Compared to, say, Barcelona, there’s not a lot to do in Florence, at least not available — or advertised, anyway — to us tourists. In Barcelona, we went to the movies in our neighborhood three times, all to newly released American films with Spanish subtitles. Does that sound boring to you? It wasn’t. It was interesting, us laughing at “Nope” while the Catalans in the audience must have figured, maybe this part doesn’t translate.

But here, the only place like that didn’t screen until 9 p.m. Sculpture, art, medieval architecture — we had that in spades. But in those venues, you heard more English than Italian spoken. It was the Ghetto of the Center, as they call the old part of the cities in these parts.

So yesterday, Alan spelunked way down on the internet, and found a place we could check out. It was the Manifattura Tabacchi, an old cigar factory being, um, revitalized. We took two buses to get there and found a place that’s still getting going. There was lovely signage, a place to have a drink — there’s always a place to have a drink — but not a lot else. This sight is familiar to anyone from Detroit:

Yeah, that loft living will be a while getting here, sorry about that. But at least we were out of the Center. Wandering back to the bus stop, we heard thumping techno music, and what appeared to be a crowd of people gathering a block or two away. So we checked it out, and came upon a parade of trucks carrying gas-powered generators, powering ear-splitting speaker arrays, each blasting the sort of generic techno you can hear every year at the Movement festival in Detroit: WHUMP thumpa WHUMP thumpa WHUMP thumpa, etc., each truck followed by a dancing crowd of young people dressed in goth black, tatted up, technicolor hair, the usual.

In between the trucks, people pushing wheelbarrows advertising BIRRA for two Euro — I told you, you can always get a drink — and then the next one would roll by. It was, we would later learn, the Wish Parade. Run this page through your English translator and you get an idea:

The Wish Parade will wind through the streets of the city, an event organized by the Florentine collectives two years after the entry into force of the ‘anti-rave decree’. The street parade, which will begin on April 27 at 4 p.m., aims to bring a note of color and music to Florence. It will start from Via Forlanini to end at the Ernesto de Pascale Amphitheatre passing through Piazza Giacomo Puccini, Ponte alle Mosse Puccini, Porta al Prato, Ferris wheel, Lincoln avenue, Quercione avenue and Aeronautica street.

“In a city that is increasingly hostile to its inhabitants – we read in the widespread note – we feel the need to give a signal of presence, claiming our practices as an active part of the social and cultural fabric of the city. Florence is not only mass tourism but also a forge of ideas, initiatives, connections and networks that work every day to stay united and give an alternative to the commification of the city. We want to dance and sound the city to make our voice heard.”

Of course it had its detractors:

Of a different opinion Sheila Papucci, candidate for the city council for Fratelli d’Italia.

“The so-called artistic event – attacks Papucci – will be nothing but a traveling rave party, a discomfort announced for the Florentines between deafening music, paralyzed traffic. They will take to the streets complaining that they do not have the right to be able to meet and express themselves when in reality it will be totally the opposite”.

Papucci adds that it is an event “marked by excesses: we have already seen them in previous editions, when the procession passing through the center scared tourists and families” underlining that “Florentine citizens will have to endure situations of disorder and an increase in urban degradation with which our city is already saturated, together with a widespread disturbance of public quiet throughout the afternoon and Saturday evening”.

Oh, relax, Sheila. It was just some kids having fun. And two tourists, at the very least, weren’t scared. We followed it for a while, until we figured it was time to peel off and head home, only Sheila was right about one thing: The traffic was paralyzed. It took forever to get back to the apartment. We ended up on a packed tram, but made it in one piece.

You’ve probably heard someone, at some point in your life say, “I don’t want to be a tourist. I want to be a traveler.” I’ve come to think of the difference as similar to the one that distinguishes pornography from erotica, i.e. if it turns you on, it’s porn, if it turns me on, it’s erotica. If I’m doing it, it’s traveling. You? You’re just a tourist.

Well, most of this week has been tourism. But the Wish Parade felt more like travel.

Today we climbed the hill to the Piazzale Michelangelo, definitely tourism. But the view from the top was worth it:

Clarice Starling: Did you do all these drawings, Doctor?
Hannibal Lecter: Ah. That is the Duomo seen from the Belvedere. Do you know Florence?
CS: All that detail just from memory, sir?
HL: Memory, Agent Starling, is what I have instead of a view.

