It's
amazing what you can turn a rainy day into. At home, I'm
one of those people who, when you've organised a big day
out, if it's raining when they wake up on the day will say
'bollocks to this' and try to find an excuse not to go anywhere.
This is emphatically not the way to approach things, I am
beginning to learn.
On three occasions since I've been here (there have no
doubt been more), major outings have been embarked on regardless
of the weather, when normally I'd be finding the teabags
and a sofa. The first was Lago Santo. The second was going
to see my godfather by the coast in Santa Margherita in
Liguria. The third was a visit to Florence, Firenze, a place
that is, as far as I can tell, the capital of Tuscany and,
once, one of the most influential cities in the world.
There
seems to be a completely different weather system for any
town you go to in Tuscany. When it was raining and miserable
in Barga, Andrew and Abi and I went to Lucca, 40 minutes
away, where at least the sun came out for a bit. When Alessandro
and I went to Florence, though, the sun was more determined.
If I was going to drive to Florence, the sun was damn well
going to come out and show off Florence because the sun,
and no doubt some kind of god (probably related to the guardian
angel of Italian drivers, who hadn't got up yet) decreed
that Florence was no place to see in the rain. How, after
all, could I go from stunning piazza to piazzale in the
drizzle without becoming despondent? This would never do.
The city of Giotto simply must doll itself up, like an old
debutant wanting one last sidelong glance, every day of
the rest of her life.
Odd
bloke, Giotto. Apparently discovered drawing pictures in
the dirt of the sheep/goats he was herding out in the hills
while still a child, he rose to become the founding designer
of some of Florence's most stunning architecture. There's
a little street near the Old Bridge (sounds better in Italian,
as things nearly always do) leading from some lavish piazza
or other that is lined with the statues of the men who had
either built literally, figuratively, fiscally or militarily
the city. Florence was a jewel in a mercantile crown, once,
and ruled a big chunk of northern Italy. Its money ruled
the world, for a time - if you've read any Shakespeare,
you'll have noticed money is often the coin of Firenze,
the florin. As you walk along this street, on either side
of you rise stone columns and with bays inset, coves where
stand these figures, carved in what I'm guessing is marble,
probably from Carrara, the kind of names whole civilisations
are made of: Michelangelo, who had a surname believe it
or not, Dante, who did too, Macchiavelli, who's known by
his, Leonardo da Vinci, whose whole name is one word to
most Americans, Galileo, who's known by his first name because
his parents weren't too adventurous anyway. There are more.
Many more. Florence is wading around waist deep in culture
and history and is not afraid to unpack it, roll it out
on the pavement and stick a price tag on it.
Like
an old prima donna, Florence is kitted out in make-up, a
flashy dress and a walk and talk that smacks of lessons.
It is quite, quite stunning, even on a half-arsed Italian
afternoon. But let me run this by you again because I don't
think it's really sinking in.
Galileo. Giotto. Macchiavelli. Botticelli. Michelangelo.
Dante. Da Vinci. We are not pissing about here, ok? This
is serious. This is the kind of heavy hitting only a few
cities in the world can deliver. In fact, places such as
Florence can almost bandy about names like Da Vinci because
he's a latecomer to the party. There are a handful of other
European towns that can also come up with the goods. Americans
are pitifully aware that they don't have a single city that
can do this kind of bragging (though they try, bless them),
which is probably why there are so many American tourists
in Florence. There are, in fact, more Americans in Florence
than there are in America, or at least it seems so. Combined
with the number of Americans there are in the air at any
one time, this should mean that America is almost empty.
Which perhaps explains why George W Bush gained the presidency,
because the only ones left don't know who Galileo Galilei
actually is.
Florence
came to power mainly under the rule of the Medici family,
honoured in statue form all over the shop. It was one of
the first major mercantile powers of Europe, where merchants,
economics, became far more powerful than monarch rulers.
By the time Alessandro and I arrived in Florence at gone
two it was asking a bit much of anyone to go inside any
of the buildings, churches or exhibitions, but this journey
was, as Alessandro said, just to get a taster of the place.
We will return but, as I discovered in the car on the way
back to Barga late that night, it might take some serious
effort to get Alessandro to come round the Uffizi Gallery
with me, as he's not really an art buff. Neither am I, I
have to admit, but this is a truly famous gallery and I've
got to see it. One day…
From where we'd started walking, at the beginning of the
market, which is truly enormous and apparently on every
day, to where we ended up at the end of the whistlestop
sightseeing tour, the Piazzale di Michelangelo on top of
a hill on the south side of the river Arno, which runs along
near the edge of the city, was a fair number of paces. But
the weather had decided that it liked me that day. We actually
drove to the Paizzale di Michelangelo because really it's
an arse to walk all the way up there if you don't have to
and Alessandro even balked initially at walking down to
the fourth level of the car park. There was no way he was
going to walk up there.
