In the Shadow of the Duomo

By DANIEL WINSTON GATTO | Junior Reporter

Hot and tired we all got off the train from Venice and started heading to the hotel that we would be staying in. As we were walking we heard a large amount of people fast approaching. When we looked over, we found ourselves in the middle of a parade!

This parade was in honor of the patron saint of the city, St. John the Baptist. Dad, Jennifer, my brother Michael and I tried to walk past them, but it was too late and we were all cut off!

We decided that instead of cutting through it, we would try to find the front and run across. We all sprinted, with our bags in hand, to the front of the parade and finally passed them, hoping to get to our tour to see the Statue of David on time.

We dropped our bags off at the hotel and cruised through the streets towards the tour. On the way there, we weaved through people in the shade of a large building. I realized it was the Cathedral of Santa Maria, also known as the Duomo of Florence!

The tour of the Statue of David was at the Accademia Gallery where he and many other works of art were displayed. The area was extremely chaotic with tourists shouting at each other and just uncountable numbers of people.

During the tour we looked at many beautiful paintings by Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Nenci and Giambologna. We eventually entered the “Hall of Prisoners,” which was a corridor leading up to David that was filled with Michelangelo’s half-finished statues of people. The statues looked like they were trapped in the stone, hence why they were called “prisoners.”

At the end of the hall was the statue of David. It was huge, towering 17 feet tall over us and was very imposing. Before I had wondered why people cared so much about some statues, but I now understand why it is considered one of the greatest sculptures on earth.

Past David was a bunch of other statues depicting people and animals in all kinds of actions and poses. They were all incredibly lifelike and extremely detailed and I could not help but wonder how Michelangelo had made such lifelike statues with such crude tools. I bet Michelangelo wished he had a 3D printer like we have today.

As we were leaving we realized something … it was super hot! We started walking through the city and saw innumerable amounts of art, be it graffiti, sidewalk art, mosaics in the windows, and street artists creating new works on every corner! Of course, art was everywhere, we were in one of the most creative cities in Italy: Florence.

We kept walking, looking for a place to get out of the heat and came across a Banksy exhibit. The exhibit was in a cathedral which I thought was very cool, visually and physically.

I had never heard of Banksy before, so all this art was completely foreign to me. Banksy is a street artist, political activist, and film director that created street art that incites social commentary.

His art was beautiful but at the same time extremely haunting. As we were leaving, I felt sad and a little bit ashamed of society as a whole. To cheer me up, we all stopped for some gelato. I got chocolate and it was possibly the best ice cream I had ever had.

Our hotel was in the heart of Florence but we didn’t spend much time there. The hotel was nice but there was an even nicer hotel next door with a roof deck that we spent a ton of time at. It had Aperol spritzes and snacks, and we took so many amazing photos showing the Florence skyline.

The next evening, we asked what restaurants were tasty nearby. They recommended the La Buchetta restaurant just around the corner. When we got there, there was a massive line of locals and tourists.

My dad said he was going to ask the maitre’d how long the wait was. A minute later we were sitting at a great table—ready to order. I’m not sure what my dad said to the guy when he shook his hand but it seemed to have worked.

At dinner we had some extremely enjoyable steak. We didn’t know this prior to our arrival at the time but Florence is a very proud meat-eating town. Cuts of beef were displayed and hung in the windows of almost every restaurant.

So for dinner we had steak Florentine, pasta al fungi, local eggplant and very bland bread. The reason the bread was so flavorless was because it did not have a lot of salt. This was because in medieval Florence, salt was so heavily taxed that bakers stopped using it, and this became the tradition of Florence bread making.

The next morning we woke up and rushed to get into a taxi because it was time for our cooking class! We took a 1 hour car ride far into the Tuscany countryside and met our hostess Giuseppina who greeted us with fresh watermelon and smiles.

We also met the other family we would be cooking with. They were a nice family from Chicago and would be making a four course meal of salad, chicken, pasta and dessert with us.

We started by not making the pasta but rather making dessert. It was a flowerless Oreo like cookie roll that needed to be chilled.

After we finished with this we moved on to the actual pasta. We made the dough then rolled it into long strands by hand and everyone seemed really good at it except me. I had trouble making the pasta into a uniform consistent shape though I figured it out eventually with a little help from Jennifer.

We all learned a lot about cooking, the kitchen, and the surrounding area around Tuscany. Giuseppina’s kitchen was 700 years old and made completely of local stone!

After we finished cooking we started eating and it may have been the best food I have ever had. It was made all the better knowing that we had made this ourselves. I think I even saw my brother Michael smile once or twice who had been grumpy this whole trip.

After saying goodbye to our new friends and Chef Giuseppina we headed back to the hotel and went next door to the fancy hotel for our last roof deck viewing of the city’s skyline and the Duomo which was looming over us our whole visit. Then we crashed for the night.

The next morning as we said goodbye to Florence, got on the train and headed to Rome. At that point, I only had one thought in my head, I can’t wait to see my 83-year-old Granny Flo who was meeting us in Rome all the way from New York!