Tomorrow I start the first day of my study abroad program and I couldn’t be more excited to get to know this city.
My orientation week has come to a close. I have gotten to know all eight of my apartment-mates and we share an amazing apartment in Piazza Santa Croce. It far exceeded all of our expectations with the its size and amazing views. API has taken us on various guided tours to help us to get to know the city, both fun things (like how to get to the Duomo), and practical things (like where the local market is). I’ve also had lots of amazing food including gelato, bruschetta, and gnocchi that we made in a cooking class. Despite the heat, my roommate and I went on a run around sunset. Nowhere else in the world can you run by the Duomo, Piazza Santa Croce, Piazza della Signoria, and over Ponte Vecchio all in twenty minutes! Going into my first weekend I am going on a day trip around Tuscany with four of my roommates and will be starting classes on Monday.
I had a great first day of classes despite getting completely soaked going back to my apartment after class. At least now I can say that I’ve run through the rain in the Piazza del Duomo. I only had one class, Social Psychology, which two of my roommates are also taking. Our professor has some interesting projects lined up for us including a “Humans of Florence” Project (think Humans of New York) that I am excited to share on here once I do it. The bottom right picture is a small courtyard within the building where I have some of my classes.
After my second day of classes (Adolescent Psychology and Italian) API offered a stroll to Forte di Belvedere. It is an old fortress built by the Medici family to protect Florence from attack. Now it is used to display various works of contemporary art. If you are looking to get pictures of the Florence skyline, Forte di Belvedere offers amazing views and is much less crowded than Piazzale Michelangelo. It is extremely peaceful up away from the crowds and a nice place to sit on the grass and see some greenery in the city . Disclaimer: the middle picture is Ponte Vecchio at sunset, but is not taken from the fortress.
There are currently two exhibitions on display at Forte di Belvedere. One, called My Land, is by Davide Rivalta and includes sculptures of buffaloes, eagles, rhinos, and wolves. My favorite were the buffaloes which, from afar, look like they could really be there grazing in the fields with the Duomo in the distance.
I have only had one photography class so far, but we are already visiting some beautiful sites in Florence. Above is the Santa Maria Novella Church which is reminiscent of Santa Croce in materials used but still very unique. There is a pillar in the piazza in front of the church supported by little metal turtles. This church is very close to the main train station (of the same name) for those that might visit.
Another day, another stroll with stunning views. If you’re ever looking to walk up to Piazzale Michelangelo you go up Fontane delle Rampe del Poggi. It is a beautiful ramp to walk up with various Grotto/waterfalls that offer a refreshing spray. Once you are up the ramps, you can continue walking up to the rose garden which is a great place to sit and relax on the grass for free. After you’ve rested up, you can continue up even more steps to get to Piazzale Michelangelo. There are amazing views of the historical center of Florence, the outskirts of the city, and the nearby hills of Fiesole.
Piazza della Signoria is one of my favorite Piazzas in Florence. It is located right next to the Uffizi gallery and Palazzo Vecchio. There are both originals and replicas of Renaissance statues on display that are beautiful and 100% free to see. Inside of museums it tends to be too dark to take good pictures, but the natural light of this outside display really highlights the fine details of the statues.
Food update! My school, LdM offers activities throughout the month including a cooking class that I signed up for. The top left picture is of eggplant parm that I made and got to eat that was super yummy. I will definitely be looking to sign up for more cooking classes in the future. The bottom left picture is a delicious pastry from the bakery right below my apartment that I decided to try out as a break from gelato. Finally, and most importantly, the right picture is a cornetto from one of the “secret” bakeries of Florence. Many places start baking around 2am to get ready for the coming day and if you are able to find one they will sell you a pastry. It’s not strictly legal which is why they are considered secret.
This weekend I decided to visit the Museo Nazionale del Bargello which is the home to Donatello’s bronze statue of David and many other sculptures. Some say that it is to sculptures and the Uffizi is to paintings. Like so many other buildings in Florence, it doesn’t look like much from the outside, but once you are inside it’s a full on castle with a huge courtyard and multiple rooms full of amazing artwork.
I took a visit to the Bardini Gardens with LdM activities. The gardens are now open to the public, but originally belonged to the Bardini family who also had their villa on the almost 10 acres of land. It is always nice to see some green when you’re living in a city and I would never guess that this much nature could exist in one spot within Florence.
Above are some picture of the Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence. It was one of the first orphanages in Europe, financed by the Florentine silk guild. It served as an orphanage for almost 400 years and the original building was designed by Brunelleschi (the same architect that designed the dome of the Duomo). Now, it is used as a museum and includes many works of art that celebrate the good works of this institution, including a painting by Sandro Botticelli (artist that painted The Birth of Venus).
