Highlights-Florence Day 2
I had a good pastry and flat white experience at Caffè San Firenze (bakery-restaurant). I planned to return. I went to Museo del Bargello, the primary location of the national collection of Italian Renaissance sculpture. I marveled at the line outside the All’Antico Vinaio sandwich shop (apparently just as big an attraction as Museo del Bargello and you can’t buy advance tickets!).
Rolling Bag Tap
Cobblestones look great until you roll your bag over a section like this and break a wheel
I’ll just have water
Then you get enough for a thirsty horse! Who drinks 3/4 of a liter of water at a meal? You wouldn’t get a block from the restaurant before desperately needing a bathroom.
Walk naked, carry a big stick
The fish he is stepping on is going to get whacked!
Notable Items
As I was consuming a breakfast snack at Caffe San Firenze, I saw a man not in “the uniform of the day” (all black) setting up furniture in the dining area and energetically wiping down walls and other flat surfaces. You could tell that he wasn’t a regular employee because he was wearing a football jersey, warm up pants, and a ball cap. I don’t think I was that energetic when I was 18!
The Museo del Bargello was a former palazzo built in 1255 (omigosh, before the time of the Aztecs!) to house functions necessary to “safeguard the rights of the population and ensure its economic organization.” Right. Offices established to protect the rights inevitably suffer mission creep, like the Pope (“we just want to provide spiritual guidance”).
The next thing you know, someone decided that the building was better suited for housing the office of justice and maintenance of public order. Jail cells always follow. You can’t maintain public order without a jail. The problem with jails is there are never enough cells for the people who need them. During the expansion, local officials took the 13th century palace and art gallery and plastered over the frescos, permanently damaging them.
It didn’t help fresco preservation that the building was subject to various catastrophes: fires, floods, and sieges. Natural disasters and sieges are tough on frescos.
The best sculptures of the museum are in just a few rooms. I race-walked through the displays of sharp implements, decorative plates, and other signs of wealth that lasted longer than the people who owned them (“this was the duke’s bowl before his death sentence”).
The All’Antico Vinaio sandwich shop is a cultural phenomenon. I saw long lines down the street from the entrance every time I walked by. All’Antico Vinaio’s product is not a sandwich. It is a connection with a social-media fan base bigger than the Rolling Stones. People stand in those lines so they can document that they stood in those lines.
I noted that picture posing comes before eating. (“Here I am with my cute sandwich.” As sandwiches go, they wouldn’t win a beauty pageant.) Three shops down, another sandwich, possibly equally good, sits less interested in fame (it’s difficult to know what interests a sandwich). I wondered if future archaeologists will examine rubbish near the shop and conclude, “Early in the third millennium, a Florentine sandwich cult flourished here.”