Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/CHZZPzL1SXBhQw1N9
After Napoli, Steve and I took a 3 hour train up to Florence. Florence is always one of those cities that has been romanticized in my mind, so it’s not a surprise that it was somewhat of a mild disappointment. The food was arguably the best in Italy – our final dinner in L’Osteria di Giovanni was excellent (we even had a Goodfellas-style walk through the back and wine cellar to get seated). Every meal here was really good, and we also splashed at a famous spot for a Bistecca Fiorentina, which is a giant, 1kg+ T-Bone steak that is served rare. And I would go as far as to say that the exterior of the Duomo might be my favorite church exterior outside of Russia (no church will ever compare to St. Basil’s or Church of the Spilled Blood for me). The entire Duomo complex had almost like a checkerboard look, which I believe is due to the fact that it was all late-medieval/early-renaissance. Just a very unique look. But the interior of the Duomo was just so bleh, which was further exaggerated by the 1 hour wait time (I miss COVID). Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the baroque majesty of Rome, but it was sparsely decorated and due to COVID restrictions, you couldn’t walk around freely and thus could only see one half of the interior of the dome. I will say the paintings on the interior of the actual dome were quite cool, and it almost looked like a drawing instead of a painting.
Literally every church in the city charged like 10 euros as an entrance fee as they had been converted into a “museum”, which seemed like a rip off. Besides that, the city itself was charming but in a generic Euorpean medieval sort of way…just sanitized clean narrow streets, so I felt that it lacked character compared to Naples or even Rome, which both felt like they had much more lived-in old quarters. Still, I obviously enjoyed Florence, but just not to the level of southern Italy, which I think is understandable given my interests.
One of the highlights was visiting the Santa Croce church/masoleum. The stained-glass windows here were pretty cool – the first ones we saw in all of Italy.. The paintings all along the soaring altar area were also nice, and much like the Duomo dome, stylistically looked very crisp. It was also cool as this is the burial spot for Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Galileo, who all had pretty magnificent tombs built in here. The other main highlight was of course the Uffizi museum, which had an excellent Renaissance collection. Not to be too contrarian, but I was whelmed by the Da Vinci room they had there, while the Raphael paintings in particular were really cool for me. I think it’s the colors…both Michelangelo and Raphael seem to have painted with much more vibrant colors, while it seems like the Da Vinci’s that I have seen have been a bit more dull.
Anyways, back to Florence. The other super-famous piece of art I saw here was Michelangelo’s David statue. Obviously this was also pretty cool and very impressive (especially the veins in his arms, hands, and feet). But still, much like Da Vinci, I couldn’t help but feel like Michelangelo as a sculptor is a bit overrated. While it’s obviously a bit more realistic than the ancient Greek and Roman statues (especially with things like veins), in general I didn’t find David or the other Michelangelo sculptures we saw to be in any way more impressive than the antiquity ones. And in terms of Renaissance/post Renaissance era, the veiled Christ and the guy breaking free of the net statues in the Capella Sansevero in Napoli were far, far more impressive. Those are probably the best sculptures I have ever seen in my life. The other cool thing we saw in Florence was the Baptistery, which is just across the Duomo. The golden mosaic covering the domed ceiling was stunning, as it basically narrated the Old Testament and Jesus’ life, ending with some beasts eating people which I can only assume to be the Book of Revelations.
So Steve flew out back home after Florence to be home in time for Thanksgiving, while I continued on my own to Bologna. Bologna was a cookie-cutter “decent but forgettable” European city. The same shtick that you see everywhere on this continent – pretty buildings, narrow streets, old school architecture. Much like how I find colonial towns/cities repetitive in both Latin America and Asia, I’m sort of the same with European cities. I need a bit more “oomph” to excite me. The food here was very good, but not necessarily that much better than elsewhere in Italy for the supposed culinary capital of the country. I would place Napoli and Florence a bit higher and my short stay in Bologna was probably comparable to Rome food-wise. So still very good! One unique thing here was that the main basilica of the city has a 15th century mural which depicts the Prophet Mohammed getting eaten/tortured in Hell. Due to this, the basilica has actually faced Islamic terrorist threats in the past, and there’s a decent security around it. The mural itself is also roped off so I had to zoom in on my phone to grab a pic of it, so it isn’t the best quality.
