Firenze, Italia
November 1 is Ognissanti or I Santi. It is an official national holiday in Italia. We Catholics call it All Saints’ Day in English. Tomorrow will be Il Giorno dei Morti. While it is not an official national holiday in Italia, the Italians will treat it as one. For example, one of the reasons we are in Firenze instead of working the olive orchard is that Avis isn’t open today, nor is it open tomorrow. Il Girono dei Morti literally translate to the day of the dead, also known as All Souls’ Day.
Now the question arises – is Ognissanti a Christian or a pagan holiday? Like most Christian holidays it is a day hijacked from a pagan ceremony. Now which one? Well thankfully it is the Irish Celtic festival of Samhain. During Samhain people would celebrate the end of summer and the harvest by lighting bonfires and wear costumes.
In truth who gets the “blame”? A monk named Alcuin. He was a monk who spent his first fifty years at the cathedral school in York. In 782 he met Charlemagne and was invited to Aachen where the king was gathering leading Irish, English and Italian scholars. In 796 he left the court of Charlemagne and became the abbot of the Abbey of St. Martin at Tours. Here, through his encouragement, the monks developed the Carolingian minuscule script, which is the ancestor of minder Roman typefaces.
Much of the Western Roman Catholicism is ascribed to his revision of the liturgy of the Frankish church. He was responsible for introducing the singing of the creed. This was an Irish Northumbrian custom. He also arranged the votive masses for particular days of the week. This order is still followed some 1200 years later.
Alcuin’s life is full of contradictions. He wrote a number of works on education, theology and philosophy, in addition to revising the liturgy. He was greatly involved in the leadership of the church and state. During the Middle Ages he was well remembered and Known, yet he remained only a deacon. By the end of his life he had acquired a great reputation of holiness, but he was never included in the canon of saints.
However, Alcuin kept November 1st as All Saints’ Day, probably due to his Irish roots. Pope Gregory IV ordered the general observance of All Saints’ Day in 837. In medieval England the day was known as All Hallows, and its eve was known as Halloween.
We expected more stores and businesses to be closed, but when we went out for our morning walk we discovered the general retail market is in full swing. A few of the smaller shops were closed but all the larger shops were open. It was also clear by the number of people on the street that most businesses or offices were closed.
The day started as usual with a visit to a bar for cappuccino and brioche. While attending school in Siena in the fall of 2019, the weekends were often spent in Firenze. There was a particular pasticceria near the hotel, The Market Urban Hotel, where I stayed at on the weekends. Just down the street, Via Nazionale, was Caffé Degl’Innocenti. We headed there is morning. Unfortunately, the brioche weren’t as good as I recalled. The cappuccino was very good. It was the price that bothered me the most.
Now maybe my recall isn’t very good. And it has been a while. However, I remember a brioche being €1, or a fancy one being €1.3. The price at The Place in Torino is €1.2, or a fancy one is €1.5. This morning I was surprised when the bill came to over €8. Now the sing said that a cappuccino was €1.2. Working backwards that meant the the brioche were €2.8 each. That might have been ok if they had been particularly good, but they weren’t.
From here was took a long walk down toward the Ponte Vecchio. There is a children’s clothing shop on Via Por Santa Maria where Serra said we should look for Taf Ricami e Tavaglita Srl Firenze for christening gown for Amadea. We took a little side trip to walk past Hotel Guelfa. Grace and I stayed there in 2019. It is lovely and I wanted to show Mary.
Anyway, we easily found Taf Ricami e Tavaglita, but it was too early they open at 11. So Mary remembered another children’s shop somewhere near by. We walk around a little bit until I remembered roughly where it was. We went back to the River Arno and the Ponte Vecchio and walked along Lungarno degli Acciaiuoli following the Arno westward. When we reached Piazza Goldoni I remembered where it was. We hung a right and headed down Via del Parione. Right there on the corner was Anichini, the children’s clothing store.
It was also closed. Perhaps it was too early or it was the holiday. At this point we walked back to Taf. Now understand that Ricami translates as embroidery, and Tavaglita, is tablecloth. However they sell lots of very fancy children’s clothes.
