On the eve of the Eve of the...

We're coming up on the eve of the Eve, and while I am visiting family in the States right now, I am wishing that I was not missing what I think is the best time to be in Italy.  The tourist crowds die down. Locals come out and have big family gatherings at their favorite restaurants.  They shop a little more seriously than other times of the year. The weather - short daylight hours, sometimes gray and overcast, sometimes rainy - appeals to my Celtic/Viking nature.  So many streets are glowing with holiday decorations.

People really DO seem to be a bit happier.

And that is what I'd like to be, too.  

The last four months have been a rough span of time for me.  I don't want to be vague, but I'll nonetheless have to be. They weren't without some successes, but they were still quite challenging.  I'm too cynical to say that I have ever found myself deeply in a Christmas spirit, necessarily, but I am cognizant of how I've struggled more with tapping into much of any of it, this season. 

Maybe some of you can also (equally vaguely or really specifically) attest to the same problem.  

These images are here for the members of this weird club, in hopes of distracting you from the holiday blahs.  

How about a little jaunt for a short weekend in Florence? 

Color me biased, but I might like that city's holiday street lighting better than Rome's.

When we arrived at almost 9pm after our 90 minute Friday evening train ride from Rome, we checked in to our hotel, and while the desk person was explaining all the usual things about the place, she held this up and I saw that word.  I didn't book or request an upgrade, I said, thinking that I may have inadvertently made a mistake. 

Oh I know, she said.  We just upgraded you anyway.

(this never happens to me)

We got the suite???? Sweet! 

In my limited experience, only one room in a Sorrento hotel in 2012 rivals this one in size.  But nothing rivals the view from our window:

JACKPOT.

But back to the other features of our visit. 

Those two folks on the left are our best travel buddies.  And we are in my absolute favorite restaurant in all of Florence. 

So yeah, happy can happen.

Florence does some classy decorating.

And SHOCKER:  they have a fantastic Christmas market.  I'm slow to the holiday market party, clearly, as my first one was last year.  But it was in Germany, so I'd say that I did a pretty authentic first go at holiday markets.

So what are these things, my American friends might ask. 

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, temporary stalls are erected in town squares.  You can shop for schlocky tacky trinkets.  You can stop and sip mulled wine.  You can eat lots of indulgent foods and desserts while standing up in the cold, in the company of hordes of people.

Piazza Navona, which was traditionally known for its Christmas market, was not such a great market experience in the last two seasons.  A carousel. Some carnival-type games booths. Maybe a stall selling artisanal soaps or candles.  

Kinda lame.

But this year, the vendors of creche figures have returned! THIS is what the Piazza Navona market was known for:

And there they are. 

Babbo Natale - maybe hanging out for photo ops? 

But back to this market in particular.  

I have it on good authority that the real point of these markets is to eat a lot of good food and get your drink on. The shopping could be serious, or not. 

Florence's market gave us all of our requirements and then some: international foods (a person could get churros and sangria, German stollen, an Italian porchetta sandwich, a potato cake with melted cheese on top, a bratwurst on a bun, skewered chicken, doughnuts the size of my head, mulled wine, hot cider and, wait for it: mulled beer with whiskey added.  Sound a bit gross to you?  Sure, said the two guys I was traveling with. And then they tried it. And then they made plans for a second round) were plentiful and pretty authentic.

I could (and did) buy to take home: shearling gloves, any and all manner of licorice, British cheddars and bacon-wrapped wurst. There were, in fact, artisanal soaps, toys and good jewelry vendors too.

I'm sure that you're going to tell me that your favorite market is in some tiny Austrian town, and I'll say: what are the directions, because I'll go there AFTER revisiting Florence's market.  

So holiday shopping is not complete without visiting the 1930s-era candy store on my street in Rome, where many old style sweets can be found. 

Next year, my plan is to make my own panettone, as I still have Maria (my sourdough starter/'mother leavener') and stupid amounts of ambition. And see? I'm also blessed to have this candy store nearby, as they carry all the necessary candied fruits to go into the panettone (but there shall be no raisins, as raisins are sad evocations of perfectly good grapes, and disgusting in texture when heated). 

Dear America: you've been listening to Nat King Cole singing about chestnuts roasting on an open fire for years...even though this kind of holiday sight is impossible for you to actually have with American chestnuts. So come to Italy and visit one of the many roasted chestnut vendors on the streets (and get a bottle of water, because while those nuts are wonderful, they will absorb every bit of moisture in your mouth). And then go back home, take a hike in the Appalachians, find an American chestnut sprout, and help revive this mighty tree. This way, Nat King Cole will sound more authentic.

Yeah, we're back in Florence here.  That beautiful church you saw backgrounding the Christmas market is Santa Croce, which for several years was closed for restoration. 

But it's finally reopened. And it's glorious.

Adjoining the church is the Pazzi chapel, designed by Brunelleschi. You enter it from one of the cloisters of Santa Croce. 

The floorplan, elevations and interior are all based on mathematically contrived harmonies. A perfectly ideal Renaissance space.

Inside St. Croce proper.  I've never seen the place without scaffolding somewhere in it.  How nice to have an unfettered view....of famous Italians' tombs and memorials!

Michelangelo is buried here.

Galileo is buried here.

Dante is memorialized here (he is actually buried in Bologna).

And finally, Machiavelli.

This tree is far better than last year's Roman Christmas tree.  For one thing, it's alive, so that's an improvement. And for another thing, Netflix ponied up the 275,000 euros it cost to bring, install and decorate the tree.  My only issue is how Netflix perpetually wrecks the otherwise nice vision with a large box faced in big video screens directly below the tree. 

You already know about this church from an earlier blog post.  Recall that it's never open, unless it's Sunday from 9am to noon (and from 10ish onward, they're holding mass, so you can't exactly walk around with a camera while that's going on).

But for some crazy reason, it was open on this weekday. So I stood just outside the front door and shot some surreptitious photos of the interior. 

That wacky Borromini, denying the full flourish, if not outright excess, of Baroque church decoration in polychrome marbles and gilding anything that sat still...and instead going for classy and pure white on white.

It was a gift.

As is this, to you. 

May you have (yes, I'm really hoping we all do) happy holidays. 

Pace, friends.