Utah - Italy 2001 (9)

-song-
The Hills don't exist in the sounds of Florence!! Such a terrible thing... mopeds every wheeeeerrrree!!
-endsong-

No, not that bad. Florence is very alive and gorgeous and for you History buffs...it's got lots of old shit too. Oh - I was gonna tone down the language a bit. Sorry. Well. We arrived safely and sadly from Cortina. The train ride sucked as it fell right during the nap of the kids and they were a cranky lot! But, when all was said and done and everyone was done being aggro on everyone else, we were happy to be inFlorence. In fact, we even went out after all that travelling. We threw down a couple of beers, a pizza, some pasta, some brushetta (without Mozzarella??) ThePub would be shocked! We didn't really even know where we were eating and it ended being right next to that Ufizi Museum. We're going there tomorrow. That's where the real David Sculpture is and a few other rad sculptures that have been plucked from the city and relocated there for preservation, leaving nothing but frauds around the city. It's amazing how many things they replicated and substituted within the city to save the art of the old ages.

Did I mention how old this city is? Today we went on a three hour walking tour of the city. Let's see if I can muster some memory of the historical journey and give you the highlights...Well, as you're walking around in Florence, all about you see this big metal rings on the walls of the buildings, most of which were palaces..these are all still in place from the days of tying your horse up outside while you went in for a beer with your bro's. Rumor has it, horse alarms weren't a big seller in those days. The architecture of the palaces is interesting. On the first floor they used cyclopse stones that are super buldgey (bul.jee) and act as a protection or fortress for the first floor of the palaces. I thought they would make for some great bouldering! The second floors are a little less obtrusive, though not yet super smooth and finally the refined smooth stones of the top floors, where the family spent their 'quality' time together. Also, in many of the palace walls there is a tiny door... like, tiny...about 3/4 foot high with bars around it. These little doors are for charity work. When the rich would have big feasts, they would always have much left over. A servant on the inside would open the door and ration out the left-overs to the peasants in the street. The other way that the rich could ease their conscience about their wretched lives would be to donate sculptures and money to the churches... but the first mode of donation was just more simple and still made them feel all warm and fuzzy all over.

A river runs through Florence and all but one bridge on the river is an original. All of the others were ruined in World War...uh oh...1?...yeah. WWI. On that one bridge that still stands, they used to slaughter animals for sale and throw the carcasses into the river... yeah, real nice... but then the Medicci family came in with all their grandeur ideas about the Rennaicance.. Rennasance.. Rebirth.. and they decided to make Firenze (Florence) a much betterplace, including more sanitary, so the butchering on the bridge was tossed out and instead, shops for selling gold lined the bridge from one end to the other.. Guess what. They still do. Yeah. I bought me a nugget on a rope chain.. uh, nope.

So, we checked out the Duomo.. The big church where the first dome was placed. That church actually sat without a top on it and the weather gods shat inside for years, until a dude whose name I forget, swore he was worthy of a shot at building a dome and did so. His dome was all rad and stuff and everyone was happy, but this guy was very into simplicity and forbade any artwork being placed on his dome... which for the times, I mean come on, dude! So, as soon as he died, they painted the hell out of it with mass frescos. Actually, funny thing about those frescos. One of the two artists who did the frescos has rarely been heard of when talking Rennaisance cause he did a silly thing. Let me tell you what he did. He painted this wonderful fresco filling the dome. It depicted all kinds of people being judged and half going to hell and the other half rejoicing in heaven. Well, this fresco dude chose people in town as his subjects. He put all of his friends in Heaven and all of his enemies in Hell. Someone in the hell scene sued him, however, that happened back then, I don't know.. He ended up not ever being comissioned to do any work again, which is a true shame cause he was really really talented! Shame I don't remember his name.. Something likeGenicci, Micheavelli, Donatelli, Davinci, none of which are right! So, in that dome, there are two huge cracks right down the sides. The dome builder was alive to see that happen and he was devastated, but later on.... much later... architects learned that without those cracks, that dome would no longer be, so thank god the dome cracked, right?

We also spotted a bunch of Mideivil towers that have since been wedged between more modern buildings. Story goes that the feuding families would build islands of towers to see who could go the highest. Friends living side by side in these towers had to lay planks from third story windows to go see their friends cause it was far too dangerous to just go to the front door. Man, times were tough back then.

Speaking of tough times, the life and times of sculptors was rough. The competition and the discoveries were at their highest point at this time. Like...Donatelli...I think, who was pioneering that whole perspective thing. No one was ever able to figure out how to make things look real in sculptures or in art. He also figured out that sculptures that would sit ten feet off the ground had to be done a little differently than those which would sit at eye level... such as bigger heads, hands, smaller torsos, etc.

