Steve Simko

Finally a blog post that isn’t about me and is entirely travel advice you can use! As one of my friends that I made in Milan told me, “Florence is for Americans.” So let this American tell you the lowdown on this town, known as Firenze in Italian.

Florence’s oversimplified story

While historians debate exactly when the Renaissance began, or whether it was just a continuation and expansion of the late Middle Ages, the universal consensus is that whatever it was that began started in Florence. A confluence of factors contributed:

• the economic shift from feudalism to mercantilism, resulting in a concentration of wealth earned in the textile industry;
• the consolidation of power with the Medici family
• The patronage of the arts. In the Medici’s case, it was more than just patronage—it was a vision to create a new Athens. And that motivation was more widely shared after the Black Plague ravaged Florence in 1347, when over half the town was killed.
• The unparalleled presence of great artists over several centuries. This started before the Renaissance. Whether this was good fortune or due to the other factors mentioned is debatable, but the names of great Florentines poured forth for centuries: Dante. Giotto. Donatello. Ghiberti. Brunelleschi. Botticelli. Michelangelo.
  • Far from being Donatello’s contemporary, Michelangelo actually was born over a hundred years later. Teddy Roosevelt and Barack Obama are closer in age. Donatello and Michelangelo have about the same age gap as FDR and AOC.

By contrast, Rome did not see such a flowering until the early 1500s, when Pope Julian II (“a crazy man” according to one of my tour guides who spent his papacy largely focused on Vatican military and political power) exerted similar patronage of the arts and architecture as the Medicis in Florence.

So the Renaissance means different things in different places, but in Florence it certainly was in full swing by 1401, when Ghiberti and Brunelleschi entered a competition to create the bronze doors of the Baptistry. Their entries were judged equal and they were offered the chance to co-create the doors, but the headstrong Brunelleschi backed out, not wanting to work with Ghiberti. Ghiberti created something more than a mere masterpiece, but Brunelleschi would achieve a crowning achievement even more remarkable. We’ll come back to these guys later.

Incidentally, who do you think should have won the contest between the two? We have their entries depicting the sacrifice of Isaac.

When to visit

Not August, that’s for sure. Unless you happen to be in the area, because you have to go at some point.

I miraculously avoided the 104 degree (40C) weather that they’d been having for a month prior to my arrival, so the weather was more typical—low 90s and sunny. But like most medieval towns when the sun is directly overhead, the sun bounces off the pavement and stone and burns like the sun in Super Mario 3. The sun saps of your energy so that you’re really only motivated to do two or three things in a day, not spend an entire day doing things, and drained of the desire to go out at night. I can’t imagine the horrors that would have awaited a week earlier. I shortened my Italy trip to 6 days from 12 knowing it was going to be like this and I couldn’t be happier.

What to do

See the sights. Eat. Drink wine. That’s about it. Florence is swarming with tourists wandering aimlessly. There are not many Italians here. The shopping is all over the place—you can buy watches more expensive than a Rolex on the Ponte Vecchio or you can buy a $50 leather jacket. I didn’t see much happening from a nightlife perspective other than the typical aimless tourists, street vendors, sidewalk cafes serving Aperol spritzes ad nauseam, you get the idea.

What to eat

Eh? I’m not the best person to tell you. Like with Milan, a lot of the best restaurants were closed or booked. My experience was that the food was consistently quite satisfying but not necessarily great. One local specialty that kept coming up was the Florentine steak, which is usually served in quantities > 2 pounds (1 kg) so as a solo traveler that was gastrically out of reach for me.

What to see

Let’s play a game of contrasts.

Tired: the outside of the Palazzo Vecchio. Wired: the outside of the Duomo

It is your obligation to see the outside of the Duomo from up close and afar. It is one of the most spectacular church exteriors on the planet.

By comparison, the outside of the Palazzo Vecchio just looks like a plain brown brick tower. The tower would have been as charming as the one in Siena except that it is overwhelmed by one of the most architecturally perfect buildings ever created.

The dome is the largest brick dome in the world and was the first dome built without central supports since antiquity. To this day it remains a masterpiece of structural engineering, but its aesthetics are what you will care about, how it sits perfectly in the Tuscan landscape.

Tired: the inside of the Duomo. Wired: the inside of the Baptistry (across the plaza)

The INSIDE of the Duomo is one of the plainest, least ornate places you’ll ever see, all the more disappointing not just because of the gorgeous exterior but because you’ll have to wait at least 30 minutes to get in, because it’s free and ticketless. And the line will be blazing hot.

The Baptistry, however, has stunning golden mosaics covering the ceiling, some of which are downright weird and wacky.

You can get a single ticket to the Baptistry and the Duomo Museum for 15 euros and it’s so worth it. And speaking of the Duomo Museum…

Tired: the Uffizi Museum. Wired: the Duomo Museum

The Duomo Museum has the original Ghiberti bronze doors, a Michelangelo pieta, the Baptistry’s silver altar, gorgeous vestments and religious objects, an exhibit on how the dome was constructed, all in a modern setting with clear explanations of the importance of each work.

