A perfect day, hitting mind, body and spirit from all directions; exercise, great food, nice company, incredible art, and ... violent spectator sport! More of that later though.

Yesterday, I ended up feeling so tired, that I just went to Macdonalds for lunch - something I rarely do. Needless to say, I didn't follow up on my resolve to work out and go running. For the first week of my trip, I found I had enough energy to do my exercises even after a long day of activity; but things seem to have reverted to normal. For now, then I'm going to try to get these out of the way in the morning. So before 8.00 this morning, I ran out of the front door of the hotel into a light drizzle. The Sunday morning streets were quite empty. Soon, the rain started to come down hard, but it wasn't at all unpleasant; it was still quite warm. I got back to the hotel completely soaked however, and the owner of the hotel became very motherly, all of a sudden, rushing me an extra towel and getting me some hot chocolate!

After a good work-out, I just had time to shower and rush out the door to meet Roberto at nearby Piazza San Marco. Roberto is the only person I've met on the Internet from Italy. We wandered around for a while before stopping for lunch in the Piazza della Repubblica. Despite neither of us knowing much of the other's language (though Roberto's English at least included some knowledge of grammar, unlike my Italian), we managed to communicate by making liberal use of my small vocabulary book. He's a very kind, gentlemanly man whose company I enjoyed very much, and we plan to meet for dinner the day after tomorrow.

My afternoon destination was the Uffizi Gallery down near the Arno. This time I'd made a reservation, and was it a good choice! The lines for those without reservations were very long, whereas I got in just one minute after arriving! But ... okay, I admit it. I, for one, can overdoze on the art thing. Today, at the Uffizi, I started to conscienciously follow the audio guide, with its careful developmental story of the birth of Renaissance art. I even learned to at least understand and appreciate Pre-Raphaelite art, which has always left me cold until now. But really only the sculpture and the middle works, Titian and Raphael, held my interest, and I fast-forwarded tiredly through most of the late rooms. I did enjoy, though, the form of the gallery, which consists of two very long coridoors lined with sculpture and windows on one side with galleries on the other, and the gorgeous views of the Arno and the teracotta Florentine roofs.

In the Uffizi

Looking out of the window down towards the Arno

Now looking up the Piazzale defgli Uffizi with the famous Palazzo Vecchio at the end

A room of my own in the Uffizi

The beautiful Niobe room

Recovering from an art overdoze with an espresso on the rooftop cafe at the Uffizi

It was coming on to rain again as I left the Uffizi, and I walked across the Arno to look around some of the quiet residential streets rising above. It was blessedly cool for the first time, and there was a romance about just walking the steep, quiet, rain-slicked streets, hearing the pitter-patter on my umbrella. This is really a city that's very easy for tourists - everything is a short, pleasant walk from everything else, and most traffic is banned in the city center.

Exploring the streets in the rain

Roberto had generously gotten me a great seat for the Calcio in Costume, or "footable in costume". This is an ancient tournament held in Piazza di Santa Croce between four teams of 27 (!) men each, and it's best described as a kind of ultimate rugby with some grecian wrestling thrown in.

In Piazza di Santa Croce for Calcio in Costume (this shot shows the opening ceremonies, with the beautiful basilica in the background).

The event has a lot more foreplay than action, however, with a long, long (it seemed interminable at times!) series of men in costumes parading at a deathly slow march to a band of drummers and trumpeters (whose one tune will probably stick in my head for days). The opening ceremonies lasted about four times as long as the eccentric ceremony for the international soccer tournament, Euro 2000, which I watched the night before on television. It was really quite a spectacle though, especially when the crowd started to chant, and then shout once in unison "Viva Firenze!" followed by a blast from a cannon.

A stately man in costume on a horse

Spectators (some in funny costumes too :)

Members of the sexy blue team. Those tshirts wouldn't stay on long once they started wrestling each other to the ground! The lead guy was an absolute God!

Finally, the game got started - and boy did it get going! I didn't have a clue who the teams were, what the rules were, or why they were competing, but it was exciting none the less - the object was to get the ball to one end of the pitch by passing it or kicking it, and the job of most of the team-members was to put the opponents out of action by grappling with them. It was extremely fast-paced, hot-tempered, and violent - quite a few minor injuries. But there was a good nature to it - and the audience seemed to cheer both sides. Nobody seemed to care too much about the score, which wasn't even displayed. I think the blue team ultimately won, however. But I was kind of glad when it was over, since I was asphyxiating from the cigarette smoke of the (mostly) Italian crowd.

Hmmm, please wrestle with me :)

As the rain returned after the game was over, I headed back to my hotel, picking up a wonderful meal of roast-beef, grilled eggplant and spinach, which I ate while watching the soccer, Netherlands vs the Czech Republic, on the TV. A great day!