Como To Florence, 9/19/1994 By Fast Railroad Through PO Valley

Florence In One Large
Living Museum

By Bob Van Leer

(FLORENCE, ITALY, Sept. 19, 1994) - Our hotel, the Hotel Helvetia & Bristol, is in the old town of Florence. We arrived here today after a train ride from Como, Italy, through Milan down the Po River valley.

  There is just one line of ridges south of Como which marks the end of the Alps. Then we were in the Po valley which looks greatly like the Willamette valley. It is flat, highly agriculturized, and at least on the south side, there is a distant range of mountains. This is the Apennine mountain range which runs down through the spine of Italy.

  Our route was southeast along the edge of the valley to Bologna and then south to Florence. The city is at the east end of the Arno River valley which flows west to Pisa and the Mediterranean Sea.

  Florence today is one giant art gallery. Settled by the Etruscans, its political and economic rise began around the 11th century. By the 12th century it was a city-state and its coinage was one of the strongest currency in Europe.

  Florence was a wool center as Como was, and still is, a silk center. Florence reached its flowering in architecture under the Medici family which ruled the city for 300 years with the exception of a brief period when the family was driven out by the monk, Savonarola, who was himself burned at the stake in 1498.

  Florence was the capital off the newly-established Kingdom of Italy from 1865-1871. Many of the older buildings are of green and white marble, quarried from the Carrara marble quarries which are near here.

  The city is dominated by three main buildings, Giotto's' bell tower, the cathedral and the Palazzo Vecchio. The cathedral museum  contains works such as Michelangelo's Pieta, one of four versions Michelangelo did of the Pieta.

  The Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge) across the Arno is the oldest in Florence. The bridge was rebuilt several times, the last in 1345. Near it is the Pitti Palace, an example of Renaissance architecture, down to earth and functional as compared to the soaring Gothic style. It is built of rust-colored sandstone instead of marble. We visited the San Miniato al Monte, a Romanesque church started in 1018 and completed in 1350. The church contains a number of columns and capitals retrieved from pagan Roman temples, an early form of recycling.

  After looking at thousand-year-old buildings, we went our hotel to get the news on current day problems in Haiti from CNN International. Ted Turner's CNN has changed the was news is handled around the world. Most major hotels have CNN on their cable TV system. In the last two cities, this is the only English-language channel available. So we can keep up on the latest happenings no matter where we are.

  Tomorrow will be a day of looking at museums and buildings. This city is a living museum.
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