A Room With A Movie
I’ve been looking at pictures from my trips, which reminds me that I haven’t been anywhere far enough to get jet lag in almost three years. Soon to follow: Stir-craziness.
In Florence, I was told, everything is within walking distance. I would’ve walked from the train station to my hotel if I knew where it was. According to my online booking form it was close to the Campanile of the Duomo. I hauled my two suitcases into the number 7 bus. “Duomo? Campanile?†I asked the driver. “Si,†he said.
The landmarks I was looking for.
There was a group of noisy Pinoy teenagers on the bus, all dressed like hiphop buccaneers—shiny baggy tracksuits, bandanas, trainers. I didn’t feel like being interviewed (“Pilipino ka? Taga-saan ka? Mag-isa ka? Bakit mag-isa ka? Saan ka titira?â€) so I showed no reaction when they conversed loudly in Tagalog. They looked at me pointedly, then left me alone.
I don’t know how I managed it, but I missed the Duomo and then I noticed that we were in the hills. “Duomo? Campanile?†I asked the driver again. “Si,†he said. He let me off at the Duomo—in Fiesole, a hill-town outside Florence where the natives retreated in the summer.
An hour and a return trip later, I found the Hotel Medici, which was indeed within spitting distance of the Duomo if you had very powerful cheeks. A sign said the front desk was on the fifth floor. There was an ancient elevator that didn’t seem to work. I’d dragged my suitcases up a flight of stairs before I realized that the elevator did work, an alarming assortment of creaks and groans issuing from the antique machinery.
The signora at the front desk announced that I had “a room with a viewâ€, a happy omen because it was E.M. Forster’s novel that got me interested in Florence in the first place. (And the Merchant-Ivory movie, although I know Julian Sands and Daniel Day-Lewis are not likely to appear.) Later I realized that every innkeeper in Florence promises a room with a view.
I was given keys for the outer door, the inner door, and the closet. The wood had warped so the doors were constantly getting stuck, and the rusty locks required much turning of keys. My room was tiny but had a large bed. The bathroom, a grand affair—stairs leading up to a huge marble tub—was down the hall. As for the vaunted view, I had a balcony from which I could look into the building across the street at the clothes in the Miu Miu store. Horse-drawn carts clip-clopped down the street, and every morning vans with round brushes would clear the horse manure from the cobblestones, making an enormous racket.
I seriously doubt that any Medicis had slept in the hotel; it was the kind of place E.M. Forster’s characters end up in, usually to their dismay. The streets were paved with tourists, and it was impossible to take a picture that didn’t look like a still from a Cecil B. DeMille movie. Close by was the Duomo—there was always a long queue of people waiting to get in.
That way was the Piazza della Repubblica, ringed with cafes,
and further down was the Piazza della Signoria with the replica of Michelangelo’s David (the real one is in the Accademia) and Cellini’s Perseus holding up the head of the Medusa. They really were awesome, even with tourists draped around their bases, eating sandwiches and drinking bottled water.
I had the strangest feeling I had been there before—of course I had, it was in the movie. The scene where a guy gets stabbed to death and Helena Bonham Carter falls into a swoon. I have never fainted in my life—been knocked unconscious, yes, once—and since there was no one resembling Julian Sands in the vicinity, I didn’t try it. There was a guy who chatted me up, but he looked a bit like Paul Sorvino from Goodfellas, which made me think of New Jersey. Jersey: not romantic.
Maggie Smith: This is not at all what we were led to expect.
Helena B-C: I thought we were going to see the Arno.
Here’s the Arno.
February 7th, 2009 at 12:31
ika nga ng mga haiku-loving badingarzy friends of mine:
the arno is really grand.
hidden english pond…
now, that view is a moutful!