The main reason I stopped by in Bologna was to take a day trip to Ravenna, and it did not disappoint. Ravenna is home to numerous churches that house 1500 year old Byzantine mosaics that are basically in perfect condition, including what is probably the most famous Byzantine mosaic, a depiction of the emperor Justinian, who was the one who briefly reconquered Italy. More than Jordan or Istanbul, these were easily the best mosaics I have ever seen, and I honestly think that Ravenna was the highlight of Italy after Rome and Napoli. There are seven churches in total with old mosaics, but one was like a 30 minute cab ride out of town so I didn’t go, and one (that was actually built by Theodoric, the king of the Ostrogoths) closed at like 12pm so I unfortunately missed it. Speaking of Theodiric, he also had a mausoleum outside of town that I trekked out to, only to discover that it too closed at 12pm. Got a view of it from a distance…definitely one of those things that I would have found way cooler in another country, but was just “eh” given the ridiculous wealth of stuff to see in Italy. Another cool thing about Ravenna is that this is where Dante’s tomb is. I didn’t really know much about him before coming to Italy but since 2021 is his 700 year death anniversary there’s stuff about him everywhere…he’s basically considered the father of the Italian language.
Anyways, of the five churches with mosaics I saw, my two favorite were these two small baptisteries (which is where baptisms happened, as old school Christianity had a separate building for them). One of them, dedicated to a Byzantine emperor’s daughter, had these stunning bright blue designs that honestly could have been straight from Uzbekistan. The other had this really cool design of the twelve apostles and Jesus up top. This one was interesting because it depicted Jesus getting baptized while naked, so you could see his dick…typically it’s not kosher to display his privates, which I think is understandable. I texted Steve and he said it was probably since that time period was the window between the sensuality of nudes being removed but before nudes were shameful, as it still carried old pagan GrecoRoman conventions. Another interesting Jesus depiction that happened multiple times was that he showed up without any facial hair, which I thought was pretty unique.
After Bologna, I took a train over to Milan, mainly just to see Milan’s Duomo and Da Vinci’s Last Supper painting. The Last Supper was pretty cool, to be honest. It was shockingly in terrible condition, but even despite that, I found myself staring at it nonstop for the 15 minutes that my ticket granted me. In terms of large paintings, it certainly is a good deal behind School of Athens for me, but that’s largely because of the pristine condition that School of Athens is. I still maintain that Da Vinci is overrated as a painter, but this was definitely cool to see ever since I really learned about this painting after reading Da Vinci code way back in the day.
I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed my brief time in Milan. Honestly not much to do here as a “tourist” city, but it was easily the most livable place I visited in Italy. Honestly I wouldn’t say it felt particularly Italian in any way – walking to and from the Last Supper in the dark, which was 50 minutes each way from my hostel, and I could have been in Chicago. But that was part of why I liked it – just gave off vibes as an incredibly fun and easy place to live in (if not expensive). Obviously a very different feel to a pure tourist city like Florence, or a gritty spot like Napoli.
Anyways, the following morning, I went and saw the Duomo before grabbing an evening train off to Venice. The Milan Duomo has almost nothing in common with the Florence Duomo, and I would honestly place the Milan Duomo right behind the magnificent Baroque masterpieces of Rome. This was a purely Gothic cathedral, with massive stained glass windows inside and just giant arched stone hallways. It was definitely a good primer for all the Gothic churches and cathedrals I’ll be seeing in France. My favorite part of this church was a statue from the 1500s of St. Bartholomew, who was completely flayed. Definitely a very memorable image, to say the least. I also paid a bit extra to go up to the top of the roof as per my sister’s recommendation – she visited Milan for a weekend just before it shut down for COVID while she studied abroad. There was a good bit of construction/renovation going on at the top, but it gave great aerial views of the city below as well as a cool close up look of all the spires and statues at the top of the cathedral. Overall there’s honestly not much to *do* in Milan, but it’s a great but expensive city and the Duomo and The Last Supper definitely made it a good stopover point for me on the way to Venice.