A similar view. The Belvedere was off to the left.

Last night in Firenze, this. The final leg of the journey starts tomorrow, and I fear it will be the worst, tourist-wise, but at least the art will be different. Stay tuned.

OK, I have to take at least some of my criticisms of museums back. Admission to the Accademia was free Thursday (Liberation Day), and while a steady stream of art lovers (ha!) streamed through, they couldn’t take anything away from David. He’s so monumental, there are no bad seats, so to speak, and he stands under a dome, bathed in natural light. Unlike virtually every other work of art we’ve seen on his trip, he is more impressive in person. He’s beautiful.

You can read reams of scholarship on his various anatomical quirks — his overlarge right hand, his somewhat cockeyed gaze — but I wouldn’t dive too deeply into that. Just appreciate him.

And marvel at Michelangelo’s attention to detail. His musculature, the veins in his arm, his confident gaze, the tendons and hollows in his neck, even the grooves in his scrotal sac. They’re all amazing, crafted by a 26-year-old, 500-plus years ago.

I read, this morning, about the Supremes’ apparent desire to do the bidding of the worst person in the country, and possibly the world. Yesterday I spoke to a long-lost high-school friend, who today lives in London, permanently she said. She’s been back and forth across the Atlantic for a while, looking after her elderly parents, but other than visits, she plans to spend the rest of her life on this side of the ocean. It was January 6 that did it; she was living in California at the time, and simply didn’t know how to answer her European friends’ questions about how this could possibly happen. So she has noped out of the American experiment. Can’t say’s I really blame her.

Have a good weekend, all.

You guys:

I think I’m burned out on museums, this trip. This was the Uffizi yesterday, in the off-season, before the “crowds” arrive. Granted, this is the most famous painting in the building, but still. The entire room was full of amazing Botticellis, most of which looked like they’d been painted two hours ago (including “The Birth of Venus”) and they were largely ignored, for mob scenes like this. Many of these people would sidle to the front, take one photo of the painting and another of the title card, and scurry on to the next must-see canvas on the list.

It’s Pokemon Go for tourists.

Today we see David, at the Accademia, and after that I think I’m done with this particular pursuit. As I said of the Sistine Chapel: Get a good-quality art book from the library, go home and explore it at your leisure.

The Galileo Museum did not disappoint, however. From the medical section:

Two whole cases of terra cotta models of childbirth – routine, emergency and so on. Seen here, breech birth and forceps-assisted. Kate was born that way. She had bruises on her temples for the first 24 hours or so. I remember nothing about it.

On to David’s marble corpus. Fingers crossed.

We’re starting a little slow this week. Monday was a travel day, yesterday our usual get-the-lay-of-the-land day, so treasures await today — two museums planned, the Galileo and Uffizi.

Yes, we’re in Florence. Which is lovely. The Airbnb is nicer, which is to say the toilet flushes well and the shower doesn’t appear to have been designed for elves. It’s quieter. And not far away:

The Arno River. Over which stretches the ancient Ponte Vecchio:

It used to be leather workers and tannery operations on the bridge, convenient because you just threw the waste into the river. Now it’s all jewelers.

The weather is sharply cooler, and yesterday it rained. The news today said the Palazzo Vecchio, aka city hall, had authorized six additional days of heating for the building, to accommodate the elderly and those in a fragile state. (I’m sure they pronounced it fra-gee-lay.) One more day of cool, then gradual warming through the weekend.

Pizza continues to be outstanding.

A little shopping for the people who are helping out at home, but we won’t get too into that. However, IYKYK:

King Neptune outside the Palazzo Vecchio, not far from where Savonarola burned.

Soon I will be immersed in Botticelli. More later.

It’s been a long day and I haven’t had dinner yet. So maybe a photo dump is in order.

Itsy-bitsy cars are nothing new in Europe, but with climate reforms, impossible parking and the price of gas all putting pressure on, the race seems to be to the bottom, so to speak. EVs and hybrids are commonplace, but this is the smallest we’ve yet seen:

It’s called a Twizy. Alan looked it up. Best for single people (there’s only one seat), all-electric, with a limited range of maybe 40 km. But you can park it anywhere.

