This first section is a brief explanation of my Italy blog posts, which were inspired by my 2-week trip to Italy in May, 2025. Feel free to skip this section if you’ve read it before.
Dear Reader, If you read my Italy posts in the order in which they’ve come out, it may seem as though we hopped back and forth all over the country, but I have decided not to write these posts sequentially. I want to write about the things that interest me most, as the spirit moves me. For some topics, I may even combine cities. I hope that by doing so, you’ll find it a lot more interesting than if I just give you a tedious day by day description of our itinerary, as if I were your Aunt Mabel forcing you to sit down and watch all her Super 8 films of the family road trip to Niagara Falls from 1966.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about how I’m approaching this travelogue-within-a-blog, please let me know in the comments below!
This will be my last blog post about our visit to Florence in May, 2025, and while I’m not nearly as homesick for Florence as I am for Venice, it still feels bittersweet to be saying goodbye to that place again. There is so much spectacular art that we didn’t get to see, and if it was half as amazing as the things we did see, that is a real tragedy. All of the things I will discuss in this post were worthy of mention, but none of them merited a post of their own (and thank God for that, or I’d still be blogging about this trip until well into the 2030’s.) Here are some of the fascinating things most tourists overlook.
For a start, I will say that if you get a chance to travel by train from Venice to Florence, do so. You’ll be treated to typical Italian landscapes stretching to the horizon much of the way, and then all of a sudden things get hilly, and you are plunged in and out of startling tunnels, and then into your basic urban sprawl that all train tracks seem to attract. Overall, it’s a comfortable and efficient way to get from there to here (complete with the cleanest train bathrooms I’ve ever encountered) and a pleasant way to just enjoy the fact that, holy crap, you’re actually in Italy.
When you arrive at the Florence train station, it is worth a few extra minutes to head over to Platform 16. I learned about the monument there from Atlas Obscura, and I’m so glad I made the effort to seek it out even though I was excited to get to our lodging. The gigantic, rusty train spike plunging into a shattered concrete block is a fitting tribute to the shattering things that happened here, and it is the sort of event that most Americans have the luxury of never contemplating. Perhaps they do so at their peril.
At the base of this sculpture is a plaque that says, “From this platform, in sealed train cars, hundreds of Jewish men, women. elderly people, and children left for the gas chambers or crematoriums in Auschwitz. A monument will not bring back their innocent lives, but it will help us to not forget, in hopes that this will never happen again. 9 November 1943. 9 November 2013.”
This sculpture still gives me goosebumps. I stood right where those terrified people once stood, and there was nothing I could do to alter that history and save them. Of the 243 people cast out of the city at the time, only 13 returned.
The Atlas Obscura article also mentioned that 4 months after that tragic departure, in March 9, 1944, when Italy was in turmoil (the Southern part having rejected Mussolini and switched sides to the allies while Mussolini held the north, including Florence), those who opposed Mussolini in the north called a general strike. Because of this, hundreds of men and women were rounded up and questioned. The women were eventually set free, but the men, you guessed it, were sent off via Platform 16, mainly to Mauthausen Concentration Camp (the one my father helped liberate). Of those 338 men, only 64 survived the war.
I also later learned that Platform 16 is the exact same platform on which Hitler arrived to visit Florence on May 9, 1938, 5 ½ years to the day before the Jews were transported. He was welcomed with great fanfare at the time. That makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
If I were a Florentine, I’d say that 16 is a very unlucky number, and that the 9th day of the month isn’t much better.
Another brief note about the train station. At my place on the autism spectrum, I notice patterns and their interruptions, such as when things or people are out of place, so I was able to pick out several pickpockets. They were trying to fit in, but none of them had any reason to be where they were. They were pretending to stand in line for taxis at a train station, with no luggage (regular, bagless commuters would opt for public transportation, or know the nearest taxi stand without a line), pretending to be lost for entirely too long, pretending to be helpful, again for too long, as if they have nothing but time on their hands and choose to hang out at a train station. Boy, they are crafty. When they’d catch me staring straight at them, they knew their cover was blown. They’d drop the act, glare at me, and go away.
