We reached Florence via the autostrada from Milano, an easy if rather long and boring 4 hour drive. The autostrada was not as expensive as we thought, although at 16 euros it was still a lot to pay; still we chose to use the pay road rather than the scenic route due to time constraints and the advice of our hotel owner in Milano. The scenic route would take days rather than hours!
Finding our way to the appartment was quite daunting, despite some rather difficult instructions from Caterina, our landlady. Without a map, we managed to navigate our way to within a kilometre or two of the appartment, then gave in and phoned her up, when she kindly came and met us and led us back to the appartment.
Viale don Minzoni proved to be a rather large and busy street leading out from Piazza della Liberta, one of the large piazzas containing an old Roman City Gate and a more modern one from the time of the unification of Italy in 1860. Piazza della Liberta contained a rather large roundabout (for Melbourne people think of the top end of Elizabeth St in the city) that was unique in its design. I did not notice this and it wasn't until Alan pointed it out to my brother Geoff on his brief visit in Feb 2009, that I realised the traffic runs in 3 different directions around the central area. It is a masterpiece of civil engineering in traffic design, but me not being an engineer did not notice!!!!!! It is partially controlled by traffic lights, but not every entry point or pedestrian crossing!
Traffic and engineering aside, don Minzoni proved to be an excellent location. We were at the other end of the street to the Piazza, almost where the street ended at the main railway line to Rome and the south of Italy. We had two buses that went into the city and the central train station, with a bus stop almost in front of the appartment, and 4 free parking spots outside the appt, a supermarket (supermercato in Italian) round the corner, and a local fresh fruit & vege market with some deli items as well on the other side of the railway line, accessed by an elaborate sottopassaggio (pedestrian subway), an excellent aperitivo and lunch bar across the street and a very excellent pizzeria and restaurant at the Liberta end of the street, a maximum 5 minute walk away. (This restaurant became our favourite restaurant in Florence!).
The sottopassaggio had about 10 exits and was luridly and legally painted by local young graffitti artists. It was well lit and maintained. In fact during the day there was always somebody in residence with their radio, bottle of wine and cleaning equipment (in that order!). Although it regularly flooded in the winter rains, it was always navigable and safe. I saw the young people updating the artwork a few times and although in Melb. we would have looked askance at using this subway thinking it a bit dangerous, it was used so much by all the locals day and night time, (as it was the only way across the railway line for about half a kilometre in each direction) that I grew quite fond of it! The caretaker knew a lot of the locals and would always stop for a chat if you wanted, and the kids painting were fine, as they were allowed free reign and no-one interfered. It was not my preferred style of art, but it was much brighter and more interesting than dull grey concrete walls! And due to the presence of a caretaker, it did not smell of urine and there was little evidence of drug use. The presence of a caretaker for a pedestrian subway still has me amazed!
Our appartment turned out to be a house. It was in fact the original house on the block, owned by Caterina's family. She grew up there as a young girl. Like oa lot of areas on the outer edge of the old city, the blocks of land were large with a small house and lots of garden. In the 1970's whenFlorence started to expand and tourism started to take off, many families built appartments in the front or back of their block and retained the house for themselves. In our case, Caterina lived in the ground floor of the appartment block and rented out the house and the 1st and 2nd floors, which were each split into 4 x one bedroom or studio appartments. The house had 2 bedrooms, a living room, separate kitchen and bathroom and a store room. We were lucky because we also had a small garden and an outside terrace and clothes line - quite rare in inner Florence. We could also see the lovely Magnolia tree and much larger garden Caterina had retained for her own private use. Although old and fairly basic, the house was still nice and the heating worked - most important for winter!!!!!!!!! We used the storeroom for our cases and wine and the 2nd bedroom for guests and for our computers.
The downside, as you know, was that Alan complained long & bitterly about the very poor internet, which was flaky, but I could cope. For Alan, who spent so much more time at home and on his flight simulator, it was very frustrating. It was particularly affected by the rain, but this seemed to be common with all our friends across Italy. Also in winter it was very dark and cool because the sun was always low in the sky and never managed to shine over the front of the appartment block to give us direct light. However, by the time we left in March / Spring, the sun was much higher and we were getting a lot more light. the house would be lovely in summer because it would stay quite cool with all the shading from the appartments, but in winter you want as much light as possible. Still we were very lucky, because in the historic centre of the city the buildings are much higher and closer together and the streets a lot narrower, so many appartments are so dark you need the lights on continuously and you never see trees or garden. We had none of those complaints!
The house was accessed via the front door of the appartment block, through the appartment foyer, out through another door (only Caterina & we had the key to this 2nd door), along the garden path down to our front door, which led straight into the lounge room. Like all Italian city buildings, the appartments have doors straight on to the street - no front garden! The entry area of the appartment buildings are huge foyers that contain the resident's bicycles, letterboxes and a staircase up to the upstairs appartments, and if your appartment block is wealthy enough, an elevator / lift as well. Having been to several appartments in Italy now and also from speaking to the locals and just from general observation, this is is standard city living in Europe.
In addition, Caterina was very helpful and went and purchased a local residents parking permit for us, which enabled us to park for free in the surrounding streets as well - similar to what we had in Montpellier. This was essential, because Florence is unique, even for Italian cities, in that all the residents have to move their cars off the street on a regular basis for the street cleaners! Because parking is at a premium, the streets and some footpaths! are always full of cars, which means the street cleaning machines cannot get near the kerb to clean the dirtiest part of the street, so they make you move the car. The quieter the street, the less frequently the move (usually fortnightly or monthly) but for busy streets like don Minzoni, it was every Monday night, and in one area, friends of Giampiero & Nicoletta (see later blogs) had to move their car every 2nd night! So every Monday night, I joined the local throng searching for a car park in a different parking zone that was not too long a walk back to the house. This usually meant crossing the railway line and parking behind the market, but you had to time it right to avoid peak hour traffic, yet still find a free parking spot that was after the parking inspectors had finished for the day. You then had to get up early the next morning and move the car back to your area before the parking inspectors began their day around 8.30am. This was early for me!!!! When we attended language school and walked there in the mornings, we would often see the inspectors leave their offices at 8.00am but they usually went and had a coffee at a bar first and then started work!
Enough rambling. Here are some photos of the house:
- Our front door & the front of our house showing our bit of garden and washing on the line, and the garden path between our house and the appartment block; then the appartment foyer and the entrance from the street, including the start of the sottopassaggio.
- Then the market at Le Cure on the other side of the railway line
- Then inside our house, the living room with our friends on our last night party (Pam, Maurizio, Giampiero, Nicoletta, Alan & Emer), the bathroom, kitchen & study - all taken on our last day!
- Then photos from our favourite restaurant Alfredo's at the end of our street - the mixed bruschetta plate, the apple strudel and the 2 lovely waitresses who knew us by the time we left Florence. They were always friendly, regardless how busy they were, were happy to speak English to Alan and Italian to me and were just delightful people.
- Then the 1860's Arch and the old Roman Arch at Piazzza della Liberta, and the lovely street lamps,
- Then a couple of shots of our street, Don Minzoni - note the cyclist in amongst the traffic without a helmet - this is normal for Italy and France - only competition cyclists or tourists wear helmets - the locals certainly don't!
- Finally the 3 way traffic around Piazza Liberta. I learnt to navigate this without too much hassle and without any horn tooting or near prangs from the Italian drivers, so I was quite proud of myself! Also the number of motorbikes in one of the photos is very common - they all weave to the front and take off with a roar when the lights go green.
No comments:
Post a Comment