OK!! Enough history! Damn, I can't believe I remembered as much as I did. Let's move ahead a millenium or two! Suddenly, it's not fashionable to walk about in BD Alpine pants with a frumpy downjacket. I feel like a pickle among roses. Everywhere I turn there is a woman clad in Armani, sequin bras with an open, short satin jacket, cheeks glossy like those in a Calvin Klein ad, hair straight as nails with jagged ends and hips that are not really there but trying to exist via hip huggin' tight leather pants decorated delicately with a chain belt and met at the bottom by sexy platform sandals. Tres Sheik. When you think of me here among the ex-runway walkers, just picture in your mind - red-headed orphan Annie standing next to Elle McPherson. That do it for ya? Ha Ha. That's ok. I know they'd be crushed under my backpack... now that's cool. Picture me, a small, white, blonde sherpa. Cause that's what I look like with my pack on! It's huge! It towers over my head and it weighs sooo much... 75 pounds at this point. I even sent a load of shit home with the Wolfes and I still have so much.. When you throw in a climbing rope, climbing shoes, stove, tent, sleeping bag, therma rest and down jacket... suddenly, your a walking Bulk Hogan. If I were only staying in hostels, not climbing and not cooking my own food.. I would have a book bag!

Maps are great things aren't they!? It never ceases to amaze me, how amazed I get at the realization that the street I thought I was on according to the map, actually does match the sign on the wall of the corner building.... I know. It's a little whacko. But there is just something wonderful about the confirmation you recieve when you finally see a sign on a building telling you where you are and low and behold, you are on the right street. I guess I've been let down before by my own inadequacies with following maps.. or those inadequacies of people into whose hands I placed my trust and my walking feet. Did I just shroom causeI don't know what I just wrote. I mean, I do, but it seems like you may have a hard time understanding it..?? I think maybe that all stems from following topos of routes I'm climbing which are often times a challenge to the imagination cause different symbols represent different features on the rock.. ya know, for a fake example.. /// this symbol on a topo may be a diagonalling crack system.. Well, I must say that we all definitely have our own notion of what a crack actually is. I think of Sasquatch in LCC or Exasperator in Squamish, while these Germans who made the guide to the Dolomites look at a slight weakness in the vertical system of limestone and say... By George.. I do believe we have Crack! Uh, nooouh.

So, ya know how in Latin America, India and Venice...you just don't trust the water. Not from the taps, not in restaurants, no way. You always buy bottled. It seems to be the case in many cities. But in Italy, in so many unexpected places they have public fountains that are constantly spewing water into drains or bird bath type wells. Everyone can wash their hands, wash their fruit, wash their faces, fillup their water bottles and even drink straight from it. Now that is a wonderful thing. I did all 5 of those on my way to this computer. I washed my grapes! I had to share the fountain with a pigeon but niether of us minded!

Animals in Italy. I've seen many. But here's a quick list. Chamois, Marmot, Red Fox, Viper, Squirrel, Cat, Dog, Fish, Tadpole, Minnow, Crow, Other birds, Cows (oh, the lovely cows!!), sheep (with their oh-so-cute baby lambs!), goats (with hair I swear!), elephant...oh, that was in Todd's little book that I've read twenty-five hundred times.. just kidding, bunnies, and maybe that's it!? Oh - I forgot to tell you about this..

We all went up to Cinque Torri, a group of 5 rock towers atop a mountain.. for a big celebration of the 100 year anniversary of the first ascent of Cinque Torre. There was singing and a BBQ... The singing was the Cortina Choir. We were there with some older Italian friends from the campsite and they were all singing. It was great! There were plates all over the place with little lambs' legs sitting on them, surrounded by left over mush of something... I had to have it all cleaned off our table before I could even sit down cause it was too reminicent of the Holocaust as it lives in my imagination.. I just don't need to look at the bones of my dead friends while I'm celebrating something so great as a 100 year old ascent of a tower with no gear like we have now.. Nothing close to the gear and shoes and ropes that we have now.. Amazing. We got to the event via chair lift, as it sits atop a ski mountain, but Italy law prevents use of lifts after dark, so the kids, Tim and Susan rode down on an access road in an old army truck with some seniors andI walked down with the Italian possee... In myJapanese shoes, as they called them..(flip flops) They all thought I was nuts, but I had no idea I would be walking down a mountain at 10pm in the freezing air with a meteor shower overhead.. I was glad I came the way I did, cause it made a memory! Caio.