Venice, to me, was probably slightly below Suzhou in my “canal city” rankings. Definitely slides in above Amsterdam, but St. Petersburg is and always will be a clear cut #1 for me. It’s a very pretty city, with countless scenic alleyways and small canal crossings. Easily spent a few hours just wandering around and getting lost while buying these small desserts to munch on. In terms of major sights, I do think Venice was a little underwhelming…the Doge’s Palace is a nice, typically grand European palatial residence, but was outrageously priced at 25 euros. Definitely up there with the Colosseum and Acropolis as just major major ripoffs of the past month+ in Europe (on the flip side, other 20 euro attractions like Pompeii and Herculaneum for me were severely under priced, so this isn’t a blanket Europe criticism). That said, definitely glad I saw it, and it was cool to see the government headquarters of a European superpower that was not a monarchy. I’m so used to viewing Venice as an annoying AI country to deal with in the video game Europa Universalis IV, so to actually walk around the Doge’s Palace was pretty cool in that sense.
Saint Mark’s Basilica is definitely one of those sights that I think I would have liked more had I come at another time. It was under heavy renovation and the lighting inside was terrible, so you couldn’t really see the detail in all the stunning Byzantine mosaic work that was in there. The one amazing thing about Venice was the total lack of tourists, which was surprising given the swarm that was there in Milan, Rome, and especially Florence. Given how compact Venice actually is, it’s another one of those spots I would almost certainly have hated had it been fully crowded. Though I think in this case, it was more due to the cold weather than COVID.
The food in Venice was standard quality for Italy, nothing overly special. But the desserts here were easily the best I had so far. In general, I had been very underwhelmed by Italian desserts, especially given how good Italian food is overall. But the desserts up here were more similar to what I think of as German desserts, with a lot more cake and cookie like things which are my favorite types of European desserts. There was this local pizzeria next to my hostel that had these fist-sized almond puff cookies that were to die for, definitely one of the food highlights of Italy. Overall, the food in Italy was great, and besides Napoli and Florence being a step above I think the rest was fairly even. Definitely a distant fourth for me – maybe I just crave spicy food – but India is a clear cut first, and I think Mexico and China (from my brief 10 days in China plus the stuff I had in Singapore) are a close 2/3. Unlike those 3 countries, for me Italy was more characterized by the consistently good food you get (pretty much no mediocre meals) with very few “WOW” meals that are just outrageously good. But that’s probably because I grew up in New York and lived in Chicago, two cities with very good Italian food, so have come to expect good Italian food. Like for example, the best Italian food I have ever had (by some distance) was in Spiaggia in Chicago when my sister visited one weekend – sadly they have since shut down because of COVID.
Overall, I think Italy slides in comfortably as my favorite European country that I have been to, after Russia of course. Rome was amazing, the day trips from Napoli were amazing, Ravenna was amazing, Milan and Venice were cool, and Florence, as overrated as it was, probably has the best overall Renaissance art collection that I have seen. Can’t say I have any interest in seeing the Amalfi Coast or Cinque Terre – coastlines are nice I guess but they aren’t really my thing. I think 2.5 weeks was a good amount of time for Italy – definitely ready to move on, and had I stayed longer some of the tier 3 places that I sort of want to see, like Turin or Genoa, would have just been a snooze for me. The one area of Italy that I actually really want to see later is Sicily. Flying to Lyon tomorrow and meeting up with a friend from my El Mirador jungle trek in Guatemala (we also met up in Utila in Honduras). After that, planning on going up to Strasbourg and that area for a few days, before meeting my sister for a week in Paris while she “works from home”, 4pm-midnight. I’ll probably be in France for just under 3 weeks, and I am thinking of going to Spain for a bit (another friend from Utila lives in Barca and said she is hosting an xmas party so that would sort out my holiday plans) before bouncing to the UK end of December.