I have developed two friendships in Firenze, and in a way they are sort of tied together. Last year when I visited I stayed in the most amazing AirBnb. Right on the edge of the piazza, opening the window the Duomo was literally right there. Arriving at a BnB runs the spectrum. Some places you get sent a lock box code and never talk to another person. Others you meet some employee of a management company who delivers a dry tour and lectures you about how to deal with trash and recycling. -Something taken very seriously in parts of Italy. But occasionally you meet the actual owner. Someone who is passionate about the place and can tell stories of its history.
In this case it was the latter. But it was during this tour he asked me a direct question, “You are from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin?” I was a little surprised by this. To most Italians, America consists of New York, the Grand Canyon and L.A. along with some stuff in the middle they can’t actually grasp the size of. When I confirmed that was indeed where I was from, he told me the reason he had asked. He had spent a year as an exchange student in Cadott, the next town over, back in the seventies. Quite a coincidence. So he earned his pseudonym in this blog, the Wisconsin Boy.
The apartment had been his dad’s until he retired and moved out to the family villa. His father had been a semi-famous author, painter and architect. His apartment, for several reasons has been maybe the most incredible AirBnb I have ever stayed at. I nicknamed it world’s longest apartment. I am not kidding, it is only one room wide but I swear it is half a block long. I joked about packing a lunch and setting out for the bathroom. But it was amazing in one other way as well. It’s just off the corner of the Duomo. When you open the big windows it looks positively surreal the church is that close. You hear the expression, so close it felt like you could reach out and touch it? This is the first time I have experienced it. I tried taking pictures, but honestly they looked fake.
The other thing, it faces the only edge of the dome that is finished. The story goes that during construction, a very famous artist of the time, Michelangelo was asked what he thought of it. He said, “No, no, no, this is all wrong. It looks like a birdcage!” and the weight of his opinion halted construction until something better could be designed. That something better never happened. So the rest of the dome has the steel cornice holders sticking out, but no cornice attached except for the one segment that faces the apartment.
What makes this place different as well, the apartment was filled with books and his father’s paintings. Even books about his father! So many places I stay have the stark bare minimum. But not this place, there was even a guitar on a hook. That’s where the links in the chain of my story come together. Whenever I stay someplace where there is a guitar hanging from the wall I feel like I have to pull it down and play it. But this one had a problem. Its two high note tuners, the E and B strings, were stripped out. Anytime I got anywhere close to being in tune it would slip. Thus the guitar was un-tuneable.
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I only knew one other person in Firenze, a guy I met the previous year, and he ran a guitar repair shop. It seemed a case of karma telling me I had to step in. My next to last day I took it to his shop and he made time to fix it while I waited. —Which was cool to watch. He had a whole drawer full of old tuner parts. In it he found a couple of new gears and one new spindle that he could cobble together and whaa-laa it was playable again!
When I let the Wisconsin Boy know I was out of his apartment and on my way to my next adventure I also told him about the guitar fix. He was so happy and told me the next time I came to Firenze to let him know. He offered to take me to his family villa and we would drink wine, tell stories and play guitars. For me that was an unstated dream come true! This year I was in touch with him as soon as I knew the dates and the Villa visit was everything I had hoped.
Something I learned two years ago is the real expense of renting a car. You think it is the car rental or the fuel? No. I learned a lesson about ZTLs. Zone Traffic Limited. Initially it was explained by a BnB owner on the final days of my stay that first year. Some cities have areas in the historic districts where they limit the number of cars that can enter. You are required to go to the city web site, enter your plate number the exact time you will arrive and depart and if the daily quota has not been met, pay a fee and you are allowed entry.
At the time she was explaining this I was wondering if it had affected me or not. I had been in lots of cities! About ten months later (the speed of Italian bureaucracy) I found out it did. What happens is the cities have traffic cams set up all around the ZTL capturing license plate numbers. Not on the pre-approved list? They contact the car rental agency who dings your credit card to the tune of 50€ to give your name and contact information to the police. Then the police contact you wanting 100€ for the traffic fine. I paid orders of magnitude more in ZTL violations than I did for three weeks of car rental. All education is expensive.
The reason I bring up this tale is the Wisconsin Boy was happy to drive us to the Villa as long as we walked to the edge of the ZTL. Even he couldn’t drive into it! No imposition for us, but unimaginable to think about something like this in America where cars are king. A city declaring limits to the number of cars allowed is how revolutions might start!
Our drive was about thirty minutes outside of Firenze to San Donato in Collina on a beautiful hilltop. I have only been the driver on previous excursions into the countryside so it was great getting the passenger view. The arrival was as spectacular as I had hoped. Sitting on the top of a hill, he described it as a fourteenth century tower house with a seventeenth century addition.
Over the years of course the area around the Villa had changed. At one time the family owned all of two hillsides but over time sections of the property have been sold off until now just the hilltop remains. Villas, after all, are not cheap to keep up. While we were there the family was meeting with a contractor to replace a large section of stone retaining wall that had collapsed below the olive grove. The wall was all dry-fit stone and it was required to be restored the same way. I forgot to ask how expensive that job was going to be. I would guess shockingly.
Just below the Villa is an olive grove and I have been invited back for the olive harvest in October. Something I am seriously considering this year. This totally seems like a thing I have to do in my life. Being offered half the olive oil for my efforts was frosting on the cake. It was explained to us how the trimming of the trees works. Each year an olive tree must be cut back because it is only the second year’s growth that produces the majority of olives. Last year they did a heavy trim so hopes are high if the weather cooperates it will be a good year.
Another change in the area was the addition of a major highway. Initially with just one tunnel, this year a second is being added. He talked about the damage and cracking to the villa itself caused by tunneling. Which honestly I didn’t think could be related since the tunnel seemed so far away. I assumed it more or less followed the bottom of the valley. It wasn’t until a few days ago, when I first pulled it up on Google maps to write this post, when I wanted to confirm the name of the nearby town, I realized the tunnel passed almost directly underneath.
With such a commanding view of the area around it played an important part in the war. Artillery pointing one direction and then a few years later artillery pointing the other direction as the Germans retreated.
It wasn’t all guitar playing and drinking wine, we also talked at fair length about our respective governments and their march toward fascism. He talked a lot about when he was young and his father and grandfather over and over telling the signs to watch for. He described how frustrated he was to have to listen to them. How he would say “This is all in the past! That is all over! History!” and now he is watching in horrified disbelief as step by step his country is proceeding exactly as his ancestors described.
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