Roman drinking fountain:

Roman bird bath:

(You just turn a corner and see stuff like this. Every walk is an exploration.)

You know me, I’m a sucker for a beautiful vegetable, in this case, melanzana. A much prettier word than “eggplant.”

A rare piece of sculpture in which the subject is caught taking his shirt off over his head. Actually, I have no idea what this guy is doing, but I liked the pose:

Finally, the Roma birthday party didn’t disappoint. It was my favorite variety of tourism, i.e., the-same-but-different. If you’ve been to any historic re-enactment, it’s the same. The different parts? All of it. The legions trooped before a viewing stand and did some maneuvers, especially the shield thing where a group of nine or 10 guys turn themselves into a turtle. I paid close attention to the shoes, which looked pretty period — shoes are the Achilles heel of any historic costume.

Also, I don’t think Roman-empire tattooing was quite as advanced as this guy’s back piece:

I call that commitment to the bit. Another different thing? Not one, not one single, not even a whiff of…a food truck. No elephant ears, no Eye-talian sausage, no tacos, no nothing. I did see one tented booth advertising water, but that’s all, and they weren’t even selling it, but giving it away. And now you know how Italians can eat pasta every day and stay slender. (Note the phone in his right hand. Seeing people in historic dress talking on a cell phone is never not amusing to me.)

OK, then. Tomorrow we saw arrivederci to Roma, and travel to…you’ll have to come back and see.

I used to think I would feel rich if, just once in my life, I could fly first-class to Europe. Those overnight flights are simply impossible to tolerate in a sitting position, and being able to stretch out in Delta One would be fantastic. But now? Now I think I’d feel even richer if we could do one of these trips without having to use Airbnb.

Which is to say: Alan’s trying to unclog the shower drain for the second time this week. And I’d like some coffee, but it would require me getting up to use the moka pot in this place, which makes one (1) cup at a time. Such an amazingly complicated process: Heat water in the electric kettle, disassemble the moka pot, tap a little coffee into the thingie, pour heated water into the bottom of the pot, plop in the coffee thingie, then get a towel or something to hold the bottom (because it’s hot now) while you screw on the top, place on stove. When it gurgles, it’s done. Repeat for a second cup.

Also: There’s no frying pan in the kitchen, just two pots. Also: It takes three flushes to dispose of one turd.

I’ll stop my complaining. I’m in Rome! And we finally found some good places to eat. Some Karen gave this excellent place one star because “they served my pasta in a beat-up old pot.” It was spectacular:

“My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions and loyal servant to the TRUE emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.”

Rick Steves says the opening acts for gladiators were animal fights, “perhaps dogs attacking porcupines.” As you stand on the higher levels of the Colosseum, you can see its underground, because the arena floor is long-since rotted away. (A partial restoration allows tourists to walk out and give the Russell Crowe speech.) Alan, looking down on the hive of underground cells and passageways: “That’s where they kept the porcupines.”

We also saw the Vatican museums, culminating with the Sistine Chapel. No photos, because it isn’t allowed, but as an art-appreciation experience, I’d put it up there with the Mona Lisa: Too many people, guards barking NO PHOTO because some people either can’t or won’t read, and not a great deal of light, probably to save the artworks. Few places to sit, too. Honestly? Look at some well-photographed art books to appreciate Michelangelo’s genius, and enjoy them in a cafe.

Final complaint: And on the fourth day, I caught a cold. But the weekend lies ahead, what sounds like a delightfully cheesy birthday-of-Roma celebration, with games in the Circus Maximus. Go, Charlie Heston!

Today we were walking across the Ponte Sisto, a pedestrian bridge over the Tiber. Approaching us, hand-in-hand with her chic mother, was a girl of about 7. She was walking as coolly as a model, wearing a tot-sized black leather motorcycle jacket.

I wish I’d gotten a photo of this startling fashion statement, but whoosh they were past us, and oh well.

