Friday I'm in Love

I've become a palace groupie.

Today's was the Medici-Ricardi palace, home to Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Teenaged Michelangelo lived there.

Leonardo played lute for Medici parties (wouldn't that have been my kind of night out?).

An enclosed citrus garden has lemon and lime trees heavy with fruit.

In Lorenzo's workshop, things have gone high tech with a screen showing a fresco to which you point at a figure and hear details of the person pictured.

It's not my idea of a workshop, but it is fascinating.

The chapel of the Magi is a clear statement of wealth (we don't need no stinkin' church, we have our own chapel).

Three walls show a fresco of "The Journey of the Magi," but what I notice is how many horses' asses face the viewer.

Intentional? Inquiring minds want to know.

In one instance, the fresco had to be cut off, but the back end of the donkey is found on a nearby wall.

The oddest thing about the palace was that it's actually a government building, so we'd turn a corner and spot worker bees doing their jobs at desks.

Must be nice to have a government job in a palace, especially circa 2012.

Finally it was time to check out Florence's centerpiece, the Duomo.

It's the visitor's best friend because its imposing dome is a nearly-always visible landmark when yet another windy street presents itself.

Inside, it was everything the art history class slides promised it to be, except it could use a good exterior cleaning, the better to show off the gaudy green, pink and white exterior.

From inside, the dome is as awe-inspiring as it must have been to the Florentines in the 1400s.

It's a cavernous space and once again, I see locals lighting candles to get otherworldly help with whatever's ailing them.

After a snack of grapes enjoyed sitting on the curb and people watching (you'd be amazed at the wedges and 5" heels some tourists choose for a day of walking on medeival streets), we head to the Duomo museum, intrigued because we'd read that few tourists bother with it.

That's a rookie mistake because all those people clumped together taking pictures of the Duomo's doors must be unaware that Ghiberti's original doors are inside this museum.

Buying our tickets, the tourist in front of us asks for a discount on hers.

The ticket server clarifies things for her.

"Even the polizia pay. Even the priests. Even god would have to pay to come in!" he says animatedly, placing his hands on either side of his head.

The tourist leaves.

Clearly she thought she deserved better than Mr. Big.

Inside, the riches are overwhelming.

Donatello's marble choir box shows dancers clearly having a ball moving around the box.

In a reliquary, we see John the Baptist's index finger.

It's as unappealing as it sounds.

More compelling is Bruneleschi's death mask sitting casually in a corner case and easy to miss.

We see an intricately detailed mosaic bust of San Zanobia, notable because we have been staying at a B & B on Via de San Zanobia, with no clear idea who the hell SZ was.

Finally, we get to the piece de resistance: Ghiberti's doors.

The 25-year who won the competition to design the Baptistry's doors lives on the most magnificent bronze doors surely ever created.

The ten panels that make up the gates of paradise are amazing in their depth of field as they show vignettes from Adam and Eve to the Queen of Sheba.

I leave dying to go out to the copy doors on the Baptistry and start shouting, "These aren't the real doors, you idiots."

But I refrain.

Starved after a day of chapels and index fingers, we find lunch at Trattoria Mastrociligia who are in pre-dinner mode,

They are okay with us wanting lunch, so we order a bottle of Mastri Vernocoli Muller Thurgau 2010 and, in quick succession, whatever catches our eye on the menu.

Another salad misto, this one providing our first celery sighting.

A salad of grapefruit, salmon and avocado is as light as a sunny October afternoon in Flo-town.

But the real star is the house pasta, cappello Mastrociligia, a sumptuous dish of penne, truffle oil, asparagus and bleu cheese in a housemade rustic bread bowl.

We nearly devour it before reason sets in and it occurs to us that we now have a sauce-soaked bottom of the bowl to finish our meal with.

Needless to say, dessert becomes a non-issue once the bread bowl is decimated.

But you can only keep a Florentine eater down for so long so on the walk back, we stop at a pasteceria for cookies, mine a buttery shortbread type dipped in dark chocolate.

Whatever I usually do on Fridays has been bested by a day of high living homes, young men in paradise and truffle oil soaked bread.

What's for dinner?