Life Lessons from Florence

Up, Around, and Off the Beaten Path

I’ll let Mark Twain start us off:

This is the fairest picture on our planet, the most enchanting to look upon, the most satisfying to the eye and the spirit. To see the sun sink down, drowned on his pink and purple and golden floods, and overwhelm Florence with tides of color that make all the sharp lines dim and faint and turn the solid city to a city of dreams, is a sight to stir the coldest nature, and make a sympathetic one drunk with ecstasy.

A view of the Ponte Santa Trinita from the Ponte Vecchio.

Because I am incapable of traveling without trying to improve myself, I absorbed a number of life lessons from Florence, but rest assured that this essay will not contain any rhapsodies about beauty. I leave that task to more eloquent writers like Twain. My lessons, instead, are off the beaten path.

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All that is gold does not glitter. I have argued previously that we ought to value weeds as well as flowers, and a bike tour (company motto: “Put the fun between your legs”) through the Chianti region of Tuscany reinforced this belief. Our guide taught us that wine-growers use flowers to maximize the yield of their vines. To lure bees and other pollinators, farmers plant blue flowers in between the rows of vines. The growers also plant rose bushes at the ends of some rows of vines to serve as a metaphorical canary in the coal mine: Rose bushes are more sensitive than grape vines, so if there is a problem with pests or a fungus, it will show up right away in the roses, and the farmers can treat the plants before the vines are damaged.

So what are the weeds in this scenario? The grape vines themselves! Grape vines are parasites whose strong roots can dig into the earth as deep as ten to fifteen meters. The vines grow so aggressively that every year the wine growers need to cut them back to stumps, in order to promote root growth and to force the plants to put all their energy into making fruit instead of making themselves bigger. The vines just spring right back, undaunted, every year.

The other secret to the success of this region is the clay-rich soil, which holds in the moisture even on steep hills. Most plants don’t thrive in clay, because it is too dense for their roots, but grape vines have such strong roots that they just punch right through the clay layer. The clay not only holds in water but also contains minerals and ash from the several dormant volcanoes in the area, which enrich the flavor of the wine. (So if someone tells you your wine is “mineraly,” this is what they’re referring to.) Our bike tour ended with a wine-tasting, and I can attest that the product of these weeds, grown in poor, ashy soil, is in fact sublime!

Diversity is strength. Our bike tour also meandered through olive groves. We learned that farmers in the area grow both olives and grapes as an insurance policy: If it’s a bad year for olives, it may be a good year for grapes, and vice versa. On a visit to Tuscany a few years ago, we were disappointed to learn that we couldn’t purchase any local olive oil, because it had been a terrible year for olive trees. The previous winter had been so warm that the larvae of a particularly destructive insect hadn’t been killed off, and so the bugs devoured the trees all summer long. The farmers didn’t even bother to harvest the olives. But the grape vines kept the farms economically solvent until the next year. And while grape vines may seem a better investment than olive trees—each grape vine produces four bottles of wine per year, while each olive tree produces only one bottle of olive oil per year—the industrious vines and the laid-back trees together give a secure income to the farmers and culinary pleasure to everyone.

The diversity even shows up on individual trees. Look at the photo below. This tree grows two different kinds of olives, light green and dark brown. This is because a few years ago a fungus swept through the region and attacked one kind of olive tree, so farmers grafted branches from another species of olive tree onto them. That species was immune to the fungus and taught the trees to fight it off. It’s hybrid vigor, literally: Even though the olives are of different species, they work together to preserve the health of the whole tree.

Wit and whimsy are a gift. On our walks around the city, I was charmed to notice a number of imaginatively doctored-up street signs—a horizontal bar with devil’s horns, another bar being carried away by a workman, an arrow picking its nose, and this fellow springing out of his jack-in-the-box:

The signs are the work of the French street artist Clet Abraham, who makes his home—and makes us laugh—in Florence. His art turns an ordinary walk into a scavenger hunt. To me, Abraham is pure chaotic good. “I am not against rules. I am against unjust impositions,” he says. His playful pieces catch our attention and encourage us to exercise our imagination and sense of humor as we go about our business. (You can read about Abraham and see more examples of his work here.)

The Lord looks out for babies and fools. So this story is kind of embarrassing, but I offer it for your edification anyway. On long hikes, my fingers tend to swell up, and when that happens I transfer my wedding ring from my ring finger to my pinky. Two years ago, on a hike, I stopped to rinse off my hands in a roaring stream, and my wedding ring slipped off my pinky into the water. By some miracle, I recovered it. Whew! A year ago, on a hike, I stopped to apply sunscreen, and my wedding ring slipped off my pinky into a clump of dense brush. By some miracle, I recovered it. Whew!

A couple of weeks ago, in Florence, my husband and I went for a long walk in the Boboli Gardens. You’re gonna laugh,¹ but later that day I realized that my wedding ring was missing. Yup. Apparently it had slipped off my pinky somewhere in the gardens. This time I figured it was well and truly gone, because the gardens are absolutely enormous—111 acres/45 hectares—and filled with winding, woody paths, along seemingly all of which we had walked during that strenuous afternoon. My husband gallantly offered to go back and look for the ring, but I knew it was hopeless. I reconciled myself to having to buy another one. But a few days later, when we were unpacking back home, he pulled a small metal object out of my backpack. “Is this a piece of the backpack, or is it your ring?” he asked. It was my ring! By some miracle, it had fallen into my backpack. Whew!

Sometimes it can take us a bit longer to learn lessons that are obvious to everyone else. But sometimes we get lucky and don’t have to learn our lessons the hard way. As for me, well, like the wheels of justice, I grind slow but I grind fine, and I have (finally) learned that when my fingers swell up on hikes, I should stow my ring not on my pinky but in this clever invention called the pocket.

