When Darling Daughter got to go to New York when she was 16, I insisted on spending a weekend with her (sleeping on her floor for lack of other space) just so I could say I'd been there. I know a trip to New York is supposed to include the theaters and the shopping and the museums; I was fascinated enough with just seeing how old it is. DD had planned our weekend beautifully: we did the subways, we looked across the harbor toward the Statue of Liberty and then made our way to the Empire State Building to see her from there. We walked through Central Park and Times Square and rode the escalators to the top of Macy's—because DD had discovered that the higher you go, the older and creakier they are, and she and I are both fascinated by escalators. We did New York on maybe $5 a day and loved it.
But New York doesn't know old; Florence knows old. I purposely booked a room off the list of fine places, and got one on sale cheap as a part of my continuing campaign not to spend because "luxury" is important; I've just reached a point where I want to be happy with "enough." Besides, I had no idea what the "luxury" hotels were like (except expensive), and I wanted to get on a level with the people of Florence. I'm glad I did; the young woman who is managing the hotel (with an option to buy it) is a delight, and she has been adorable about taking care of me.
On my first frustrating day here, she pointed out a couple of places to eat that were probably already closed by the time I had checked into my room, so I scouted around the block and found a little sandwich shop where I got a slice of pizza, a glass of wine, and a meringue cookie. (I had eaten a salad in Rome before leaving the airport; it wasn't great, but it satisfied my need for protein and vegetables, and the menu at the restaurant I found seemed to be limited to pizza and sandwiches; the pizza seemed the less damaging to my blood sugar.) After I ate, I hauled my butt back to the hotel, up the six flights of stairs to my room (Charlotte tells me the building may be too old to install an elevator), and dumped myself into bed.
I had a meeting the next afternoon, but I followed Charlotte's directions to a shop where I bought a converter for my laptop, then used her map to turn myself seven ways from Sunday in search of the little lunch spot she'd told me about. After two days here, I'm pretty sure M.C. Escher drew all the maps, because I'm pretty sure the streets don't fit together the way the maps suggest that they do, and I'm not sure some of what they do is even possible. I don't think I've been able to "around the block" yet and come out anywhere close to where I thought I started, and I know that if I come out of one street and turn around to go back down it, I wonder if I'm playing "lady or the tiger," since I'm not sure how to get back to where I came from.
I did manage to get from the electronics shop to the restaurant, where I was seated with a man from Florence who happily downed several plates of food, and a couple from Ohio who ate a couple of dishes and grinned when they got the check: the same meal that had cost them 60 euros at another shop the day before cost about 11 at Mario's. Something about Mario's made it seem perfectly natural to sit and strike up a conversation with strangers—no doubt a part of its charm. And I got from Mario's back to the drag where my hotel is, so I got easily to the convention center for the afternoon meeting.
After the meeting, I came back to the hotel to drop some things then ventured out, map in hand to find Charlotte's recommended pizza place for an early dinner before I came back to the room to work. I wound my way past the impressive cathedral they call the "Duomo" (no doubt because of the huge domes on each end of it) and down a series of narrow, cobbled streets toward the restaurant. At one point, the map showed the road widening a bit, so I turned just ahead of the wide space onto what appeared to be a narrow back alley and came up in a block or two to the restaurant. The door bore a sign that said something about 1630, so I assumed the place opened at 4:30, which was just a few minutes later. I picked a direction, held my breath, and took off in search of a Coke.
I found one a couple of blocks away, back at the wide spot in the road. I paid for my drink, looked around to get my bearings in case I needed to go there again, and turned back to the restaurant. This time the manager was there, but he told me the restaurant wouldn't open until 7. Would I like a reservation? Well, since I really wasn't too sure how far I was from my hotel but I was pretty sure I didn't want to walk there and back again, I said sure and promised to be back.
The wide spot in the road was filled with street vendors, so I stopped to look at a couple of items that interested me: some scarves I thought DD might like, some wallets and a small leather purse I thought Number One Son and I might like, beads and t-shirts and all sorts of souvenirs. One of the vendors was really animated and a great deal of fun, but I wound up buying only a snowglobe with the Duomo inside.
Back at the restaurant, I discovered that the main diner was open at 7, but the pizza place Charlotte recommended wouldn't open until 7:30. The manager let me sit until time for the pizza shop to open, then ushered me in. The pizza I got was okay; I did enjoy watching the chef stuff wood into his stove, and I was amazed at how quickly the pizzas cooked. But while the crust was quite delightful, the pizza itself seemed rather bland by comparison to the "garbage can" pizzas back home—especially while Soldier Son had been working as a delivery guy and bringing home pizzas topped with whatever happened to be left over in his store.
