow account of the adventure.

 

 

Friday, December 29th

The Uffizi gallery. I hadn’t heard of it before, but from the horrified looks that Sarah and her Dad gave me when I admitted as much, I assume that it’s a pretty famous museum. Sort of like the MFA in Boston… except older, and roughly a bajillion and a half times as famous, and full of the kind of paintings that people spend entire weeks studying in Art History classes.

So, I was excited.

 

What I learned is that the Uffizi is, unsurprisingly, that it’s a whole experience. From the minute we first saw the building through ’till we walked out the exit, we were marinated in peerless artwork.

The building itself is nestled inside the canyons of the city, butting up against the river that runs through town. So, similar to Rome, it was a bit like being ambushed when we turned a corner and were suddenly in a plaza full of statues of famous renaissance personalities.

And I mean a plaza FULL. Every column was fronted with a statue of someone, people like Galileo, Rafael, and Michelangelo. All of the Ninja Turtles were here, in famous artist form. Looking out on the plaza, acting half as guardians and half as docents.

Past the statuary were more outdoor works, mostly recreations of famous sculptures seen elsewhere in the Uffizi and other galleries. But since they were outdoors, there was something different about them… having the moving light play across the stone, something about it was really interesting and made it seem like we were seeing completely new statues.

 

Inside, it was honestly like any other art museum, except somehow a bit more so. Everything was beautiful – the curation was amazing, with the art progressing from the oldest examples to the newest works as we walked through. The pieces were spread out too, much more so than in the Vatican museums – there, it seemed like we were walking through a storage facility… but here, we were obviously in a museum dedicated to showcasing everything about the art on display.

For the art itself – Baby Jesus was, unsurprisingly, a pretty popular subject for painting. Lots of annunciation scenes (I learned from Sarah that an “Annunciation Scene” is when Mary was impregnated by the holy spirit. The common themes were, as I was told, Mary looking sceptical as a space lazer blasts down at her, while an equally skeptical angel looks on), but also some really beautiful late-Renaissance works too.

My personal favorites were a few pieces by Van Honthorst near the end, showing a wedding feast. Most of the pieces in the Uffizi were staged paintings – paintings commissioned to show a specific famous scene from history or the bible. As such, they were pretty rigid and unrealistic, more instructional than decorative. Van Honthorst’s pieces were happy though, showing a slice of Renaissance life full of songs and smiling people.

While the museum was huge, we didn’t stay forever. Something else I’d noticed: Museums in Italy aren’t quite as large as those back in the States. They’re more focused, but so don’t need a full day (or two or three…) to walk through. The Uffizi could have lasted longer, if we’d forced it, but as it was we were pretty well done by lunchtime.

So, after a lunch in the cafe, we moseyed onto the town. The group had split up in the museum, as everyone had their own pace, so Sarah and I were left to our own devices for a bit. Which, clearly, meant walking around and looking for gelato.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Florence is beautiful. It’s stately, and walking around was truly an enjoyable experience. It’s a trade off – I would have loved to spend more time wandering aimlessly, looking in random shops and secret courtyards, but at the same time I’m super thankful that we hit so many famous sites, and wouldn’t want to have missed a single one of them.

 

And yes, don’t worry. We did find gelato. It was exactly as glorious as one would expect.

Apr14

Christmas in Rome – A train to Florence, an overview of the city, and a delicious dinner

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Christmas in Rome – A train to Florence, an overview of the city, and a delicious dinner

In keeping with the tradition of adventure, Sarah and I went on a big trip for Christmas and New Years!

This year, we met up with Sarah’s family in Italy, traveling to Rome and Florence; not quite a perfect midpoint for everyone, but it was close enough. And, also, you know. Rome. Florence. Amazing!

Please forgive me for some of these being a bit out of order… the posts are organized somewhat chronologically… but also organized by theme and location.  Some may not be exactly in chronological order, so for reference please see the initial summary post, which has a complete day-by-day, blow-by-blow account of the adventure.