Even though it was a school night, we had to make it to at least one soccer match in Florence! This game was Fiorentina vs Sampdoria. Florence won 2-1 and we got to experience the wild chants of the fans.
This past weekend, my roommate and I went to Palazzo Medici Riccardi, the home of the famous Medici family which was later bought by the Riccardi family. The pictures above show the family tree of the Medici family starting with Cosimo the Elder (who is the main character of the first season of the Netflix show Medici — in case anyone is interested in watching). The other side of the tree is the Strozzi family, a rival banking family. In an attempt to mend the feud between the families, there was a marriage between Clarice and Filippo. I don’ t know the full history, but I don’t think it worked out very well. The large picture on the right is part of a mural in the private chapel within the palace that depicts the three Re Magi and has various identifiable members of the Medici family. One example is Cosimo the Elder on the donkey, between the two white horses. The Re Magi were a favorite story of the Medici family because they are three kings that are showing they accept the baby Jesus as the true ruler. Despite their power, the family did not want the people of Florence to think that they saw themselves above the Lord Jesus. The last picture is also from within the chapel and shows some of the elaborate decoration in the home, this one being part of a wall done in colored marble. The chapel is one of the only rooms that has the original decoration from the time of the Medici, but reflects what the whole house must have looked like with ornate walls, ceilings, and floors.
Not to be outdone, the Riccardi family also commissioned a masterpiece to decorate the ceiling in the “Room of Mirrors”. The frescoe, done by Luca Giordano, which includes at least twelve different scene of Ancient Greek/Roman myths and a central image “Apotheosis of the Medici” in which they are depicted like gods descending from the heavens. I strongly recommend looking up pictures online to see the full extent (or visiting in real life).
The Sunday of the same weekend, I participated in the Corri la Vita breast cancer awareness walk/run. There was an option to run, but it was so popular that you could barely even walk at a normal pace. The route allowed me to see parts of Florence that I have never seen before and it was an overall awesome experience. The picture on the right is me with Monica, one of the program directors for API.
This is schiacciata all’uva, a Florentine specialty that is only served in the fall. It is a special type of bread baked with grapes that are freshly harvested at this time of year for making wine.
Parco di Pratolino is just a short bus ride from the Florence city center. The park was originally commissioned by a member of the Medici Family for their wife, but it is now open to the public. In the park there is a villa, a cafe, and many statues. The most famous statue in the park is il Gigante (pictured left) done in a very unique style. The picture on the right is a statue of the Medici family and some of the scenery from the park.
For her fall break, Grace and some friends (pictured: Tim and Victoria) decided to visit Italy, including Florence. Even though I had classes we were able to make time to hang out and it was fun getting to pretend to be a tour guide. Ryley and I also showed them the fine Italian cuisine. We’ll be visiting London on our fall break and it’ll be Grace’s turn to be the tour guide!
Along the Arno River there are multiple places where you can go down to the river and walk alongside it. Sometimes I like to go down there on runs to get away from the crowded sidewalks and almost feel like I’m away from the city.
On certain days, state run museums are free in Florence. The first Sunday of November was one of these days and I took the chance to go and see the David again. Me and my friend Lucy got there right as it opened, but we weren’t the only ones with the idea to go that day. We waited in line for about half an hour and the museum might’ve been even more crowded that usual, so I stuck to more close up shots. The picture above shows the before and after of one of my favorite picture I took. This is just edited with the apple photos app and adjusted for white balance, shadows/highlights, levels (which enhances the lighting without having to change exposure directly), and a little bit of a fade effect to give it a softer look. The same day we also went to the Magritte museum (think man with apple in front of his face painting), but I don’t have any pictures because it was a more interactive museum. There was a virtual reality simulation and a room with projections of various components from his artwork put together to make it even more surrealist.
This past week I went on a secret passage tour of Palazzo Vecchio. This palace was built in four main phases and has had four different names based on its use at the time. The door on the right is a secret door that exits out onto the street and was built in the second phase of the palace. The Florentine people used to bring in someone from outside the city to take on the role of Podesta, a government figure, so that personal connections within the city could not have too great of an influence. The Duke of Athens, a French man, was brought in at a time of financial crisis, but the Florentine people were not happy with how he was governing and exiled him from the city. This is the door that he used to escape. The staircase on the right is the one that leads down to the door. In the middle is a robe that was typically worn by members of the priori, different government figures. The red signifies their power and importance. Dante Alighieri, the author of Inferno, was a prior at one point before also being exiled from Florence.
