Florence, Siena, Spello - Umbria

Been a busy two days - as I mentioned in my last posting, we visited the Bargello Museum yesterday morning. The Bargello houses a huge collection mostly sculpture, specializing in Cellini, Bellini Donetello and Micaelangelo. For anyone interested, a highlight is the Winged Mercury aka the FTD logo. It also houses the "finalists" in the competition for the doors of the Duomo Baptistry, which were infamously torn loose when the Arno flooded in the 1960's.

The Bargello itself was the former Hall of Justice, built about 1230; the original building was quite spectacular, but it was later turned into a prison, its couryard apparenly the scene of a lot of beheadings. In the late 1800's it was turned into a private residence for (our equivalent of ) the Chief Magistrate, so the cells were taken back out and the courtyard was cleaned up.

After lunch, Mary and I headed for the Pitti Palace, the "new Palace" built in the 16th century by the Medici's, which is suurounded by its gardens, the Bobili. Unfortunately the Royal apartments were closed for the day, but Mary did get a treat as the clothing and costume galleries were open. After a stop for Gelato, we headed off down the street toward the Ponte Vecchio, through a shopping area that is touristy but which does have some interesting specialties. We found a shop that sells its own family-printed art papers, one of the few things I had specifically wanted to bring back with me, so I stocked up and got their interenet address to order more from home.

We had dinner at a nice cafe - pasta and Duck with Oranges, then we hopped into a cab for a concert of Mozart in an incredible church built in 1494.

This morning we headed out early, leaving Florence, traveling through Tuscany and stopping for a few hours in Siena. This town was a bit of a surprise to me - it is heavily Medieval, once (and still) a very wealthy banking center. The heart of town is occupied by a 400 foot tall Campanile and a huge bowl-shaped "Campo" (square), and the city has as its lifeblood an annual horse race that runs the perimeter of the Campo. The city is divided into 17 districts, each one represented by a particular animal - such as the "goose district" or the "elephant district." It is hard to define what exactly this means, as the districts historically would not intermingle - the kept extremely exclusive except to come together for one 90-second horse race once a year. Each district sponsors a horse, and the competition is fierce - the stones surrounding the Campo are covered with dirt, bets are made, and the winner is revelled for the entire rest of the year. This event causes hundreds of thousands of visitors to jam into the Campo, similar to the running of the Bulls in Barcelona - and the people all have their affiliations worn on their sleeves, openly and almost-lightheartedly "badmouthing" the others.

We left there in the early afternoon, passing down into the heart of Umbria to Spello, where we are staying the next couple of nights.

Spello is a miraculously preserved Medieval town. It is unique in that it is on a hilltop - not that there are not walled towns like this on almost every major hill, but that it is a Roman city, not Etruscan - the rule of thumb is that the Etruscans built on the hills, the Romans in the valleys. Nevertheless, to reach the top, any large vehicles haver to be abandoned at the foot of the hll, and there is a substantial climb to the top unless a taxi can be procured which is a feat. The entry to the city is through a gate dating back to the the early Empire, about 2500 years ago. The Roman gate was added onto and incorporated into the walls built around the city in 1200. The streets are extremely narrow, and all the houses date to the 13th century. The Hotel Silla where I am sitting now is one such structure, typical for this part of the world, beautiful and historic and yet modern inside.

Tomorrow we will be up early to tour nearby Assisi; we passed it on the way here, it is an extraordinary sight. After that we are driving to Gubbio, to where our host here has her 800-year old Palazzo where we will be eating dinner.