We went upstairs to the 1st floor (2nd for my American friends) to the children’s department. Here Mary looked at eight or ten different dresses. After she got it down to three she asked me to chime in. They were all very nice, but nothing sang out buy me. We took photos and sent them to Serra, and departed.
Jody from Asilia Africa and I had arranged a phone call at 12:00 to talk about the African Safari in March. So, we huffed it back to the apartment so I could set up the call. It took some doing as the cell service in the apartment isn’t great, but the wi-if is so Jody setup a Microsoft office Meeting and I joined in.
The call was promoted by the cancellation of the Morocco Tour by Cosmos. Stu and Chrissy had suggested we simply move the dates of the Safari. I am not sure they truly understood how much is involved. Moving the flight to Kilimanjaro from Amsterdam, moving the flight from Torino to Amsterdam, moving the flight from Milano to Casablanca. However, Jody said it was possible to move the dates and Jessica, at Cosmos, said the March 28th tour was available for Morocco. So, change it will be.
By now it was after 13:00 and time for lunch. We headed towards Via Faenza which is a pedestrian street with lots of restaurants, shops and the laundromat. We stopped and read a couple of menus and found one we liked – Trattoria Antellesi.
A busy place. All the tables outside were taken so the hostess and cameriere said we could sit inside. So we got a small table inside. Clearly this is a place locals eat and do so often. People knew one another, and everyone spoke Italian. The food should be good.
The meal was excellent. The lasagna alla Nonna was very good, not Mariagiulia good, but still high on the list. Mary had spaghetti with tomato sauce and it was also good. We each enjoyed a class of Chianti and shared a salad. It was a nice lunch.
After lunch we returned to the apartment and played a game of Canasta. Then I went to take a nap. Unfortunately it is now 14:00 which means Stu is waking up in Florida and Jessica is going in the Midwest. The iPad was dinging like crazy. So the next hour and half or tow hours, were spent working out all the various arrangements for Africa and Morocco next spring.
Called to Royal Air Moroc and KLM to change the flights. One of the advantages of traveling business class is that tickets are generally changeable. What I found was that airfares had actually gone down a little bit since I made the original reservations in July. Now normally on short flights we don’t do business class, but the flight to Africa on KLM from Amsterdam is nine hours and all day – 10 in the morning until nearly 9 at night. There is a two-hour time change.
The flight to Morocco is a bit over four hours. There is a one-hour time change. But is starts at 6 at night and arrives at 10 at night. This one we fly out of Milano, but the one to Africa is out of Amsterdam. Why Amsterdam? Amsterdam is a hub for flights to Africa. KLM is the only airline that has direct flights to and from Kilimanjaro. Other airlines can get you there but you are often looking at flights of more than fifteen hours, due to stops and changes. Even KLM has a stop on the way back. That flight is over 12 hours with a one-hour stop in Das Es Salaam.
Well enough done, plans for March and part of April are set. The good news is that we will be able to be in Torino for Easter (April 20) in the spring. We are going to miss Amadea’s christening in January so it is important to be here for Easter. After all this we took a walk to the market. We needed something for dinner, more honey for my tea, paper towels and the like.
The small supermercato in Piazza San Lorenzo didn’t have much, most notably my honey. We did get a few things for dinner and dropped off those at the apartment. Then we walked the larger Conad City supermercato on Via del Melarancio. Along the way we walked past Ristorante Peking, at which point Mary said she remembered a Chinese restaurant near l’Oste where Karol worked. On the way back from Conad City I walked us down Borgo San Lorenzo where l’Oste is. No Chinese restaurant. We did notice that l’Oste had taken over a restaurant across the street as well as keeping the old location. But, no Chinese restaurant. It has been a few years and even in Italia things change over time.
Back at the apartment we played cards. Interacted with Stu and Jessica. We ate apple and cheese for dinner. No successful nap today, so by 20:30 it was time for bed. Confirmed arrangements with Serena for dinner tomorrow night. A very productive day.
Buonanotte e ciao, Enrico & Maria.
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