After the first line of the Medici family died out, a member from the second line were brought in to be Duke of Florence. After his death, Cosimo I became duke at only 17 years old. People thought that they would be able to easily control him, but he became very powerful and eventually was named grand duke of Tuscany. He moved his family from the Palazzo Medici to the Palazzo Vecchio. His move into this government building marked the end of the republic in Florence. While he lived there, the fourth building phase was carried out and renovations were made to the rest of the palace. The beams on the right were built as a way to support the weight of the elaborate ceiling on the room in the middle picture. The rooms on the left is the treasury room of Cosimo’s son Francesco. Behind the paintings he kept the many precious things he collected and it is believed that the subject of the paintings hints at what would have been found behind it. However, behind one of the paintings, there is a secret doorway that has a passageway connecting to Cosimo’s own treasury room. Fun fact: Francesco and his wife Isadora di Toledo both practiced alchemy.
The day after the secret passage tour, I went back to Palazzo Vecchio with my Palaces of Florence class. We got to see some of the same things on the tour, and we also got to go up to the tower where I took this picture of the skyline of Florence.
I decided to skip the Rome trip this past weekend in order to take some time to explore Florence some more. As part of the API program, we get free tickets to the Duomo complex during the month of November. This included entrance to the Baptistry, Bell Tower, Duomo, and the opportunity to climb to the top of the cupola. I climbed both the cupola and the bell tower for a total of 877 steps. I don’t know how people do it in the summer because I was sweating in 50F weather! The picture on the left is the front of the Duomo and the one on the right is the view of the Duomo from the bell tower.
The view from the top down onto the piazza and of the Florence skyline. The other cupola you can see in the skyline picture is San Lorenzo Church. Once you are at the top of the Duomo’s cupola, you are standing on the tallest building in Florence. This building is a symbol of power for the Florentines and was started in 1296 and not finished until the 19th century. The famous dome on the top is the work of famous Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi. At the time, it was not known how to build domes of this size. The architects could look to works of the ancient Romans, such as the Pantheon, but they did not have building plans to understand how it was done. Brunelleschi ended up inventing an entirely new way to build the cupola. It consists of and inner and outer shell and bricks laid in a specific orientation so that they hold each other in place and can support the enormous weight of the structure. During building, Brunelleschi also had to invent new machinery in order to get the materials up so high for building. The Renaissance was truly full of geniuses. Of the many notable events that took place in the Duomo, perhaps the most famous is the murder of Giuliano de’Medici (brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent) during mass. The intention, in what was dubbed “The Pazzi Conspiracy” was to kill both Lorenzo and Giuliano in order to end Medici reign in Florence. However they were not successful and all of the conspirators were executed or exiled.
During the same weekend, I also went to the Uffizi gallery. Above are two famous works by Sandro Botticelli. On the left is “The Birth of Venus” and the left is “Primavera”. Simonetta Vespucci is believed to be the model for Venus and the other female figures in both paintings.
There are statues lining the hall of the top floor of the Uffizi and many other rooms dedicated to statues. Above are images of some of the more dramatic ones I saw.
Religious paintings are numerous in the gallery, but instead of the many “Madonna with Child” paintings, here are some angels. I recognized the one on the right as a painting that my family had on our living room for a while and my mom told me that my Gigi and Grandpa Jack actually bought copies of this painting and some others while they were visiting Florence before she was born!
I was glad to see that some artists took time to work on the more important things in life. Dogs. On the left is a Renaissance Bo and on the right is a statue of a good boy that greets you as you enter the gallery.
Even though I live right next to it, Monday was my first time visiting Santa Croce. It is a huge church and has the tombs of some of the most famous people from Florence. On the left is the main alter with Jesus on the Cross. On the right is a statue that is said to be the much older “sister” of the Statue of Liberty.
Galileo Galilei and Michelangelo (di Lodovico Buonarroti) are two of the most notable people buried in the church.
Dante is not buried at Santa Croce because he was exiled from Florence and died in Ravenna, Italy, but there is still a huge monument to him. There is also a monument to Leonardo da Vinci who died in France.
On Tuesday night I went to an opera, because we got free tickets with API. All the singers were very good. I had no idea what was going on the whole time despite having both Italian and English subtitles on screens above the stage the whole time.
For my palaces class this Wednesday we visited Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens. This palace was started by Luca Pitti, but was expanded by many others. Some of the largest expansion, as well as the creation of the garden, came when Eleonora di Toledo (the wife of Cosimo I de Medici) purchased it. The couple continued to live in Palazzo Vecchio, but had a corridor built between the two palaces (and they are not close together) so that they could move between them without having to walk on the street. If you have someone to point it out, you can follow the corridor the whole way. It is currently closed to the public to actually go inside unfortunately.