The Uffizi museum is chock full of spectacular art displayed in the most unimaginably dispiriting way.

If you’re not absolutely determined to see the Botticelli masterpieces (“The Spring” or “The Birth of Venus”), or if there’s not another specific artist or work you want to see, you can (gasp!) skip it. If you’re not into early Renaissance art, here’s my suggested slimmed down version:

• The works by Giotto
• The works by Botticelli
• Gallery 35 and adjacent for the works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and especially Raphael
• The sculpture Laocoon and His Sons, in the hallway outside the cafeteria
• The two Caravaggios (Medusa and Bacchus)
• The Rubens/Rembrandt room
• And that’s enough. You can do that in an hour and see what needs to be seen. Definitely don’t stand in line to see the Tribune, treasures of the Medici family that you can’t get up close to. Most of the best works are on the top floor.

Tired: Boboli Gardens. Wired: Bardini Gardens

This may be a summer issue, but the Boboli Gardens are a hilly, sun-scorched, shadeless Tuscan helscape. They’re famous because they’re big. But on a 90 degree day even in the morning, it’s just not approachable. The Bardini Gardens next door are shadier, cooler, more charming, more walkable, and give you the relaxed sensation the Boboli was intended to give. Sometimes smaller is better.

Tired: just about every statue in this city. Wired: Michelangelo’s David at the Galleria Accademia. And Donatello’s David at the Bargello Museum.

If you have never seen it, the statue of David should be your absolute #1 priority coming here. Unlike other statues of David that show David with the slain Goliath’s head, this one is ambiguous as to whether it is before or after he slays Goliath, but the demeanor suggests it is before. The expressions and pose of David convey a different attitude every few degrees you walk around the statue, ranging from a cocky dude strutting to a vulnerable young man wondering whether he’s done the right thing. He is both man (towering over everyone with a godlike build, disproportionately large hands and feet) and boy (youthful face), almost capturing the moment when a person is both. The ambiguity is the beauty. I’m glad I didn’t bring my camera, because I would have spent all day there trying and failing to capture the experience.

Donatello’s David is worth a look too.

Tired: Central Market. Also tired: Ponte Vecchio

The Central Market is a massive fast food joint. The Ponte Vecchio, a bridge whose stores cantilevered over the water, is a jewelry store. They are crowded and ugly. Take my advice and stay away. Actually the bridge in Bath, England that resembles the Ponte Vecchio is cuter and more quirky looking.

Things I ran out of time and energy for, but feel like I can do these another day or be satisfied if I never do them: 

• Climbing the Duomo or Giotto’s Tower. Why would you do this in such intense heat, when you can’t even see the view of the dome and tower at the top? The benefit is that you do get an up close of either the Tower or the Dome, or you may want to see in between the two domes of the Dome, which could be worthwhile to you. The rest of Florence isn’t THAT pretty however.
• The church of Santa Croce
• The basilica of Santa Maria Novella
• Day trips. You can take day trips to
  • Bologna (easiest—only 40 minutes away by train),
  • Pisa (an hour by train plus a half hour walk to the Leaning Tower),
  • or into wine country such as San Gimignano or the Chianti region. Because of the timings of my museum entries, this wasn’t going to be feasible, but as hot as it was and as much as I’d traveled in Milan, I scaled back my ambitions here. I would have gone to San Gimignano but the only way to get there without a car was a 2 hour one-way bus trip, which I was not up for. And I wasn’t going to go wine tasting and drive either.

San Francisco and Milan, while very different other than that they are in close proximity to spectacular mountain lakes, are vying for similar titles. One is the worst great city in the world, and one is the best crappy city in the world. Since another author I read a long time ago crowned SF the former, I’ll explain how Milan wins the latter.

Milan is a hub of business and fashion. But if you don’t have the money to spend at Dior or Fendi or even Tod’s, it is an ugly city to visit even by American standards. Philadelphia has more charm. Cincinnati has more charm.

Architecturally, it reminds me of Houston or Dallas in the sense that the most striking architecture is grotesque in its brutality. Brutesque, if you will. And before my Texan friends protest my dig on their architecture, some of which is legitimately outstanding, drive on a freeway in downtown Dallas or Houston at rush hour and you’ll understand what I mean.

But I digress. Milan. Let’s start with the Duomo.

I will say the exterior does have a beauty to it—the marble gleams and the bronze doors capture your attention when you look closely.

In the shadowless plaza beneath, you feel twice burned by the sun and the travertine.

But there’s a reason you don’t see pictures of the Duomo’s interior. You walk in, and your first impression is immensity and grayness. The cathedral is taller and longer than you expect from the outside, and the pillars holding it up are girthy. The stained glass windows are small relative to the size of the building. You do not come to this building to commune with God. You come here to be cowed by God and to be intimidated by Milan. Can you imagine a bishop or even a priest saying Mass in such a place, how the immense stone would crush any sense of wonder and awe at the divine and any sense of connection with the parishioners? And yet, it does feel kind of awesome to be in such an inhuman space, imagining yourself as an emperor being crowned to lord over all the known realms of the world, as though a primal scream of power is coursing through you. St. Peter’s to me conveys a sense of rigidity and formality that is stifling, but it is so vast and has so many beautiful treasures that one can still reach to the heavens and rejoice. It does not convey immensity in the same oppressive way as the Duomo in Milan.

