Out and about

As I kind of noticed yesterday, Florence is really small. The map we have is the same size as the Rome map, but what looks like a ten minute walk almost invariably turns out to be 2 or 3. This caused occasional problems today, where we overshot our mark. A lot of stuff is closed on Sunday, so we went to a church which seemed likely to be open. It was the Basilica San Marco, which has a lot of Donatello sculptures, including reliefs on a couple of doors and the two central pulpits ( I know there's some official name for these things but I don't know what it is. All that church lingo- nave, transept, sacra whatever, just confuses me. I know what the crypt is but that's about it) as well as a series of reliefs around a small room off to the left (the something vecchio, which just means it's old). All incredible.

Just a short digression about Italian. I barely understand any of it, but it's wonderful to listen to. It's almost disappointing that everyone here speaks such good English. Our favorite words are prego, which means thank you, or if you please (like if you hold a door for someone), Ronnie's favorite is piccolo, which means small (most often applied to cups of gelato), and I'm partial to uscita, ("ooskita"), which means exit.

We also went to a famous parfumerie, near another major church, and bought some fragrant stuff. It's been in its current location since the 16th century and is very very beautiful inside. If you are so inclined, you can go into a special room and the herbologist will mix a special scent for you. We walked home past the Ponte Vecchio, which was incredibly busy, but we didn't walk across it today. Every block there's a building (or 2 or 3) with some kind of historical designation, either a 12th century tower or a 17th century palace or a 15th century church, all right in our neighborhood. It's cumulatively amazing.

Right now I'm up on the roof, watching our clothes flap around in a very lively breeze. There are swallows swooping around everywhere and there's a brilliant sunset between the Bargello (old prison) and the Duomo. It's supposed to get brutally hot in a couple of days, but I'm hoping that even then there will be a nice breeze up here late in the day. Someone's cooking something upwind. The city is surrounded by hills and the view is amazing. The Old Palace, next to the Bargello, has a bell tower that seems to be the tallest thing in town. I just noticed this morning that to reach the tower you have to climb a spiral staircase that wraps around one of its support columns. Someone a few blocks away is having dinner on their rooftop terrace. I can see and hear them perfectly.

Florence