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| Michelangelo's David |
We were up no earlier, at 06:00, but more rushed as we had to
set our suitcases outside the rooms by 06:45.
Then it was down to breakfast for 07:00 and assembling in the lobby to
leave the Hotel Giotto at 08:00 to walk down to the bus park. And so our time in Assisi came to an
end. I think everyone on the pilgrimage
agreed that it was the high point of the trip – quieter, less crowded, not a
bit less rushed but altogether more enjoyable than the rest of our time in
Italy. That extended from the religious
sights we attended to the hotel itself, which had a quaint character that was lacking
from our domiciles in Florence and Rome.
Especially with regard to the common meals we enjoyed in the hotels’
respective restaurants, Giotto far outstripped either the Croce di Malta in
Florence or the Hotel Cicerone in Rome in both food and hospitality. But we could not stay in Assisi forever.
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| Tuscan countryside |
The drive from Assisi to Florence was a bit more than two
hours. Even the Tuscan countryside
sported extensively rugged hills – really mountains – that I had not
expected. Florence itself [LINK] is
pretty flat, in a valley on the Arno River, surrounded by highlands. I don’t know where to start regarding
Florence – it is such a historically and culturally significant city – so I’ll
confine myself to a few random and general facts and observations. The name in Italian is actually Firenze, so it’s a bit more different from
what we’re used to in English than is Rome (Roma),
but the meaning is the same, the City of Flowers, and the symbol is one we’re
all familiar with in Louisiana – the lily that the French call fleur-de-lys. Founded as a Roman city by the Dictator Sulla
in 80 BC, the city’s real importance commenced a thousand years later, when it
became a center of medieval cloth manufacture, trade, and finance. Its importance became incalculable as the
birthplace and epicenter of the Italian Renaissance in the 15th century,
more or less concurrent with the rise of the Medici family of clothiers-become-bankers
to political dominance which they would maintain for about three hundred
years. It eventually would serve a brief
stint as one of the several successive capitals of the Kingdom of Italy in the
1860s. Its cultural importance is
highlighted by the fact that the Tuscan dialect became the standard for modern
Italian. [There are a number of Virtual
Tours: LINK]