 

Thursday, 28-Dec-2018 – Overview of Florence, and a trip to a trattoria

Rome wasn’t the only city we were seeing on this trip though, and as all good things must come to an end so did our adventures in Rome. With one last cup of coffee, we caught our train out of Rome, headed North toward Florence.

Honestly, the train ride itself was pretty simple and non-noteworthy. It was pretty, seeing the Italian countryside… but we couldn’t see a huge amount of it through the drizzling rain, and the train itself wasn’t on elevated tracks and so didn’t have the best of views.

The more interesting note came once we arrived in Florence, and caught a taxi to our new base of operations – As taxi drivers are known for, our driver had opinions. And thankfully, she was willing to share her opinions on food with us… We seriously had a laundry list of places to eat by the time she dropped us off, so once we unpacked we had merely to pick a spot and walk on over.

First, a note about our AirBnB. Like Rome, it turns out it’s not easy to find a place for six people in Florence. But in this case, we didn’t have a penthouse apartment… no, in this case we had a palace. Seriously.

We’re talking 20ft ceilings. We’re talking sculptures, a jacuzzi, and murals on the ceilings. We’re talking a huge kitchen (with surprisingly few pots and pans…), and a back yard complete with grill and parking area. And of course, what palace would be complete without a crazy lock system, with a huge skeleton key. Yep, it had one of those too. It was grand, but was still dignified and functional with cozy couches and a lovely family area.

The AirBnB reflected the city itself – the city was grand and soaring, though it was definitely different than Rome. Where Rome was palatial and opulent, Florence was deliberate and dignified. Think an old Italian man, sitting in his vineyard smoking a cigar and sipping a fine wine. He’s not walking around telling everyone he’s cool, he just is. Florence wasn’t ostentatious – it knows who it is, and it’s dead set on enjoying that fact.

We were near the city center, right by the Ponte Vecchio, down a small side street in a neighborhood of narrow streets and tall buildings. Florence is definitely filled in – like more European cities, it was packed tight inside the defensive walls, and while the walls are mostly gone now they still effect the structure of the city itself. It’s crowded, definitely more so that anything in Portland, and probably even more so than most parts of Boston.

Rome was similar, but where Florence differs is that it’s more… renaissance, I think? Solid wood, big brass door knockers, for some reason the whole city brought Galileo’s telescopes to mind. That style of burnished wood banded with gleaming brass is what stuck with me, even though most of the buildings were still made of hewn stone (That Sarah and I could have totally climbed, FYI).

Short version: Florence is beautiful, and I found it a bit more personable than Rome.

 

But I know what people want to hear about – Food. This is Italy, after all, and delicious food is arguably the first thing people think of, probably tied with art and science. Our food journey started almost as soon as we got settled in; we did do a quick grocery run, but as soon as we were done we looked through the recommendations that our Taxi driver gave us, picked a spot, and headed out.

 

The winner? A small trattoria within walking distance called Trattoria Sant’Agostino. We walked in, and knew that we’d made the right decision. It wasn’t packed… but it quickly filled up as the night went on. By both people, and glorious smells… We went with the tried and true tactic of the tasting menu – we just ordered a ton of amazing bits, and everyone had a bit of everything.

    • Starters: Florentine bread (bread cooked without salt, traditionally from the Siege of Florence when salt wasn’t available), Prosciutto plate, sauteed / caramelized onions
    • Pasta Course: Papardelle with Boar sauce, and Spaghetti with artichokes
    • Main Course: Braised boar, Fried chicken with rabbit chunks, and Braised beef
    • Wine: A liter of the house Red, with two bottles of sparkling water

After we finished, it was honestly all we could do just to walk all the way home. We were crashing quick, thanks to the overwhelming meal… which was a good thing, since tomorrow was our visit to the Uffizi gallery!