I was kind of having fun, rattling the pickpockets and passively disrupting their plans. (Any day when you can shake a pickpocket’s confidence is a good day in my book.) Sadly, whenever you are in any kind of a crowd in Italy, you really need to hang on to your valuables. Read up on how to foil them, and wear front facing backpacks with zippers toward your chest and/or moneybelts.
One thing I was looking forward to seeing in Florence thanks to Atlas Obscura was the Bull of Santa Maria del Fiore. It’s an unusual sculpture on the side of the cathedral that, unfortunately for us, was covered in scaffolding due to their current restoration efforts on that side of the church. Its waaaay up above the doorway one normally takes to climb the dome. A bull’s head seems like an unlikely feature for a cathedral, and yet there it is.
Some say it was an homage to the draft animals that were used during the church’s construction. But there’s also a legend that says one of the stonemasons had an affair with the shopkeeper’s wife, but the husband put an end to it, so the stonemason put a bull up there, with his horns pointing toward the husband’s shop, as a reminder of the affair. Whatever the truth may be about the bull, I was disappointed not to see it. If you go, I hope you do.
If you can afford one splurge in Florence, I highly recommend dinner at Regina Bistecca. It’s a stone’s throw away from the bull on the Cathedral, and reservations are a good idea. This is the kind of place where I half expect to be told to enter by the service door in the alley. (But actually, they made us feel right at home.) It was probably the most high-end meal I’ve ever had in my life. They actually bring out a choice of steak knives in a wooden box and allow you to select your own. They serve Florentine Beef and local dishes. It was our first encounter with Zolfini Beans, which are tiny tan beans grown only in Tuscany, and they’re incredibly delicious.
But the thing you really want to go there for is the Chianina beef. Chianina cattle are an ancient Italian breed that are the largest and heaviest in the world. It is one of the world’s oldest domesticated cattle breeds, and it goes back at least 2200 years. Bulls can exceed 3500 pounds, and calves can weigh 110 pounds at birth. They produce a fine-textured beef, and in Italy, it can only be sold by approved butchers, and the receipts include birth date, slaughter date, and ID number so you can verify its authenticity.
At the restaurant, the beef is brought to you on an elevated plate and sliced for you. You half expect to hear a choir of angels singing. (And at about 50 dollars a pound at the time of this writing, you should be guaranteed a choir of some sort.) But once you’ve tasted it, you’ll understand why. You’ve heard the expression “melts in your mouth”, but this beef does so literally. It disappears in a beefy, savory… I can’t explain it. I’ve never experienced anything like it before. Chewing was an afterthought. It nearly made me swoon. Honestly, if I were in Italy, forget Michelangelo’s David. I’d go to Florence just for this restaurant.
Another nifty place to visit that is off the well-worn tourist path (thanks, Atlas Obscura!) is the Santa Maria Novella Pharmacy, which is about a block away from the train station. It’s the oldest still-operating pharmacy in the world. It was established by Dominican monks in 1221. They made salves, balms and medicines out of herbs they grew themselves, initially for monks in their infirmary. The pharmacy was opened to the public in the 17th century.
But calling it a pharmacy today is a little bit deceptive by American standards. You won’t be able to fill a prescription there or pick up a bottle of aspirin. They still make products using the monk’s recipes, including incense infused paper that burns without a flame, and something called thieves vinegar that people used to use to protect themselves from the plague. They also sell high-end fragrances, skin care products, potpourri, soaps and shampoos. The lavender soap smells really good. (You can order them online here, and you can also find out if there’s a franchise near you.)
But the main reason to check this place out (in my opinion) is the museum aspect of it, which includes displays of old terra cotta apothecary jars, glass distilling equipment, and antique scales and mortars, all in old walnut cabinetry. Then there’s the pharmacy itself, with its vaulted, frescoed ceilings, ornate carved wood paneling, marble floors, and stained-glass windows. Even if you find their products too expensive, it’s still a visual treat.