Only connect. We humans are not all that different from one another, even across the centuries. While exploring the Bargello, I was amused to find this ivory bas relief, which was carved way back in the twelfth century. The anxious man on the left and his compassionate friend could be our contemporaries. You can almost hear the friend saying, “There, there. Things will start to look up soon, I promise.”

Also, what’s up with the guy at the bottom giving everyone the peace sign?

I encountered many works of art from centuries ago whose subjects had expressions and postures just like ours. For example, this statue of Bacchus has had it up to here with your shenanigans. (Or maybe he’s irritated because his guests were partying so hard that they broke his cask and all the wine spilled out?)

I stupidly forgot to note the sculptor’s name and so I have no idea who the artist is or when he made this statue.

Another striking example of figures from the past who seem a lot like us is Michelangelo’s two-faced bust of Brutus. His expression is noble when you face the bust head-on, but when you view him from the side, a crafty, calculating smile is revealed. Viewers of the bust will be forgiven for being reminded of those perfidious leaders of our own time who preach virtue but practice vice. We like to think that we are unique, and that we enlightened folks have nothing in common with those irrational, weird, or even cruel types that populate history. But the ordinary human joys, foibles, and struggles captured by great artists of the past encourage us to approach historical figures with understanding and maybe even a bit of humility.

Look up! Look around! There is something serendipitous in the photo below. Can you find it?

While walking across Piazza della Signoria one morning, I happened to look between the Palazzo Vecchio (on the left) and the Uffizi (on the right) and spotted two hot-air balloons peeking through the mist. When we look up, away from the tourist sights, and all around us, we see delightful surprises like these balloons (or Clet Abraham’s signs), as well as equally delightful glimpses of ordinary life.

On this trip we didn’t visit the Botticellis in the Uffizi or David in the Accademia, but we did see handsome police officers in exaggeratedly fancy uniforms mediating a traffic dispute; an antique shop boasting an enormous blue ceramic fish on a stand; seventeenth-century palazzos with tiny doors near the ground, where aristocratic families used to sell wine from their country estates to the hoi polloi; dads escorting rowdy groups of kids home from school; and a restaurant with a Vespa parked inside. (This was our stop for a cheap and hearty lunch one day. I enjoyed huge plates of caprese salad and pasta as well as a carafe of excellent wine—the waitress was worried that a single carafe wouldn’t be enough for me!—all for twelve euros.) Every night we ate dinner on the Piazzo Santo Spirito, in the Oltrarno, to the accompaniment of street performers and skateboarders’ boomboxes. We feasted on pizza—and feasted our eyes on dogs frolicking and children shooting rocket copters² into the night sky.

Throw the windows wide open. On our first night, as we returned to our hotel at 10pm, we heard loud cheering on the Ponte Vecchio. Since our hotel overlooked the Ponte Vecchio, and since as a natural morning lark I can never sleep later than 5:30am no matter what, I was a bit worried about the noise. Sure enough, by the time we got to our hotel ten minutes later, an extremely loud reggae concert had begun. I could have succumbed to irritation, but instead I threw the windows wide open to enjoy an hour of free music. In fact every night of our trip we were serenaded by different musicians on the bridge. Because I decided to interpret these concerts not as noise but as bonus entertainment while I stayed up past my bedtime with a book, I was rewarded with a lovely and special experience.

A view of the Ponte Vecchio from the Ponte Santa Trinita as the reggae concert was starting. Those aren’t stars in the sky, by the way. They’re rocket copters.

Those hilariously cranky reviews on Trip Advisor (for example here and here) are funny not because the writers are so different from us, but rather because their gripes are so relatable. We’ve all experienced the upsets, discombobulations, and disappointments of life, after all. But when we encounter the unexpected, we will be happier if we throw the windows wide open and invite the chaos in. Who knows? It might turn out to be “Redemption Song.”

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How about you, readers? What life lessons have you learned—on or off the beaten path—on your travels? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

The Tidbit

The most Floretine music imaginable is the aria “O mio babbino caro,” from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. Musical sophisticates may think that this aria is overperformed. (I once auditioned for a chorus whose information sheet specifically forbade anyone to perform “O mio babbino caro” because the director was so sick of it.) The lyrics are admittedly a bit overdramatic—a young woman begs her dad to let her be with her boyfriend or else she will fling herself into the Arno.³ And many performances are overly schmaltzy, with exaggerated portamentos and drawn-out high notes. But I don’t care. Listen to Renée Fleming’s expressive, ravishing performance of the aria, and I guarantee you will join in the rapturous applause at the end.

1. This is a reference to one of my favorite cynical Russian jokes:

A king has three beautiful daughters. One day a handsome prince in a neighboring kingdom asks for the hand of the king’s oldest daughter in marriage. They marry and are happy together, but a year later, the princess dies in childbirth. Heartbroken, the prince goes to the king and says, “The only possibility for happiness I can imagine is if I could marry your second daughter.” The king, who loves the prince like a son, agrees. The two marry . . . and a year later the second princess dies in a carriage accident. Again the prince goes to the king in tears and requests the hand of the third daughter in marriage. “My son,” the king says, “take my third daughter and love her. Maybe finally there can be some happiness amidst all this tragedy.” And so the prince and the third daughter marry.

A year later, the prince returns to the king and says, “You’re gonna laugh, but. . . .”

2. The internet is amazing. I wanted to know what these toys were called, so I Googled “toys that light up and you shoot them into the sky,” and the linked page was the first result. I think “rocket copter” is a way more awesome name than “flying spinny things,” which is what I had been calling them in my head.

3. Now that I have seen the Arno, I think all that would happen to her is that she would get kind of muddy.