Not so many photos today, because yesterday we went to a no-photos-allowed zone, it being a Monday and most of the good museums were closed. We went to the Capuchin crypt, and you can look up many photos online if you’re so inclined to see a visual marriage of the Khmer Rouge and, I dunno, maybe some scrapbookers. A long introduction tells you about the Capuchin order — there’s one in Detroit, and they feed the poor — until you get to what you came for, a series of niches decorated with, no kidding, thousands of human bones and a few mummies.

Allegedly 3,700 monks’ bones were used to create the various displays in the crypt, which were so, so strange. Catholics have a lot of premodern opinions about human remains, but it is downright weird to see floral motifs made with vertebrae and shoulder blades, to name but one of the displays on offer. You Catholics know the underlying message here — this’ll be you, one of these days, so don’t get too attached to your corporeal form — but as one who recalls the monsignor telling us that sure, we could cremate our parents, as long as it wasn’t done to deny the resurrection, it’s hard to believe this was hunky-dory with the One True. But who am I to argue.

Today we tried to go the Borghese Gallery, but didn’t plan ahead, and no tickets are available for days and days. So we rented bikes and explored the park.

That zoo entrance could be one or 100 years old — it does resemble the figures outside Comerica Park, where the Detroit Tigers play — but it hardly matters. You quickly learn, visiting here, that Italians are, as the kids say, extra:

Those are the trees so evocatively lit from above, by moonlight, in “Ripley,” now playing on Netflix. A few more days and clear weather and the moon will be up to it:

Tomorrow, the Vatican!

For Sunday, the Pantheon:

If anyone tells you April is a good time to visit a European city and “skip the crowds,” laugh in their face. When we stepped into the square, it wasn’t quite elbow-to-elbow, which I guess is what a skipped crowd looks like in Rome. Rather than wait in the interminable line for tickets, we opted to pay a little more for a guided tour by a short Italian sprite, and it was worth it, just to hear her say “Agrippa.” A friend advised me, in sounding out Italian words, to “say every letter,” and you could really hear that second P in her pronunciation of the Roman general’s name.

What to say about the Pantheon besides that it’s glorious and amazing? Not much. The oculus is my favorite part:

You also have to spend some time marveling at the engineering feat, and consider that, fires and restorations aside, that dome is older than Christ. The only disappointment, if you could call it that, is that there’s no visible evidence of the pre-Christian era, but oh well. We saw Rafael’s tomb, saw the royalist guard in front of :::checks notes::: King Umberto’s tomb, saw the drain in the floor that lets the rainwater flow away, saw it all. After that, the Trevi Fountain was just kinda no-big-deal:

The crowds didn’t help, all these people milling about, bent not on appreciating the sculpture, or even throwing coins in, but getting selfies, because pix or it didn’t happen:

We stayed a bit, and left carrying some McDonald’s trash that some trashy soul or souls had left behind. At the Trevi Fountain. I ask you.

After that, we needed a drink, and I much preferred watching this woman, just inside the cafe where we sipped spritzes, making pasta by hand and then weighing out every portion on her kitchen scale:

Also: More walking, more squares, more spritzes, a pizza, the Tiber River, a genial cashier at our breakfast place who said he had been to the U.S. 14 times, and that his least-favorite American city was Houston, a point we could reach 100 percent agreement on. Speaking of Texas, she’s inescapable, she is:

More later.

Who were you people who didn’t like “The Power of the Dog?” We checked it out over the weekend, and I thought it was pretty great. Such fabulous acting; Jane Campion must run her actors through Subtle Facial Expressions U. before she shoots a single frame. I loved the way the power shifts over the course of the story, I loved the scenery, I loved the way it put me in 1925-era Montana and basically posited: This is what it was like, here.

Otherwise, a weekend. Fuck Joe Manchin and I hope his stupid houseboat sinks. Actually, it wasn’t a shit weekend. We went to a Friday-night party — all vaccinated — but I will still get tested on Wednesday because Covid is running wild here, helped on by irresponsible behavior (like mine, maybe). Saturday was the Eastern Market and its associated pleasures, and Sunday I did a gift exchange with a friend. He has holiday travel plans and is being super cautious, so we tried to find a heated tent, but ended up in the back yard of a Cass Corridor bar. They wouldn’t turn the patio heater on because we were just two people, so we sat there and shivered for one round. It wasn’t all that cold, so it wasn’t terrible, and it wasn’t cold enough to drive us inside. Kate gave us notice yesterday that everyone she knows has Covid now, including someone she worked next to (masked) a few days back, so she’s testing daily and may not make it to Columbus at the end of the week.