Once
I was up there I had to agree. Though the walk might have
made the view seem more worthy, I doubt it. [Find a panorama
here] I had already felt like I was back in London for a
while, walking around, and something I'd said to Motty the
other day back in Barga over one too many wines came back
to me. Florence was crowded with tourists, as people had
told me it would be, even in October, and I remember that
I'd said to Motty that I was getting worried that when I
returned to London just in time for Xmas I wouldn't like
it any more, that it would be too much, that I would realise
why I'd left it. This was reinforced when we were driving
from the Piazzale di Michelangelo back into town to get
back to the parking lot near the station so we could go
meet some people for dinner.
Rush hour in Florence is truly one of the worst experiences
in a car I've yet had in Italy, and confirms all things
good and bad I've written and read about the abilities here.
Everyone in Florence is obviously a world-class driver because
otherwise the streets would be strewn with corpses. More
calls for heavenly intervention issued from my lips in that
half hour than in the past five years and I, as I've said
before, am an atheist. At one point I felt sure I was about
to be sharing the front seat with a Mercedes. But we survived,
mainly because Alessandro says he has 'good luck', which
to me should not be a prerequisite for driving. However,
the Italians' guardian angel had awoken, and no one appeared
to hit anyone else, that I saw. Eventually, though, I realised
that this was simply a test of my will, it was an Argonaut-style
endurance adventure the prize for which was meeting…
Enrica.
Enrica is one of the first women I've met in Italy who made
me really think "Wow". Now, anyone who's been
reading these blogs and supplements will have looked at
the Veline blog and the Great Escape, for example, know
of my insistence on the existence of the Padua Woman Factory
and think: "Dude, are you saying that these women in
Italy before haven't made you think that?" To which
the answer is, generally, no, or at least 'sort of'. They've
been crackers, by and large, but this isn't the same as
Wow. Wow isn't "how beautiful you are", or at
least not just that. It's that je ne sais quoi, that thing
that makes you want to say "Just hold on a second.
Is this proof of the existence of God? I'm calling the fucking
Pope". Enrica has 'it', whatever 'it' is. This amuses
me greatly as it's one of those moments when you think 'ah,
Alessandro, I don't blame you for driving all the way to
Florence to have dinner with this woman, and I was such
a good excuse for you to do it, and it now must be so annoying
for…'
Her
boyfriend to turn up. Alessandro, in the car later, driving
home, tries to say that he doesn't think that this guy is
Enrica's boyfriend. He's known her for 13 years, he says,
and wouldn't want to have anything like that with her anyway.
This is all in response to my light-hearted statements of
pure and righteous love for Enrica in the car. I think this
guy is her boyfriend because the body language is just too
obvious. If he isn't, something's awry. I keep my comments
about what I really think Alessandro thinks to myself, which
isn't hard because I'm trying to make up lyrics in Italian
about my love for Enrica that scan to the tune of Don't
Cry For Me, Argentina. I think you can do some of the invention
yourself there.
Something amusing happened during the dinner, and something
not so amusing. For an unstoppable self-analyst such as
myself, watching yourself do something that you can't help
but do is like watching the base side of yourself, or rather
the old, reptile/monkey part of your brain take over the
wonderful modern man superstructure above it that likes
to think it's always in control.
There
are many things that, as a man, it's very hard not to do
when seated in front of an attractive woman, such as drool,
pour your drink down yourself by missing your mouth while
trying to look nonchelant, babble incoherently, attempt
to make yourself look cleverer than you are, boast or brag,
subtly compete with any other man you're with (obviously
this is not actually subtle), act like you don't care, etc.
After we sit down to dinner, I make a huge and valiant effort
to push all these things down inside me. Of course I failed
miserably but at least the effort was made. I was not trying
to chat Enrica up, not that I actually know how to do that.
This was just a real treat at the end of the day.
But when her man turned up, something in me just…
snapped. You find yourself trying to find fault in him,
you think she must be mad for going out with this shmuck.
Suddenly I am two people: Standard Rupert and New Rupert.
New Rupert is sitting in his chair thinking 'You're an oaf.
She can't be all that if she wants to go out with you. I
could do better. This isn't fair.' Standard Rupert is leaning
over my shoulder saying 'What the fuck are you thinking?
Have you lost your marbles? Be nice to the man!' It's a
hugely interesting thing to watch if you can gain some temporary
distance from yourself, the competitive base elements of
your self trying to batter their way out of the ego cage.
The
unamusing thing that happened was that, at the beginning
of dinner, Enrica had asked me what I thought of Italy.
I tried to say that, in truth, there were things I liked
and a few things I disliked. Of course Italy was beautiful,
Florence more so, the language wonderful but a little hard,
the surroundings awsome. Unfortunately I used the word 'disgusting'
when I meant instead 'shocking' about the things I didn't
like. 'What were they?' said Enrica, looking shocked. I
realised my error and backpedalled furiously. Don't worry
about it, I said, it's not important. Later in the meal,
after her man had turned up, while he and Alessandro were
talking about something I didn't understand, I turned to
my little dictionary to look up bisnonno (great-grandfather,
as it turned out) and thought I'd look up 'shocking', just
to try to even things out.