After I ate, I pulled out my map, oriented myself the best I could in the dark, and headed off down what seemed to be the logical street—just as a rainstorm hit. I ducked from overhang to overhang until I found a fairly dry place along a long, blank wall, where I hugged the wall to wait out most of the storm. As it began to let up, I found myself back at the wide spot in the road, so I turned more or less back toward the direction I thought was "home." I soon realized that I was at the opposite end of the Duomo from my hotel, so I stayed put and hugged the far side of the cathedral, still dodging occasional raindrops, until I came to a warm-looking shop with one of about a jillion displays of "gelato" inside. I'd been on my feet for most of the last 4 hours, so I treated myself to a lemon sherbet cone. It was to die for.
From the Duomo I knew my way home, and the trip back was easy enough that I think I may brave it again, this time to try the main restaurant.
Today was filled with meetings from noon until after 5, so I spent the morning on the jobs I should have done last night, visited some of the street vendors near my hotel, and took off for my meetings. By the time I made it back from the convention center in "5 o'clock traffic" (the pedestrians were thick as thieves, even though this is Sunday), I was ready to venture out in search of nonpizza supper. Charlotte was disappointed that I hadn't much liked her favorite pizza place, but she tenuously handed me a card for a little restaurant nearby that someone had said was good.
I struck off bravely again, following my poor, slightly soggy map the best I could, and fascinated by streets that seemed narrower and more twisty than even the ones I had trekked yesterday. I wound my way to the right place fairly directly, again to discover that dinner time was not until 7—by now only a half-hour or so away. I promised to be back "if I don't get lost" and took off with my trusty map again.
This time I headed up the street to the Sta. Maria Novella church, which almost backs up to my hotel, cut across the side closest to the restaurant, and took the first left turn. By that time, of course, I was already lost but just didn't know it; I have no idea whether I actually turned down a street (it sort of looked like one, so I'm thinking it was), much less what street it might have been. Some of the larger streets have signs that often start with pointers to points of interest (but not, as far as I can tell, to tourists) and sometimes the street name below that. Some of the smaller streets have cornerstones of sorts mounted 30 or 40 feet up on a wall that tell the street name at that point; they have a way of changing names randomly in the middle of a block without warning, the best I can tell. Even smaller streets and streets that deadend into other streets don't necessarily appear to have any signage at all, so the names on the map appear to be sort of wishful thinking.
My plan had been to take a left, walk two blocks, take a right, and see the "Borgo Ognissanti" in about the middle of the block. I saw something with a name sort of like that across what looked like a parking lot (but may have been a "plaza"), but I didn't recognize a church like the one drawn on my map. That's not to say it wasn't there; I didn't hike across the plaza and look back in the right direction. Instead, I just had a sinking feeling that I didn't have a clue where I was.
Using my Texas logic, I figured that an about-face should put me on a parallel to the street where I had more or less started, and another left would take me back to the Novella, which was just steps away from the restaurant. I struck off almost as bravely as stupidly toward whatever direction that was.
The next "intersection" was a wide spot in the road that appeared to hook up to a bridge over the local river (which turns out to be the Arno. Go figure). What appeared to be a major thoroughfare (wide enough for maybe two lanes but running maybe four) ran alongside the river; when I turned to look back at where I'd come, I could see the ends of four different streets and the name of a plaza, which I'm pretty sure is the wide spot in the road.
Since I couldn't find any street names, I struck off down one to see where it would go. I had no idea where it would take me, except since the river seemed to be behind me, it pretty much had to be headed toward Sta. Maria Novella. A few yards from the river, I spotted a friend from work and his wife, who invited me to join them for dinner, but I felt as if I should at least try to find the right neighborhood. I couldn't possibly be very far away; I just wasn't at all sure which way.
A few feet farther I found a little "kink" of a street that connected the street I was on to a sort of parallel one that had a name I could find on my map, which led me more or less to believe that I was on the right street. But if the chevron shape of the cross street was right on the map, I was going the wrong way. I felt as if somebody must have blindfolded me and turned me around: I have to have reached that crossroad by walking away from the river, but the angle of the cross street made it appear as if I were walking toward it. By this time, I was pretty sure this maze had cheese in it somewhere, but I was not at all sure where.
A few minutes later, I heard American voices (well, one accent was laced with Canadian, but I found out that he's a transplant), and they were delighted to point me in the right direction. I trusted their judgment, trudged on a few more yards, and found myself at the intersection with the street I was hunting. I could see the Novella from there, so I turned right and walked the few yards to the restaurant.
This time, the meal was well worth it: perfectly grilled steak, sliced thin and topped with spinach. I think it was supposed to have mushrooms, but I wasn't sure what the waiter was describing, so I rejected them. I ordered broccoli because I didn't think to order the cheese and tomato dish they often serve here, but that would have been even better.
Better yet, as I left the manager pointed me back to the Novella, where I circled one side of the plaza and made two turns to get myself home.
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