After getting the traditional touristic (meaning crowded) aspects of the visit to Florence essentially out of the way, Tauck Tour's "Culturious" aspect began to assert itself. A short ride took our group across the Arno to a neighborhood devoted to restoration studios and antique dealers. We had private visits to two art restoration studios. The first studio was the small workshop of a woman who works exclusively with antiques in ivory, bone, horn, wood, and the like. She appeared to be able to put together the results of explosions and molecular food chefs, if the latter ever were required.
The studio next door was the headquarters for a new association of traditionally non-cooperative restorers as well as a workshop for the repair and renewal of all sorts of art. We learned quite a bit about the business of art restoration and the challenges of organizing independent artizens. Here we saw paintings and sculptures being repaired and also learned the ethic of not being overly zealous and attempting recreation of the piece. Clearly here is where Tauck shines: visiting two places that we would not have known existed and visits would have be extremely difficult to arrange if we wanted to. A stunning morning and we actually learned some things.
We hooked up with yesterday's still babbling but clearly improving local guide at the Santa Croce Church, perhaps a more interesting site than the Florence Cathedral (Duomo) whose interior is mainly large and very crowded. Santa Croce houses the tombs of just about every Renaissance Northern Italian who changed the world. (There were many.) We paid our respects to still scowling Dante. We showed more respect than the figures on the monument who apparently were trying to read The Divine Comedy and couldn't keep awake; we observed the final resting place of Rossini (after being exhumed from Paris' Pere Lachaise Cemetery we visited last summer); and, oh yeah, we walked by the tombs of Galileo and Michelangelo who are there too.
The tour's busy morning ended with a visit to Florence's Central Market, a nice building and I suppose OK with you want to buy a side of beef.
Now at leisure for a few hours, we decided to take another walk away from the others--who all seemed to think the banal food court at the market was the height of sophistication--and checked out some additional neighborhoods around our hotel. We saw a statue of Marlon Brando on a horse and observed a mime snoring: silently, of course.
After a short rest the tour group reformed in the lobby of our hotel for an highlight of the program, a visit to the Palazzo Bargellini (now apparently a condo) where the renown concert pianist, Gregorio Nardi, and his wife reside and run a small museum. The Palazzo was once owned by Nardi's grandfather, a beloved mayor of Florence and operator of a music school of some note (I didn't share this insight). Nardi told the story of his illustrious grandfather and treated us to a short recital of obscure music by well known composers on a classic Steinway. Such music is his specialty, and the sound of a classic well tuned full concert size Steinway in a small room was striking, also very loud. Wine and canapes were served. The Nardi's are a lovely couple who have found a stunning way to supplement a musical career of concertizing and teaching.
After the concert, Barbara and I excused ourselves from the mini-bus ride back to the hotel on the far side of town and took the option of a lovely dusk walk back, stopping at a traditional back street restaurant where we shared a one kilo Florentine T-bone steak and a bottle of local Chiani. Fortunately the hotel was just up the street.
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