Touring Hilly Fiesole
Outside Florence (Italy) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
I
read that the Italians were formal dressers, so I brought knee-length skirts
with me as well as short-sleeved blouses.
I
did not want to be turned away from visiting churches due to skimpy and
inappropriate attire. All the churches
have signs outside them that tell visitors to cover up shoulders and not wear shorts
and mini skirts in them.
There
are security guards and church ladies in the churches who will make you leave
for trying to enter a church dressed inappropriately. If you protest, they will tell you to file a
police report. (That could take two days
out of your tourism.)
This
formal attire was making me lose pounds in water-weight loss, though, as we
walked around sweating in lines at museums.
After
visiting Santa Croce that morning and admiring the Giotto Frescoes, which
reminded me of Greek Byzantine painting from Constantinople (modern-day
Istanbul) in its composition style, I went back to the hotel, showered, and
took a siesta.
Laurent
was still sleeping when I woke up, so I made some notes about Florence in my
journal that I would verify later:
Florentines
like music and the arts. Even when we
were in non-touristy areas, I saw workshops where crafts were being made. Magazines for young people seem to have a few
articles about the arts, too.
Vespa
scooters and cars without mufflers seem to be the favorite mode of
transportation. Old and young alike ride
on and in them.
Vespas
are more practical in the center of town, because the streets are pretty
narrow.
We
took the bus up the hills around Florence to Fiesole, where it was cooler. There were gardens full of sculpture on the
way up the hills and homes with ochre-colored walls and orange-crescent tiles
on roofs.
The
homes in Fiesole have panoramic views over the city of Florence below, which we
could also see from the bus windows.
We
visited the Roman ruins in Fiesole. I
wondered if there were any famous Romans lived there. The Roman museum, we visited held Etruscan as
well as Roman artifacts.
I
wanted to learn more about the mysterious Etruscans, who were Tuscany’s
original inhabitants.
The
Roman circular theatre in Fiesole has been used since antiquity. We saw a poster that was advertising a
performance of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream.
I wanted to see Shakespeare performed in the language of Dante.
“Too
expensive,” Laurent said.
The
church in Fiesole was closed for the siesta.
We ordered a pizza with prosciutto and drank a bottle of fizzy San
Pellegrino water. We drizzled olive oil
on our pizza and savored each salty bite.
I
took out our map of Florence and tried to pick out the monuments that we could
see from our pizza parlor garden dining spot.
Brunelleschi’s
dome on the Duomo was the landmark for identifying other landmarks.
We
did aerial tourism from the pizza place until the bus came to take us back to
Florence, giggling about our cheap tourism to a ritzy ‘burb of Florence.
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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