Italy 2014: More Maps

Well, I kind of went map-happy this morning, and came up with four (!) more to illustrate the pilgrimage last month.  Here they are:

For general orientation, this puts north-central Italy into its overall context, with our final driving routes indicated.

Italy 2014 Day 06 – Saturday 25 October

Last view of Florence

Wake-up was slightly later – 06:30 – with our bags to be out in the hallway for 07:30, the same time as breakfast.  

Chapel of the Blessed
Sacrament, Church of
Santa Maria Novella

At 08:30, we walked from the hotel to the nearby church of Santa Maria Novella, where Fr. Chris said Mass in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. 

The Uffizi Gallery

Isabella met up with us again afterward, and we walked to the Uffizi Gallery just off the Piazza della Signoria [LINK].  What was built in the 16^th century to be offices (Uffizi) for Florentine city officials very early became a show-house for artistic treasures accumulated by the Medici family who dominated those offices and which were ultimately bequeathed to the city by the last Medici heiress in the 17^th century.  Our group of 46 then split up into two smaller groups to tour the repository of some of the most famous paintings and statues in the world [Virtual tour:  LINK].  We followed Isabella.  Once again, a couple of hours was not nearly enough time.  It was downright frustrating, in fact, the one constant albeit inevitable aspect of this journey.  Anne and I took far too many pictures to incorporate even a fraction here; I will post a number at the bottom of this entry.

Italy 2014 Day 05 – Friday 24 October

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.

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 15^th 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]