A merry little Christmas. . .

I did what I could for a Christmas celebration but with no tree, snow, decorations, food or any other recognizable trappings of the season it was just another day in Florence except fewer museums beckoned. The cathedral was open so I went to the early Mass. It wasn a high Mass. I counted at least 32 'altar boys. I'm serious. It was like a parade when they entered, under the watchful eye of security guards, I might add! The Mass was not entirely in Latin or maybe it was. Is Gregorian Chant Latin? I'm serious about that, too. I didn't understand anything except and occasional Cristo or Dio. The choir seemed to be the only part of the service that have moved into the new millenium. One of the hymns was in English although it wasn't one of the ones I remembered from grade school. Of course, at that time, I don't think the church had caught up to the current millenium at that time either. Oh, I guess there was one aspect of the entire thing that was current and that would be the sound system! Yes, in the 12th and 13th centuries the hall would be filled to capacity and the priest could play to the back row. These days they've removed the pews and brought in folding chairs for the handful of faithful and curious (I'm in the latter category) and need sound reinforcement just to keep the crowd awake.

Since it was a high Mass, there was a lot of incense being blessed out. Between that (makes me ill) and the cold, I thought it best to skip out early. I left as the masses were heading up for the Eucharist.

After that it was just day of wandering around the closed city. There were a few places open but nothing to write home about so I'll move on to Friday.

This was a bit busier day for me. Some things were still closed or had shortened hours but a bit of serendipity came up. I started out trying to get into the Forte di Belvedere but like opposing forces before me, I couldn't breach the walls. Or in my case, the closed ticket office. I moseied back to the town center going through the old city along the way. I wound up at the Palazzo Vecchio. I arrived just in time to take a self guided walk thru and end up back at the beginning in time for a guided tour of the secret passages. I like those parts of palaces and places. There was not great intrigue, however, connected to these particular passages. They were just hidey places for one of the Medici's personal little treasures-Paintings were on cabinet doors that held smaller items Mr. Medici valued. The passages just circled round back into the apartment that they started in. . .mostly ;-). The tour also went into the attic which the former construction worker in me liked. 25 trusses. The original 12 held both the roof and the new ceiling that had been added. The weight eventually proved to be a bit much so 13 new trusses were added in between the original ones. The ceiling is now suspended from those and the roof rests on the original ones. Interesting, huh? I knew you'd think so.

It was lunchtime after all that secreting around and I wanted to go somewhere I could just sit.. I remembered seeing a McD's from the bus on the way into two and decided to seek it out. I was needing some comfort food. One the way, I passed three museums that I figured I'd checkout after food. The first one was a Raphael exhibition in the Riccardo Medici Palace. The second one was a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit with items constructed recently from his various codexes (codices?) and the third was, uh, well, it was sort of. . .Ok, I wanted a break from all the high culture. It was the Serial Killer Museum, OK? Yes, I did two out of three and Raphael was not one of them. It wasn't horribly done (or maybe it was, if you catch my drift) and the audio guide was included in the price. Mixed in with the info on the subjects were various lessons in forensics. It was like watching CSI. Considering the name of the exhibit, was it right or wrong to include three exhibits on the ways to execute convicted murderers?

Let's move on. Today was very moderate in terms of sight seeing. I guess I'm reaching critical mass and I need to take a break to get prepped for Rome. I visited one church (St. Maria Novollo), one garden (Boboli), one palace (Palazzo Pitti). I tried to catch the sightseeing bus but it has a limited schedule during the winter and the timing didn't work out. I might catch the one route of that tomorrow. I'd like a bit more history of the city. Everything I've heard so far begins and ends with the Medici family and The Renaissance. If there was a RE-naissance, what happened during the 'naissance'?