Day 15 - Guest Post

 So - Day # 15, and Gwen neither lost her parents nor was forced to drink coffee at breakfast. 

 Clearly a good day. 

 

I gave Gwen the "travel day" excuse to get out of writing a post today, but actually, the train trip from Rome to Florence was a pretty minor part of our day, today. Kind of a funny thing: the more effort you put into your transportation system - so it's fast and efficient - the less impact it has in your day!

As a result, we took a train from Rome to Florence, AND saw the Florence Town Hall, including all the Medicis' insane art collection AND went to the Florentine Art School to see the original David sculpture AND ate supper in Machiavelli's estate - where he wrote all those famous bons mots ("the end justifies the means", "never assume conspiracy when incompetence will sufficiently explain the situation", and many others...) -- all in the same day, thanks to the high-speed rail connection from Rome to Florence. 3-4 hours in a car. 1.5 hours on the train. 

Avoiding a thousand-word diatribe on rail in Canada, I'll just say that the Italian train worked well, and we arrived in Florence shortly after lunch. We then were guided through the Florence Town Hall (the Palazzo Vecchio, which was also the Medicis' main base of operations). It was interesting to see how it had been a Renaissance feudal domain, leading to all this ridiculous accumulation of wealth, and generation of art - and yet the existing municipal government uses it every Wednesday. It feels somehow overly pedestrian, but also a reminder that all those old folks who helped generate amazing feats of artistic skill were real humans who also probably held Council meetings every Wednesday. 

Next was the Florentine Art School, who own and display Michelangelo's David. Cool, but all of us felt like the other stuff was better - Kes & I enjoyed the series of unfinished works displayed en route to David - stuff Michaelangelo had left unfinished when he died, showing how he worked. Gwen really found the painted art around the walls more interesting. David was fascinating, but the crowds were a bit tough to take. 

Lastly, we dined at the house where Machiavelli wrote "The Prince". Not much history, really, but a beautiful Tuscan estate where we ate a sunset meal overlooking vineyards, laughing with our fellow travellers. Honestly, a pretty great end to the day.