It’s beginning to look a lot like a Covid Christmas, in other words. Everywhere I go.

I forgot to mention: While we were sitting on the cold patio? A sizable rat ran from under one section of deck to another. Happy Christmas in Detroit!

It hasn’t been a terrible holiday season, although I have yet to make gingerbread. Maybe tomorrow. But this cloud of doom hovering over all? That I can do without. It’s gonna be another long winter.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get some genuinely nice, happy news one of these days? A certain former president collapsing in a serious health crisis, maybe? Justice running down like water? That would be a present we could all open.

Speaking of presents, the GIF in this tweet makes me so happy:

Here's a great attraction at a great landmark. pic.twitter.com/u9C3CfxB3w

— Marco Schaefer (@mhschaef) December 19, 2021

For those who don’t get it, it’s the last move in the Ohio State marching band’s signature formation, Script Ohio. The i is dotted by a sousaphone player, and it’s considered a great honor to be the i-dotter. It’s really the only thing I’d watch the OSU band to see, but they don’t do it for every game. I feel like I have to start using this GIF in every text message now. Just to, y’know, emphasize things.

And now we’re in the countdown week, i.e. the second-dullest week of the year, unless Trump just lost an election. I realize these offerings have been a little thin of late. It’s not that I’m tired or not into it or whatever. The well simply feels a little dry at the moment. It’ll refill. I just can’t say when. Maybe time for another France picture.

Explanation: The market plaza in Nice had an installation of these poster-size photos, dedicated to local livestock breeds. The explanation placard stated that market forces were flooding meat and dairy markets worldwide with products from a relative handful of bloodlines, which anyone who drives in the Midwest country can see with their own eyes. Dairy cows are almost exclusively Holstein now, the breed which produces the most milk, and selective breeding of championship bloodlines has further increased the amount an average cow can produce. Semen collection, and sales of sperm and frozen embryos, have made some bulls and cows super-parents, with a few having hundreds of thousands of offspring. The dangers of this concentration into a few bloodlines are obvious, but it sure dollars up on the hoof, as they say in the auction ring. Yay, capitalism. This exhibit of less-popular, but beloved, breeds was one of my favorite things to look at as I was gathering provisions for the apartment. Not a great pic (by me), but this bull is so cool:

First, make your favorite cake recipe in two 9-inch cake pans. I chose carrot, because Duh, from Mark Bittman’s How To Bake Everything book — it has a lot of crushed pineapple in it. On a sheet-cake cardboard, which I had a five-pack of, leftover from a years-old experiment with making a blighted gingerbread house, place one layer about two-thirds of the way down. Cut ears out of the second layer and place the leftover piece at the bottom, like so:

Frost it all over with your favorite frosting. We went with the classic cream cheese:

Then, bunny it up:

And that is how you make an Easter dessert. I can’t believe that we spent all those years with a little girl in the house and this is the first year I’ve made one. Oh well, it’s never too late. It looks a little like a child helped with the decoration, doesn’t it? Things to remember for next time: Make a separate batch of icing for piping the details, because the cream cheese was too creamy to pipe very well. Also: Be more creative, but I was specifically requested to make jelly-bean eyes, so that’s what I did. Also might try toasting the coconut for a brown bunny.

The rest of the meal was fine, but simple — smoked a turkey breast on the grill, mac/cheese and a nice potato salad. And the traditional nibbles beforehand:

I love deviled eggs. Why don’t I make them more often?

So that was my Easter. I drank too much wine, had an afternoon nap, and went for a bike ride after. The weather was perfect — clear and sunny, warm but not too. I hope yours was as pleasant.

The weekend being what it was, I paid little attention to what news there was this weekend, except that Michigan is No. 1 in the country in new Covid cases, and had an eye-popping number Saturday — 8,413. We should change our name to New Variants, because that appears to be what’s driving all this. My second shot is Thursday. Can’t come soon enough.

OK, then, Monday commences. Let’s get through the week.