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Editor's note: This excerpt first appeared in photographer and author Harold Davis' recent Focal Press book, Photographing Flowers: Exploring Macro Photography with Harold Davis.
The closer you...
Florence is famously cliqueish so
don't plan on getting into interesting social circles on your vacation. The city
does have a few bourgeois divertissements to offer, though.
Opera
When I was in Florence, Un Ballo in Maschera was being staged by the
local chorus and orchestra with singers from around the world. The opera was
ostensibly set in Boston, but the set designer couldn't resist throwing Roman
columns into the "deserted field" scene. What was most Italian about the
experience, however, was the divided reception the lead tenor's arias received.
About one quarter of the audience would clap wildly and one eighth would boo
fiercely. It seems that there were two tenors engaged for this run and fans of
the singer who had the night off were booing.
Opera in Italy is a bit different from American performance. The orchestra pit
is deeper and the orchestra plays softer. Opera is for the singers here. As in
New York, they've raised the prices so high that getting a seat at the last
minute isn't all that tough (I paid 120,000 lire and sat 7th row center). Don't
expect the kind of Baroque splendor you see when James Bond goes to the opera in
Vienna; the Teatro Comunale is a fairly new and plain building, remodeled after
the 1966 flood.
Movies
There are allegedly two theaters in Florence where you can see movies in
English on at least one or two days each week. I was there the week before
Christmas and both were closed until sometime in January.
Hookers
"You really have to go to the riverfront park just on the west side of town
[Le Cascine?]," Barbara, an American artist living in Florence, told me, "because
every night the most extraordinary smorgasbord of women assembles there. You get
16-year-olds from the Balkans and Russia and they really dress the part. The
stand on the street and traffic moves by at about 2 mph. I've always wanted to
stand on the sidewalk there and sketch, but I'm afraid the pimps will chase me
away."
I didn't learn this until hours before my train back to Rome, otherwise I
would have asked a cab driver to "take me to the puttane" and braved the
pimps to get a few snapshots for you.
Please Contribute
I spend most of my evenings writing so I'm not really qualified to describe
what the restless should do at night in Florence. Perhaps one of you gentle
readers will contribute a report.... Just send me email or add it via my comment
server (below).
Free things to do at night:
Get a hold of the "Free Museum Night" events. It's usually posted in a museum, but you can always write down the times or contact the name/number at the bottom. Because the events are free - there may be a long line. But the museums were open from 7 - 10 and I got to see many museums this way. Great for students on a budget! :-) (hint: The museum containing "David" is open for *one* day free 'round Christmas. Long lines, though!)
What?? All these pages about Florence, and you
didn't highlight the Gelato? I just spent two
weeks there, and some nights I can't sleep because
my body is still in withdrawal from the gelato
(the Italian version of ice-cream). Gelato is
life. It is Italy condensed and frozen. Not too
rich, but bursting with flavor. Flavor upon
flavor, color upon color lined up well-lit
under glass. Each evening, all of Florence emerges
from their 2 hour dinners to find good Gelato and
stoll through the squares arm in arm. Old men
debate. Young lovers retreat to quiet corners.
Musicians curculate.
The Italians know how to live.
If you get a chance, go to Vivoli (near St. Croce)
or Festval De Gelato near Pzza. della Republica.
After an exhausting search, I came to the
conclusion that these two were the best. Your
results may differ. . .
I saw the reference to Gelato and must comment myself... I also spent 2 weeks in Italy, living primarily on Gelato of all flavors! I have found nothing like it in the US. Gelato drives my saving and scrimping to return to Italy! If only we had an enjoyable life here! (Well, we do, in a sense I do not find as enjoyable!)
The main problem about Florence is that's it's becoming a little bit to corrupted to the tourist's demands. As pleasing as this may be to the casual tourist who only spends a few days in it, a lot of subtle signs should alert the careful observer to a sad trend towards the cration of a "fake" tourist city (century-and-a-half old coffe-shops closing to make way to yet another prada or armani store marketing overpriced garments to drive-by japanese tourists, for example). The truth is simply that a lot of ancient buldings mean nothing. What eventually makes or breaks a city is it's people. Make a city where young people will want to go to live in and make their dreams, and the city will live on, evolve and prosper. But who today can afford the prices in florence? Certainly not the averagre student or fresh out of college. Sadly, I'm lead to believe that florence will increasingly become a city of big-chain clothing retailers, and other similarily culturally and economically sterile buisinesses.