Our first evening in Florence, we took advantage of our Rick Steves Audio Europe phone app and went on the Renaissance walk. It’s a 1 mile, 1 hour walking tour, and it is narrated by Rick and one of his colleagues. (You can also find it, in lesser detail, in his Italy guidebook.) It includes a map. Honestly, I can’t believe he provides this app for free. It was so useful throughout our trip.
This was the perfect use of an evening, because it was all exteriors, so things didn’t have to be open, and this way, we could avoid the crowds. (Sort of. More on that below.)
I’m going to skip the bits about the cathedral, the bell tower, the dome, and the Baptistry, because I’ve blogged about them already. And I’m not going to give you all of Rick’s detail. You can hear it on the app if you like. I’ll just hit the highlights.
The Orsanmichele Church walls are rather plain, but they have niches with quite a few beautiful sculptures commissioned by merchants in the 1400’s. The building itself used to be a combination church and granary in the 14th century, but that combination status makes it all but impossible to say when the Church was officially established. Merchants were definitely placing statues of their patron saints inside as early as 1339.
As for the exterior sculptures, the photo with the single man is a sculpture of St. George by Donatello. The Madonna and child statue is mainly interesting because beneath it, it says, “In 1493, a Jew who desecrated this statue was tortured and killed.” (Yikes. Way to take the bad behavior of one man and turn it into an antisemitic diatribe that lasts for centuries.) The third photo is a statue of Doubting Thomas and Christ. Thomas is touching the wound in Jesus’ side. It’s by Verrocchio.
After that, we paused Rick’s app (and his really bad dad jokes) and took a slight detour to visit Il Porcellino. The original bronze sculpture of a boar that was created in 1634 now sits in the Uffizi Gallery (the indoor photo), but the one in the Piazza del Mercato Nuovo is an exact replica. It has a semi hollow section, and you can roll coins into it and then rub his snout for good luck. Because this is such a tradition, the snout has become shiny over the years. The coins are periodically collected from the grating where they land and are distributed to local charities and municipal causes.
The original sculpture was inspired by a Hellenistic marble version. The bronze one is so popular that there are now copies all over the world, from the University of Arkansas to Sydney, Australia. (Once again, I have Atlas Obscura to thank for learning about Il Porcellino.)
From there, we caught back up with Rick’s tour at Florence’s huge main square, the Piazza della Signoria, which is the political center of Florence. Here you find the Palazzo Vecchio which has always been Florence’s city hall.
The Palazzo looks like a fortress for good reason. In Renaissance times, in addition to having municipal offices in the building, the Medici lived there, and the city’s riches were housed there. The building had to withstand rioters, and the tower made an excellent lookout post. Any justice that needed to be meted out to the citizenry would occur in the piazza below.
In front of the Palazzo Vecchio is a copy of Michelangelo’s David. It is, in my humble opinion, a travesty. If this is your first impression of David, please try to keep an open mind until you see the real thing, which I’ve also blogged about. For a time, the original sculpture stood there, but it was damaged in a 1527 riot, when a bench was tossed out of one of the windows of the Palazzo and knocked his left arm off. In 1873, he was finally moved indoors.
At this point we took a very slight detour, thanks again to Atlas Obscura, to visit L’importuno di Michelangelo, or “The Nuisance” by Michelangelo. It is a bit of graffiti carved into the stone of the exterior wall of the Palazzo Vecchio. I’m a little surprised that Rick Steves makes no mention of this on his tour.
Granted, we cannot be 100% certain that the carving of a man’s profile was done by my artistic hero himself, but, as you’ll see in the Wikipedia article about it, it does bear an uncanny resemblance to another profile that he definitely drew which is now housed in the Louvre. Another excellent point is that the Palazzo Vecchio was always heavily guarded in that era, so you’d have to have special permission to get away with such a carving. This was not done by some random pesky teenage boy. It isn’t as if it were done in a flash, with spray paint. It would have taken a little time to pull off.
Aside from the work itself, what really fascinated me about this carving is that it wouldn’t be hard for you to go right up and touch it, late at night, when no one was watching. Granted, it is about 7 feet off the ground, but there is a ledge, and it’s not particularly well protected. And yet, there it sits, since around 1504, for all the world to see. There are all kinds of theories as to who this nuisance was that has become so infamous, but there’s no point in repeating them without proof. (You can find them in the two links above if you’re curious.)
