A room with a view

Although not quite as spectacular as the view out over the Duomo in that fabulous 1980s Merchant-Ivory film, the view from our hotel balcony was nonetheless picturesque (and green!). On our latest long weekend away we visited the wonderful twin cities of Pisa and Florence :-)

Hotel Annalena was our homebase in Florence, and surprisingly enough is named after someone named Annalena! She was the wife of Baldaccio di Bicci dei Medici, a member of the ruling Medici dynasty. They married in 1439 and after 2 years of blissful marriage and the birth of a son, she caught the eye of the local governor of justice. She refused his advances, his blind jealousy quickly became revenge, and he killed Baldaccio and his son leaving Anna totally alone. Emotionally destroyed she decided to turn their home into a convent. In 1880 the convent became a school for young girls, and in 1919 it became the lovely pensione that we stayed in.

My first impression of Florence was, wow, the doors are really BIG! Even the door we entered off the street into the inner courtyard of our hotel was a giant wooden thing. And although the city is not as over the top, grandeous or bombastic as that icon of baroque, Vienna, the renaissance gem of Florence is still amazingly beautiful. Everywhere you look there are little (and some not so little!) treasures - a lamp; a water fountain; beautifully patterned cobblestoned streets; frescoes, frescoes and more frescoes; and religious and/or mythological inspired sculptures. And the "skyline" is dominated by crenallated rooftops that look like those perfect castles we all used to draw as kids.

Florence, like many Italian cities I guess, is filled with churches. Adelaide eat your heart out! But being the cradle of the Renaissance, it was specifically for many of these churches and family chapels that some of the most important and famous works of art were commissioned of some of the greatest artists of all time. We visited about 6 of the countless churches during our visit, and the one that left the most lasting impression on me was the Basilica di Sante Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross). The Basilica is the burial place of some of THE most illustrious Italians - including Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Rossini, and Marconi. It has 16 (!) chapels, many of which are decorated by beautifully detailed frescoes by Giotto. It is pretty difficult to describe the immense scale of these frescoes, and even though not religious at all, I must admit to being moved by them. Maybe I was affected by Florence (Stendhal) syndrome, a psychosomatic illness causing dizziness, rapid heartbeat, fainting and confusion that is said to be bought on when one is exposed to too much art and beauty! Who knows!?

As part of another curch we visited is the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (Laurentian Library, and also part of the Medici legacy). The library was built in a cloister back in 1525 and its architecture is famous for being planned and partially constructed by Michelangelo. It became a repository for 11,000 manuscripts and 4,500 early printed books, and was designed to show of the Medici family as members of the intelligentsia and no longer "just" merchants.

On our last morning in Florence we also paid a visit to the sprawling Boboli Gardens, directly opposite our hotel. Yet again linked to the Medici family, the gardens were laid out in 1550 for Eleonora di Toledo, the wife of Cosimo I de' Medici and are home to a distinguished collection of sculptures from the 16-18th centuries.

With Ryan Air flying to Pisa and not actually Florence itself, we were also able to pay a quick visit to the home of the leaning tower :-) And YES, it really does lean! With 60% of the city's population students, it is a relaxed and friendly little city. On Saturday evening we soon discovered the student bar area along the banks of the Arno river and spent a couple of hours enjoying the fact that it was actually warm enough to sit outside without a scarf AND gloves!! Heaps of young students also just seem to gather around on the little squares and streets along the riverbanks, so it feels like there is always something happening in Pisa. The tower itself was shorter and fatter than I had imagined, and actually made me think of a wedding cake! And so weird to see how far it actually does lean over.

Oh, and of all the most unexpected things to see, there is a Keith Haring mural in Pisa! Keith was a New York artist and social activist, and became famous worldwide for his New York subway graffiti art. The only other mural of his I have seen is on a wall at the old Collingwood TAFE on Johnston St (Melbourne)! The one in Pisa is painted on the rear wall of a convent (what else!), and represents peace and harmony. Keith Haring died in 1990 of AIDS related complications.

Alli xxx