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ZACH: Florence: The Seg-way

Started today pumped for our first full Florentine day and because we had booked a SEGWAY tour for 10am. Yes, that’s right. Your lovable heroes were about to board the most advanced form of individual singulate electric transport known to man (and possibly woman). We raced down to the small Piazza next to the Duomo where the Segway Tour place was located. It was a small close with a couple of builders who were repairing a building, one of which looked strangely like Al Pacino. After waiting for fifteen minutes, the attractive Italian tour guide turned up. She informed us that we would be the only two on the tour for that day – Matt, and me, and her, on Segways.

She busted out the Segways. They were furious looking beasts, able to consume the weaker form of man. Fortunately Matt and I are near perfect examples of the male specimen, thus we handled the Segway as if it were Alexander’s Bucephalus, or Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia. In all seriousness, it was exceedingly easy to drive after a ten minute orientation session. It’s all in the feet. I’d explain it to you but... that might ruin your future first session with a Segway, and you must do this. This is non-optional. By reading this sentence you hereby agree to try a Segway before you die.

Matt and I did figures of eight and small circles around the close with the tour guide watching on. After a few minutes, she told us to encircle the block, which we did. Then we returned back to base to sign a form releasing them from liability should we kill ourselves en-Segway. Then we put on our headsets so we could hear her talk while doing the 38-40 miles per hour the Segways were limited to, and then we set off.

The tour guide informed us that Segways were still a strange sight in Florence despite her tour company operating for five years. She told us today, in Florence, we were celebrities. She was not wrong. You would be amazed (or perhaps not so) at the number of heads a Segway turns. Especially the Japanese. You’d think for a people that created a car that can park itself, ASIMO the lovable Artificial Intelligence robot, and the Pokéball, they would be used to mind blowing electronic technology, but apparently not so. We were photographed and stared at all day. Our tour guide told us to keep smiling.

On the tour, we stopped at the Duomo, which was quite majestic though we had seen it previously that morning while walking to the Segway tour. We then stopped outside Florence’s first consecrated Church (which was unfinished), a couple of other churches with works by Michaelangelo on them, the Piazza Della Republica where the government offices and the “centre” of Florence was, the Uffuzi (Italy’s largest art gallery), and the Cathedral at Santa Croce where Michaelangelo and Galileo are entombed. We also stopped outside Dante’s house (the guy who unified the Italian language and wrote The Divine Comedy). Turns out his wife and his mistress both lived on either side of him – convenient genius or madness? You decide.

Upon retiring from our Segway adventure, we walked straight to the nearest internet cafe and, among other important internet activities (such as Facebook and MSN), researched the approximate cost of a Segway. Matt tells me it’s around ten thousand dollars back home. Bargain. Matt has already set up his savings plan with Westpac, in an account named “Segway Fund”.

We ate dinner at an epic restaurant (epic as it was exceedingly cheap compared to, oh I don’t know, everywhere that’s not McDonalds) that was conveniently located just down the street from us. As it was so cheap, I ordered a first and second course. The first course was huge. I was expecting it to be tiny like, oh I don’t know, everywhere that’s not McDonalds. So I had to down a huge plate o’ spaghetti and then a huge pizza. It went down, but there were breaks.

MATT: Florence Continued

You know you’re in a better city than Bologna when there aren’t police and army vehicles constantly driving around the main piazza in town. And you have one of the largest cathedrals in the world that isn’t in a city known for its strong inclination for homosexual activity. That’s Florence for you. A wonderful city known for the housing of Michelangelo’s famous statue of David, the Birth of Venus painting, the home of Dante – creator of the Italian language and where the Mona Lisa was most likely painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. It’s safe to say that a lot of stuff happened here, and it’s such a shame that for most of its most memorable assets, you are unable to take pictures. More on this later.

We started our day with a trip to the museum where Michelangelo’s David was located. When we got in, we were extremely disappointed that we could not take a photo with the gargantuan five metre high statue, that we sneakily took one anyway. It was an amazing statue – it is considered the most handsome, most perfect sculpture, and that there is no point looking at any other statues because of this. I probably agree. As we walked up and down the aisles, we saw some other sub-par statues and some unfinished works by Michelangelo. You know you are an exceptional artist or sculptor when a museum proudly displays your works that are only close to 25% complete. I found a painting by Mussini featuring a dying Leonardo Da Vinci in the arms of Francis I to be a brilliant and emotional piece. Everything else was simple, crude paintings dating back to the 1200-1300s. Nothing we were all that interested in.

Next we hit up a cathedral with the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo and Dante among others. Unfortunately, they were refurbishing Dante’s ‘tomb’ (or destroying it even more, seeing as the Florentines seem to hate him). There was an organ being tuned which echoed out over the cathedral and this created a rather eerie and unsettling atmosphere for all concerned.

Next we set our sights on the Uffizi museum. We had no idea what to expect and what was featured in the gallery, but we decided to check it out anyway. Unfortunately, you couldn’t take pictures in here either, which made me really upset. Apparently, if Leonardo Da Vinci didn’t take the Mona Lisa painting to France himself, then it would have ended up in Florence, and probably the Uffizi gallery, which would have been a real shame as no one would be able to take a picture of it! I tell you one thing, as much as we hate the French, they know how to run a damn gallery! Anyway, we saw the popular Birth of Venus (I think it’s called). We also saw a few works by Leonardo Da Vinci – one entitled Annunciation featuring remarkably detailed backgrounds and strangely an elongated lectern. Apparently Leo Da Vinci intended the painting to be viewed from the bottom right corner.

