Tues April 29 - Lise, Walking Around

Mercado Centrale

Slept in.  Marian, Toby & I went to the Mercado Centrale to get fruits and veggies.  We bought strawberries, bananas, olives, peppers and artichoke hearts for appetizers later.  

Stopped at the TIM cellphone store to get a SIM card for my phone.  Cost 30 euros (about $50) -- more than I expected and it's a new phone number which I did not want and the instructions are in Italian when I had asked for English.  That whole experience tried my patience a bit but I'll get over it.  (LATER:  It actually all worked out fine.  It was good we had an Italian phone number because we used that for making local calls to reserve the apartment in Lucca, dinner reservations, etc.  And I was able to call my mom several times - no extra cost.) 

Lise Apatoff (tour guide referred by friends of Toby who had a great experience with her) came over at 1:30 as planned.  We had hired her to give us some pointers and orientation to the city.  This was a great idea and well worth the cost because it later helped us plan what we wanted to do and stay somewhat organized.  She was wonderful - gave us lots of good information -- history of Florence and the surrounding area, ideas of things to do, restaurants, etc.  She's an American who married an Italian man and has lived in Italy for 35 years. 

After an hour or so sitting around talking and looking at maps, we went out and walked around.  We are in such a great, central location that just our neighborhood had much to see.  Lise pointed out various interesting architectural features and told lots of good stories. We learned so much our heads are exploding (at least mine is).   






Here are a few tidbits:

1.  The palazzo at the end of our block is famous.  Bartolini Salimbeni Palace, a very expensive and innovative building for its time - built in 1520.  It's also known as Palazzo "per non dormire" which means "for not sleeping".  As the story goes, the founding member of the family was a silk merchant and in order to eliminate the competition he hosted a large banquet the night before a big shipment and laced the wine with opium so his guests all fell in a deep slumber and did not attend the market the next morning, which meant he was able to get a monopoly and make a considerable fortune.  On the building are engravings of poppies and the words "per non dormire" commemorating this event.

courtyard

2.  This same palazzo is an example of the style of Renaissance houses at the time.  The people lived on the first story and above.  This was for safety, as a defense against being attacked/invaded which happened a lot.  No one trusted anyone else.  For the same reason, the windows on the ground floor have bars, and this is true throughout Florence - most windows have bars, of many different styles.  The ground floor held the stock and supplies.  Often there was a trap door through which the family could see who was below (and drop things on them if they were enemies). 

Here's the courtyard of the same palazzo.  The roof is open in the center so rain could get in and be collected in a cistern under the floor.  


3.  Notice also the designs on the walls of the courtyard.  This is the origin of the word "graffiti" which in Italian means "scratched" (or written). Here's another building that shows both graffiti and bars on the windows.  

We parted ways about 6:00pm.  So glad we got to meet Lise and spend some time with her.  What a wealth of information and a really nice person. (If you're going to Florence and would like to contact her, she can be reached at liseapatoff@msn.com. - tell her we sent you!)  




Decided to eat at one of the restaurants Lise had recommended, Coquinarius.  Had a wonderful dinner:  crostini, and a variety of yummy salads.  Very welcoming and friendly staff.  Our waiter is on his way to San Francisco this summer so we talked about that.  He brought us several wines to sample.  Also some chocolate cake for dessert, no charge.   

Walked back home along Via Calimala.  Nice broad pedestrian street. Saw lots of young people - some playing music.