Some of the decorations are very interesting and have a kind of dripping stone look, similar to that of the statue of the Giant and Parc di Pratolino. At the time of the Medici expansion of this palace, architecture and art were shifting away from classic Renaissance style towards Baroque. The image on the right is the outside of the largest of 3 grottos within the garden. The grottos were used in the summer time as a place to cool down as they had a fountain inside and water running down the walls.
Even though we are well into November, the leaves are still in New England September mode. This was actually the first time I saw trees with changed leaves in Florence. It is hard to see, but on the right is a view of the garden and between the trees you can see the Duomo.
There’s no Thanksgiving in Europe, so it’s full blown Christmas time. Walking around the city you can see Christmas lights and various other decorations. In the coming weeks there is even going to be a Christmas Market right in front of Santa Croce!
Even though there’s no Thanksgiving here, API set up a Thanksgiving dinner but with some Italian quirks. For the first course we had a pumpkin soup that was super delicious. For the second course most people had turkey with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. As a veggie, they offered me mashed potatoes and eggplant parmesan which was good, but interesting. For dessert we were told we were getting pumpkin pie and the picture on the right is apparently what Italians consider to be pumpkin pie. It was closer to a carrot cake with a lemon sauce. It was still really good though. I was mostly just happy that they gave me whipped cream.
As I mentioned before, Florence does a Christmas market right in front of Santa Croce, so I walk by it every day to and form the apartment. They have tons of food and gifts and I hope to eat a lot more food from there in the last week, but so far I have only gotten one rosemary pretzel. 10/10 recommend.
LdM put on a photo exhibit for the end of the semester and three of my photos were chosen. It was hard to get a picture without getting a glare, but on the left is a glare-less picture of someone pondering them.
For the last visit for my Palaces of Florence class we visited Corsini Palace which is one of the only palaces that is along the Arno River and is Baroque style.
Some of the descendants of the orignal owners are still involved in the upkeep of the palace. The woman in the middle image is one of those people and she actually took us on the tour. On the left is a portrait of her grandmother and on the right are some artists working on restoring some of the artwork in the palace. The woman who gave us the tour and her sister put a lot of work into restoring the palace.
This is some of the artwork within the palace. On the left are paintings that the family have collected over the years including some by famous Renaissance artists including Botticelli.
Christmas in Florence continues! On the right is central markets all decked out in some impressive Christmas lights. Sunday, the 8th, was the feast of the immaculate conception, so there were multiple tree lightings around Florence. My roommates and I went to the one in the Piazza del Duomo and it was really cool to be in huge square full of people all coming together to watch the tree light. Everyone wanted to get a video of the moment it happened, but in true Italy fashion it was almost half an hour late, so there were a lot of tired arms. Overall a very fun and joyful time though
Florence definitely made it hard to leave. The last couple of days were filled with good food, amazing sites, and even better friends. On the right is an unedited picture of the sky above the Christmas Market. We definitely have never seen such purple skies before! On the right is a picture I took of the Duomo that I took on the way to one of my finals in the morning. I knew the last two days were going to be cloudy, so I wanted to get one last golden picture of it. I’m definitely going to miss having this sight on my walks to class.
Why grocery shop when you can spend the last week in Italy eating all the pasta, pizza, and pastries? These are two of the dishes that I enjoyed during the week. On the left is truffle and gorgonzola gnocchi from Trattoria ZaZa. This restaurant is pretty popular in Florence. They’re famous for having a special truffle menu and getting their ingredients fresh from the market (which is right next door) every day. On the right is a pistachio pizza! I had never heard of putting pistachio on pizza, but I was pretty excited that it existed. If there’s two foods I think America is really missing the full potential of that Italians get right, it’s pistachio and apricot. Pistachio cornetto, pistachio gelato, pistachio pizza – all great. For our last night together, me and my friends/roommates finally went to dinner at one of the restaurants right below our apartment and this is where I discovered the fabled pistachio pizza.
Thursday was a sad day because Beka, Jordan, and Tess had to leave early the next day for Amsterdam, so it was our last day together. It was really fun being roommates with them and luckily, they all go to Umass, so we can meet up back in America too.
On Friday, I didn’t have to leave for Rome until nighttime, so Dakota and I did a farewell tour of Florence. We went to a café for breakfast, visited all our favorite piazzas and, of course, got one last gelato from Edoardo’s. It was a very sad tour, and we’re all going to miss Florence and each other a lot. I’m so glad that I chose Florence to be my city for these last four months. I think it was the perfect place to be and I’ve had so much fun both being there and traveling around. There’s so much I’m going to miss about being there from the beauty of the art and architecture to the food to the people to the opportunity to grow as a person. I hope that one day I will be back and that it is just as wonderful as I remember it to be.
Belle's Study Abroad