After we spent twenty minutes navigating the halls attempting to exit the seemingly infinite museum (and walking past the endless amount of souvenir stores along the way) we stopped for lunch at a place that wasn’t McDonalds! It was a pub that advertised a meal and a drink for 8 Euro or 2 meals and a drink for 11 Euro. What a bargain. The only drawback was that the meals available to Zach on the 11 Euro board were written entirely in Italian, and he had no idea what he was ordering. So he asked the waiter, who looked strikingly similar to Al Pacino, and he wasn’t much help either. One of the meals he described was ‘egg sauce.’ Sounding so tempting to Zach that he chose that meal with enthusiasm. I stuck with the 8 euro meal and drink, which was a pizza. Zach got his meal, and it was egg in sauce. Yeah, egg in sauce.

Next we decided to cross the gross green river, and walk up a large hill to Michelangelo piazza. From there we had an exceptional view of the city in all of its wonderful glory. There we saw the people on the Duomo, and felt sorry for them paying 8 euro to go to the top and stare at buildings blocking the view. We then headed back to the hotel and got ready to venture out to the club – Space Electronic to experience the best nightlife the Florentines had to offer. But first, we had to get dinner from our ‘usual’ restaurant (after enjoying our meal there the night previous). We decided to indulge in some red wine – Chianti Banfi 2008. It was quite the tasty beverage. After downing some gnocchi and pasta, we walked over to the nightclub to see if it was open. We walked down this dirty alleyway and Zach was scared that he was going to get knifed like jail, but we pulled through ok, but the club wasn’t open yet. Clubs open at midnight in Europe, unlike Australia where they just open at 10pm and make most of their money on alcohol. We went back to the hotel and played some Warcraft 3, then set out at 11:30pm. The cover charge was 16 euro, but Zach wasn’t too fussed when he saw that a world-renowned DJ, GiGi D’Agostino, who Zach admired would be mixing. We went up to the dance floor and saw the man himself, in what appeared to be a pimp suit. The only thing missing was a pimp cane. He played a whole range of Italian favourites, including a dance remix of Conte (Time To Say Goodbye). Zach said he could die happy knowing that it had been remixed to accommodate for the younger generations desire to dance to operatic music. Despite the fact that no one seemed to be dancing, they had some flashing wand like things they were waving around like fairies as they bounced up and down. These would be considered weapons back home. Anyway, we were satisfied when the DJ played his most famous song (I’ll Fly With You) and we watched people hum the melody lines to the Black Eyed Peas ‘I’ve Got a Feeling.’ We headed back to the hotel but we were stopped by another tourist who was looking for the river. We told him where it was but he continued, adding a swear word in as an adjective. We told him we were Australian, after which he did not believe our directions. He was probably a stupid Frenchman – which is why he said ‘pardon my French.’

ZACH: Pisa

Our last day in Florence. Except it wasn’t to be our last day in Florence because for most of the day we were going to spend in PISA. The Italian city that has a broken tower, a church, and nothing else. You may have heard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa? If not, go back to primary school. We set off on our train Pisabound. The trip took about an hour, and when we jumped off the train, we found a map of the city and worked out how to get to the Leaning Tower. Basically, it was “walk down one long street, cross a bridge, continue walking, and you’ll see it”. We walked through Pisa which we likened to both Bologna and Venice – Bologna in that it was kind of a standard Italian city without a whole lot to do, and Venice in the buildings. The buildings were very Venetian-esque, in that they fitted together as if there was zero town planning done (which there probably wasn’t) and each building was in a completely different colour and style to the next.

After walking for about twenty minutes, we caught sight of the Leaning Tower. It was pretty awesome. Dodging the fake watch and bag sellers on the street, we made our way in front of the tower and took some pictures. Then we bought tickets to scale its mighty staircase. FIFTEEN EURO? What the Fork? What a Pisa Crap (Haha, get it?) That’s almost thirty bucks to climb it, which is double what it cost to get into the Louvre or the Galleria dell Academia yesterday to see David. But we bit the bullet and paid the money. We still had time before our 12:30 climbing session, so we walked the market street, taking in the hundreds of stalls all selling the same tiny leaning towers, leaning mugs, and boxer shorts with a leaning tower facade in front of where the genitalia would be located inside the shorts. Classy.

It then started to rain, so we made like “California Dreaming” and ran for the Church. It was a pretty big church. There was a dead Saint in it and everything. We looked around, took photos, and then sat down and waited for our time to climb the tower. The time came, we booked my bag into the bag holding place (which, surprisingly, didn’t charge to take our bag – you can’t climb the tower with a bag, and I thought they’d try and rip more money off me – surprisingly it was free – I say free, but I did pay fifteen euro for a ticket). And then, we climbed it. It was awesome climbing it – a lot easier than some of the other places we’ve climbed, like St. Pauls in London or the Tower in Bologna which had tiny wooden steps. These were 400 big marble steps and were quite easy to scale. We made it to the top and took some rather epic pictures. And I phoned home, which gave both Sam and Kathleen quite a buzz I believe, to receive a call from the top of the Leaning Tower. I’ll invoice them both for my voice and associated telephony costs upon my arrival back home.

We descaled, demounted, and dewalked down the tower, had some lunch at Micky Dee’s, and then walked back to the train, where we had what can only be described as the nosiest train trip of our lives. To begin, the train was extremely loud – it was as if it was one of the famous Steam Trains of Maryborough which continuously cart the large crop of Husked Corn out of that tiny and uncivilized town. I actually felt like I was on the outside of the train, it was that loud. And then, part way through the journey, a couple of enraged African-Italian passengers had a furious screaming match with two of the train company employees, over what I can only imagine is a ticket issue. We had no idea what they were saying – only that these were some of the angriest people I have ever heard screaming in my life. Matt recorded some of the outrage on his phone. We both feared for our lives. At the next station, the police were waiting to take them both away.