I’m being followed by a moon shadow

06 September 2010


Monday usually means all kinds of mundane stuff. Like washing, a renewed attempt at gym after a weekend binge, grocery shopping. That must then make our Monday true to form.

I started off attempting the instructions on an Italian washing machine. Sounds simple? At least I figured out that Centrifuginazionale (or some such thing) means..... spin! And only once I somehow managed to help the machine along through its cycles, did our washing eventually emerge. Niel is quite impressed that he now has some grey socks. Something he has never thought of getting for himself. *humph*

The plan for the rest of the day was mostly Firenze. But we decided to take the train. Driving near the big cities would simply be too exhausting. So we got directions to the stazione from an old man in Certaldo (very old Italian people seem to have had such a tiring life, that their speech becomes entirely slurred, so you can barely make out what they are trying to say) , and with some help from a few equally foreign bystanders, managed to find our way to Firenze.

Big cities mean lots of people again. And of course, lots of other tourists. One thing we noticed was that the tourists from the Eastern countries seldom seem to venture into the country. I guess the big city is all most of them really know, so ‘country’ must be a concept that they are unable to comprehend.

Firenze was our gym session for the day. At the Duomo we bravely took the option of climbing the 463 steps to the dome. It was strenuous, but worth it. Apart from being able to see the frescoes from up close (there are some really gruesome characters depicted in some of these frescoes!), you are also able to get stunning views of the entire city. On a clear day like today, you really can see forever.

With our limited time, Niel navigated our way to the Piazza where the original statue of David was erected. Today, of course, a replica is in its place, in order to preserve the original. But even this is so very beautiful. The attention to detail is phenomenal, and even though the hands are disproportionately big, they look like they would wave off one of an annoying pigeon any minute.

From here we walked down to the river to see the Ponte Vecchio that was nearly destroyed by a huge flood in 1966. The story goes that after the flood, many volunteers worked relentlessly at saving all the valuables that were stored in the city’s basements. These volunteers were eventually referred to as the Mud Angels.

Florence is the place to be for art, and as in Rome, we could spend days exploring all the museums, cathedrals and galleries. Along with thousands of other people, that is. We opted to head back to the quiet of the country, and after having great fun at some grocery shopping at Coop (their equivalent of our Pick’n’Pay), we headed back to our guesthouse to braai the huge T-bone steak Niel picked out for us. And so, with the beautiful view of the Tuscan hills, and all the farm cats inquisitively following us around, and eating our chips, Niel lit a fire. This is clearly also something that the Italians are familiar with, as we had some fascinated bystanders admiring, or puzzling over, perhaps, our cookery methods.

Who said Mondays should be blue?