Milan’s other great sights underwhelm.

Teatro alla Scala, the world’s greatest opera house, is from the outside the ugliest theater I’ve ever seen. And that includes the cube that was my high school theater.

Milan’s prettiest building is a mall. A MALL.

Its liveliest area, Navigli, conveys the San Antonio river walk without the greenery or charm. And the people there ironically are the least fashionably dressed in all of Europe. It’s shorts and t-shirts just like back home. My travel planner told me I should go there at night and take photos. But there was nothing I wanted to remember visually.

Milan’s beauty is hidden, and even then ugliness can’t help but seep through. Milan’s most famous work of art is the Cenacolo Vinciano. You know it as the Last Supper. Did you know it was in Milan? Until I got here, I didn’t.

Leonardo da Vinci moved to Milan to escape what he felt were stifling artistic norms in Florence in the late 15th century. As the uber-Renaissance man, he took a job to re-engineer the Milan canal system to ensure consistent water flow without flooding, and according to the tour guide, fixed the previously unsolvable problems in a matter of weeks. He was granted lifetime residency in Milan by the ruling duke as a result, and stayed there for 20 years.

• An aside about tourism in Italy. Why was I on a tour of the Last Supper instead of just buying a ticket? Ah. You see, sites such as the Cenacolo Vinciano sell a limited number of tickets to the general public which sell out months in advance. But you can still get tickets through tour groups. And frankly, virtually everyone in there was with a tour group. So instead of paying $16, I paid $77 and got access as part of a 3 hour Milan walking tour, which I left after 90 minutes. It’s an officially sanctioned tourist scam to milk more money out of you. Even worse was the way I got legally scammed on the train from the airport. You buy a ticket but they don’t make it clear that you have to validate it, and when the conductor sees you haven’t validated your ticket, he charges you an extra 8 euro fine. It’s just a tourist tax. You’re damn right I paid him in cash so he’d have to fish for change. But you realize that all these scams are just part of the culture here and you’re kind of OK with it because Italy is so exceptional. And since I got forced paying $77 for the tour, you’re going to hear about what I learned. Now. Back to getting my money’s worth.

While he was there, he painted the Last Supper. The Last Supper is, I kid you not, a cafeteria mural. Actually, it was painted directly on the wall of a dining room of a monastery. It was meant to convey Jesus and his disciples as diners seated at the table next to the monks. Instead of depicting Jesus and his disciples as static figures, he made the novel decision to paint them as living human beings with emotion. This was a radical departure from the norm in the 1400s, part of why I suppose he left Florence so he could break the rules.

Leonardo chose a novel way of painting on the wall. Instead of using fresco technique, where paint is quickly applied to a wet wall, Leonardo wanted to take his time and use a technique that allowed him to work more slowly. He innovated an experimental technique where he mixed oil and tempera paints and painted them on a dry wall. This allowed him to paint the extraordinary figures that he did.

Sadly, this technique did not result in paint sticking to the walls for the long term, and paint began flaking off the walls within a few years. The Last Supper deteriorated over the years, not to mention was nearly destroyed by Allied bombing in World War II—the adjacent building was. Oops 🇺🇸

The painting was closed for restoration for over 20 years until it was reopened in 1999. I had no idea that for so much of my life, this work was completely inaccessible to the public. The photographs you see are generally oversaturated and brightened to make the figures more vivid. In truth, the work is pale, dim, and crumbling, and yet still conveys the beauty of Leonardo’s ability to capture the humanity of the disciples.

• Another aside: this is where a real camera is needed. All the images above were from the same single photo. This is the best my iPhone could do. It gets the light balance right but the expressiveness is totally lost.

And that’s the thing about Milan. It’s human. It’s a real, living, organic city. It’s not a museum like Venice, and it’s not stiff like Copenhagen. It’s the kind of place that someone will jump over your back trying to force their way into closing subway doors. (That happened. The kid was wearing an SF Giants cap.) It’s messy, but it has a pulse. And as a result, you’re able to meet people that just want to hang out and have a good time. So I did, meeting locals and tourists along the way.

I don’t know what this drink was. The details are hazy. But while I was drinking it there was a fistfight outside the bar. The cops showed up and broke it up, and then they stayed and smoked and hung out, their cars blocking the road for half an hour while the bars were packed.

Thanks Milan for a really good couple of days. Yeah you’re a mess, but you’re as good of a crappy place as I’ve ever been.

Oh yeah, I mentioned dinner theater from God too. Well, one night I went to Lake Maggiore for dinner to meet some American friends, and we got caught in a hailstorm. If it wasn’t for some dude named Fabio, I would have missed my train back to Milan.