After the little conflab was over I said "When I said
'disgusting' earlier, I just meant 'shocking'" to Enrica,
because I honestly didn't want to come across to anyone
as that far wrong, and I was probably also trying to make
myself look better. We need to be honest about these things.
"Shocking?"
said the man. "What's shocking about Italy?" Oh
shit, I thought. Oh nothing, I said. It doesn't matter.
Alessandro is looking at me tight-lipped. "No, tell
me," says the man. "No, really, it's very difficult
for me to explain," I say. "Then we'll talk about
it English," he says, smiling. Looking back, I'm not
sure this was an entirely friendly kind of smile, though
he was very friendly. "Well, you really want to know?
You really want an example?" I say. This is trouble.
"Yes," he says.
"Well, I don't like the attitude in the news and on
TV about the clandestini," the illegal immigrants,
I say. Italy, in news, is more than marginally obsessed
with immigration. It seems worse even than the coverage
in the UK, with our use of nasty words like 'tide' of immigrants,
'flood' etc., likening them to some stuff that gets washed
up on the beach. Here, bodies really are often washed up
on the beaches, so desperate are some people to get here
and so difficult is it to patrol Italy's vast coastline.
But I don't like the way it's presented and I don't like
that it's on the news so often, almost every day, that it
seems to be presented as the most important thing to be
happening. "It seems like brainwashing," I say.
By this point I'd already had one 'moment' with the man,
when he was talking about my learning Italian. "It's
the language of song," he says. "English is so
flat." Normally I'd just say 'well, it depends on who's
talking I suppose', or some other non-commital semi-denial.
But this time, with this man, and because probably of Enrica
or something, it really gets on my tits. Earlier he's already
said people want to come to Italy because "we're so
intelligent and so beautiful". At first I thought he
was making a kind of joke, so arrogant did this sound. Now
I begin to get the feeling that it wasn't. So I just look
at him and say "Well, why don't you try learning it
better, then you won't find it so flat", which I don't
think goes down brilliantly.
So
after the brainwashing comment things start to get a little…
heated, but not in a really bad way. Alessandro is trying
to keep things under control and even looks like he wants
to leave. He's coming close to saying it. I'm constantly
trying to back out of the conversation myself, but this
guy won't leave it alone. "We're not used to having
these people here," he says, "Italy hasn't welcomed
people from other places. It's different in England,"
he says, "where you have a history of people coming
to your country." "It's not different," I
say. Things are just as bad at home, people still don't
get on with immigration and in my opinion it's at least
in part the media's fault. "You had colonies,"
he says. France had colonies, I say, and they've still got
problems with people disliking immigrants, so this argument
doesn't stand up. I leave out talking about Italy's colonies
because we'd end up talking about the war, something I really
don't want to do. "When I was at school there was only
one black child," he says, grinning, "and he would
always feel different. He was the black kid," he says,
or something very close to it. I don't remember this last
phrase too well because I was beginning to see red, rather
than black. This was not going well and I was getting the
impression that he and I did not see eye to eye on these
matters.
"We
are not predisposed to all these people coming to our country,"
he says. "We have not had to deal with this."
Not only do I not believe this but I don't believe it's
the whole story even if it were to be true.
"Well," I say, "now is the time to learn."
He nods. Now is the time.
Alessandro calls it a day and I'm relieved. This has not
gone entirely according to plan. I'm afraid Alessandro is
pissed off with me about all this. We all leave the restaurant
and things are quiet on our walk back through town, which
looks beautiful at night with rain-slicked streets. After
a short walk we split from them and walk back towards the
car park.
"Are you not happy with me?" I ask Alessandro.
"Not happy? Why should I not be happy?" he says.
"I thought, after I was speaking with that man…"
Alessandro
laughs, and explains that he kept out of the conversation
because he could see what was coming and knew why I wouldn't
get on terribly well with him. I laugh, and we talk about
Enrica. I say how that, before, I simply thought it to be
true and now I know that all the beautiful women are taken,
"tutte le belle donne sono preso". Alessandro
laughs and says he doesn't think Enrica is. I laugh at him
and argue that I think she is. "Anyway," says
Alessandro, "Italian women like that change their men
every year, because they can. It's no problem."
And then we're back in the car and a two-hour journey home
making up love songs about a woman I barely know and he
knows all too well.
Perhaps he's right, perhaps he's known her long enough
to know what she's like, and perhaps I'm right too, that
if that's the kind of thing she agrees with she's not all
that.
But Enrica and Firenze have 'it', whatever 'it' is. Both
have plenty of history I've only had a sniff of, and both
of them are just a little too busy, right now. |