After a hot shower and a real nights sleep in a quiet dark room that doesn't smell, I feel like a whole new person. A cleaner person. Natan, when I asked him if he thought my blog was accurate, said it was except that I didn't complain about the last hostel enough. Well, for the record, the last hostel was such a pit that no amount of complaining would be enough, so I barely tried. But anyway that's all over now, and not a minute too soon.
Florence is full of tourists. Rome was too, but I think because Florence is so much smaller, you notice it that much more. Plenty of Americans, too. I'm tired of hearing my own accent.
The best most interesting museum I have seen so far is the one I went to this morning, with Galileo's instruments and all kinds of other old scientific and mathematical machinery that was once the height of technology and is now old and mysterious. All of these little pieces of equipment, half of them made out of gold and insanely complex and beautiful, for doing geometry, and little crazy bubbles of glass in interesting shapes for chemistry or alchemy or something. It was amazing. However they did not allow cameras (boooo) and were charging about $55 for a museum catalogue (hiss) so I sadly walked away emptyhanded picture-wise.
The famous synagogue here is ultra-weird. It's only about 150 years old and looks like a fucked-up cross between a mosque and a cathedral. Not Jewish-feeling at all. The wall and ceiling designs are pretty, but....weird. Again no cameras allowed so I only got a few crappy outside shots through the gate.
The church of San Miniato is way up the side of a hill, so there's all kinds of panoramic city views, but for me that wasn't as cool as the church itself, or the cemetary around it. There's all these stairs and walkways going around all sides of the basilica, and every nook and cranny or big empty space has graves and mausoleums. Tons of statues are in these little alcoves behind gates, which makes them look like cells, and then other alcoves just have random bits of building material or furniture. Sort of labyrinthish and creepy/cool.
The deceased have a good view
I really loved the church itself, too. It was almost pitch black inside (in the middle of the afternoon) and cold. It felt like this enormous cavern underground, or carved out of rock. So simple compared to all these other cathedrals I've been seeing and to me, so much more effective in really giving that hair-raising "whoah" feeling.
Hard to get a snap of, though. Plus I felt weird trying.
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