The Palazzo itself was closed during our walking tour, but we did get to go into its courtyard on another day. It is a visual feast. It harkens back to ancient Rome, especially the playful designs on the ceilings, as well as the pillars, the rounded archways, and the fountain in the middle.
Also on the piazza is a loggia. Originally, it was where citizens used to come and exercise their free speech, until it started to make the Medici uncomfortable. Then it was turned into an outdoor sculpture gallery.
The two most notable sculptures there are the Rape of the Sabines, from 1560, which shows a Roman warrior trampling a Sabine husband and carrying off his wife. All three bodies are carved out of one block of marble. (While the Romans did steal Sabine women for genetic diversity, and simply because they could, I suspect that everyone involved wasn’t actually stark naked as a general rule.) And in our photo that shows multiple statues, the one in front is called Perseus, and it depicts him decapitating the snake-haired Medusa. The artist portrayed the remnants of her neck in gruesome detail.
Another thing in the square that’s rather hard to ignore is the fountain of Neptune. I think it’s another eyesore, and a waste of marble. Apparently I’m not alone in this opinion. But it is handy, because if you stand in front of it, then turn your back on it (as well you should) and take about 10 steps, you’ll see a round circle in the pavement. It tells a grizzly story.
In 1492, the Medici were shorn of their power by an extremely strict monk named Savonarola. He did a lot of shouty speeches about corruption and child predation, and when he took power, his puritanical tendencies ran wild. He’d make the people show up in the square for huge rallies. (You might say he wanted to make Venice great again.) He wanted Florence to cast off secularism and decadence. He’d make the children sing hymns at the rallies, while their parents tossed their opulent possessions, including banned books, masterpieces, and even wigs, into a huge bonfire. (That’s where the expression “bonfire of the vanities” comes from.)
The Medici, of course, wanted their power back, and encouraged the people to revolt against Savonarola. They tortured him in the Palazzo Vecchio for two days in an attempt to get him to see reason. Finally, they brought him back to this spot. The inscription says, essentially, “Here on the 23rd of May, 1498 they brought Savonarola and two of his monastic brothers. He was publicly defrocked and hanged. A bonfire was built, and he was set ablaze.”
From here we went to the Uffizi Gallery Courtyard. I’ve already blogged about the Uffizi, and you can read all about it, inside and out, here. So lets walk through the courtyard and go straight to the Arno River and then on to the Ponte Vecchio Bridge. It’s lined with shops. There has been a bridge here since Roman times. The current one was built in 1345. The shops originally were reserved for butchers and hide tanners, so that they could dump their waste right into the river. Now its mostly gold and silver shops.
The Ponte Vecchio is the only bridge in Florence that survived the Nazis. All the bridges you can see in the distance are more modern. This bridge is a great place to see the sunset. Another nice feature of this bridge is that most of the storefronts are the originals from the 1500’s. You have to go late at night or extremely early in the morning to get a view of the old wooden shutters and doors with their massive iron locks, but it’s worth the trip. You can’t really appreciate them during the day, as you can see from the daytime pic I pulled from the internet.
We were getting sleepy after all this walking and the beauty overload we were experiencing, so we decided to head back. By the time we returned to the Cathedral, which was about a block away from our AirBnB, we were presented with an unanticipated crowd. After the peaceful evenings in Venice, Florence was a bit nerve-jangling for me at any time of day.
This was a raucous crowd, watching street buskers and dancing and having a great time, while the pickpockets circled like sharks. It was, basically, a joyful yet shark-infested sea of humanity. It went on past midnight. Not that we stuck around for very long ourselves. I don’t know if this is a typical Florentian Saturday night, or if it was an Italian holiday, but it was intense, man. Very exciting, if that’s what you’re into.
It seems fitting to end my last post on Florence with a raucous crowd. Whenever I think of Florence, I’ll think of incredible art and noisy crowds. We all have our role to play in life, and that seems to be Florence’s.
Buonanotte, Caro Lettore, buonanotte. Alla prossima.
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