Outside the Basilica small winding streets lead both downward and upward and on these small streets are the shops and restaurants of Assisi. This is a good place to eat lunch or have a coffee. After our brief stop in Assisi we continued on to Siena. 

From Assisi to Siena was about a one-hour bus ride and from where the bus parked outside the gates of Siena, a short walk to the small streets of medieval Siena. Siena, like Pisa later, was a place I was very curious about even before we arrived. One of my early heroes, Sir Francis Burton, spent a number of years in both Siena and Pisa as a child and I wondered about Burton’s young mind roaming the back streets of Siena. The streets were small and bending and led deeper into the heart of the city.

The heart of the city is the Piazza del Campo, where in medieval times up to the present day horse races are held twice a year. Siena has always been known as a banking and commercial center and was, for a time, in the 13th century, the dominant economic power in this region of Italy; Florence would later become the dominant economic center of Tuscany. Along with Piazza del Campo the other important landmark in Siena is the Siena Cathedral with its black and white marble exterior. 

We stayed for a short time in Siena and then traveled 30 miles north to our final destination that day: Florence. We arrived in Florence during the night and lodged at the Hotel Fleming on the outskirts of the city. Everyone in the group was tired and we headed to our rooms, had a quick shower and then went to dinner in the basement of the hotel. One of the first things to hit you in a cheap Italian hotel restaurant is the strong clear light. You are made to feel very awake; and this light can run up against you traveling fatigue. Gabi and I sat with an older Spanish couple and a Brazilian couple who were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. The Brazilian husband was a dentist and the Spanish husband was a Spanish teacher; we talked and had wine and somehow communicated through all the language barriers; the wine helped this process along. Then came the food. Not all Italian food is good, as I was soon to discover – though everything we ate outside of these inexpensive hotels was excellent. The tour we had taken was inexpensive and now I knew why. Some kind of meat covered in some sauce and with a lot of cheese is the best way to describe it. The waiters were very nice, but the ambiance in the Italian/hotel/restaurant/ basement just didn’t seem to add up to anything – but this did not matter. The Brazilians talked about how beautiful Brazil was and how Italy wasn’t nearly as wonderful. The Spanish couple wanted seafood. And Gabi and I were tired.

Florence:

Of all the places we visited in Italy, Florence was the one that made your jaw drop to the floor. Located 145 miles northwest of Rome, Florence was the birth place of the Italian Renaissance and the home to some of the greatest thinkers and artists of the Renaissance: Lenardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Dante, Machiavelli and Galileo, and Vespucci Amerigo, the Florentine geographer who gave the Americas their name. These artists and explorers were able to flourish thanks to the powerful Florentine family the De Medicis who supplied the financing for these artistic works. And the greatness of Florence today lies in the richness of its past, which because of the pure quality of the buildings and art doesn’t seem that long ago. 

The morning we left to explore Florence it was raining. The cloud cover was low and the air was cold and damp; there was little light. We first drove through the green hills to the south of Florence, which are dotted with large cream and brown colored homes. Our destination in the hills was the Plaza Michelangelo that overlooks the Arno River and the city of Florence; from this spot the view of the famous dome that covers the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore in the center of Florence is eye-popping. The rain was terrible and we had to look for cover after spending only a few minutes on the terrace that overlooks the city. We drove back down the green hills of Florence and began to explore the streets of the city. Florence is famous for its leather shops and on a cold winter day shopping for leather in Florence can be great fun. We saw the cathedrals and the museums and then had a great lunch in a small Trattoria on a side street. Of all the art I saw that day the work that returns to my mind as I write these words is the Deposition by Pontormo, which is located in a small church on the other side of the Arno River as you head towards Pitti Square.

Later in the day we made a side trip to Pisa and passed through the vineyards and orchards of Tuscany on our way to see the famous leaning tower on the Piazza del Duomo, also known as the Square of Miracles. The tower sits within the walled city of Pisa and is situated near the main cathedral in Pisa as well as the baptistery and cemetery. I liked Pisa because my impression of it was one of a real working town. The town had an everyday charm that made it seem much different from Florence: obviously it had seen hard times in the past. After visiting the tower and cathedral we walked back to the station where the bus was parked. In order to arrive quickly from the tower to the bus we took a short cut through the back streets of Pisa. There I saw small three-story apartment blocks with older couples staring out of windows with their television sets blinking behind them. The streetlights outside their apartment windows shone on their ashen faces so that they appeared to have a wonderful green glow around their faces. And I was always wondering in Italy what in the hell was going on behind those wonderful, small windows. 

We ate in the hotel basement again and decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Pitti Square in the center of Florence. When we arrived to Pitti Square, people were dancing and screaming and the orchestra pounded out silly symphony music in a barrelhouse style. We drank and danced and laughed. We returned to the hotel at two in the morning.