Misadventures in Tuscany
The Casebook of an Accident-Prone Tourist
by
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The most remarkable building in the square however is the Palazzo dell'Orologio which stands on the other side of the piazza, to the right of the Scuola. It is eye-catching because of its unusual shape, like the hands on a clock pointing at twenty to four. There is in fact, a huge clock high up on the top of the building above an arch. Not much use as a clock though. It seems to be broken. Time stands still. But that is better than running fast or slow as it means it is telling the right time twice a day.
The part in the middle is a later addition, uniting two separate towers once belonging to the Gherardeschi family. I prefer the tower on the left as it has some rather attractive Venetian-style windows, while the one on the right, though impressive, has no special distinguishing features. Taken as a pair, the non-identical twin towers look much more appealing as a single construction. I suppose, now I come to think of it, this middle section, uniting but at the same time dividing, performs the same function as it does in a bra and, as far as I am concerned at least, provides an uplifting experience.
It has, however, an interesting, if grisly history, which Dante relates in The Inferno.
Set against the background of the warring rival city states of Pisa, Lucca, Florence and Genoa, and all the wheeling and dealing that involved, Count Ugolino had a bit of a chequered history as far as his relationship with the Pisans themselves were concerned, having more of an eye to what was in his interests rather than theirs. In 1288, the Pisans rioted in protest at sharp price increases and food shortages and in the course of these riots, Ugolino killed the nephew of the powerful and influential Ruggieri degli Ubaldini, Archbishop of Pisa. The Archbishop incited the people to rise up in arms against the Count and when he surrendered, the good Archbishop had not just the Count, but his sons and grandchildren incarcerated in the tower on the right and the key thrown into the Arno, leaving them to die of starvation. The Archbishop was obviously taking no risks as far as this family was concerned.
In Dante’s version, with a bit of artistic licence, the Count’s sons pleaded with him to prolong his own life by eating their corpses:
…you are the one
Who clothed us with this wretched flesh: we plead
For you to be the one who strips it away.
It reminds me of those “improving” tales for Victorian children who willingly sacrificed their lives for the “author of their being.” And quite right too. If you can’t die for your parents when you are a child – who else can you lay your life down for? Not that there would have been a lot of eating in his sons I suppose, by the time they had starved to death. Still, for raw drama, you can’t argue with Dante, and regardless of whether Ugolino decided to eat them or not, he would have had no means of cooking them first.
The Via Ulisse Dini (the not so well-known mathematician and politician) leads us to the Borgo Largo, Pisa’s smartest street. It’s not my kind of street. The arcades are pleasant enough, but there is nothing to interest me here. Shops, especially those who specialise in designer names, such as they are here, are a complete and utter anathema to me. Another thing that I cannot get my head around is the thought that people would be willing to pay those inflated prices just to be considered trendy. Their brains, it seems to me, must be in inverse proportion to the amount of money they have.
And so, we come, in due course, to the Arno. Our side, the left side, or possibly the right side – it’s impossible to tell, because, no matter how hard I stare at the water, there is not the remotest sense of a ripple to give a clue as to the direction in which this lazy river is flowing, if it is at all, though I suppose it must, to meet its destiny before it expires. And it is then that I have one of those moments, one of those Damascene epiphanies that makes the meaning of life clear to me. With all due respect to Douglas Adams, he was wrong. It’s not what he said at all. The Arno is the answer and it has been staring us in the face for centuries. This is it. This is the Arno principle:
Flow gently through your life. It is your destiny to be swallowed up by something greater than you. Why should you
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About the Book
David M. Addison provides a refreshing, alternative perspective in travel writing. A bit like Mr Bean on holiday, picking up the wrong piece of luggage at the airport is just the first in a series of misadventures which bedevil the author and his long-suffering wife on this ill-starred trip to Tuscany. From the lesser-known Lucca, which serves as the epicentre for his disasters, to Pisa and Florence, the author takes the reader not only on a hilarious journey, but also on one of discovery as he lurches from one crisis to the next.
His frequently toe-curling account of his misadventures with the wrong bag is the link that blows like a gale of laughter throughout this narrative. Yet, for all his bungling, the author is surprisingly knowledgeable about the art, architecture and the history of Florence, Pisa and Lucca - places famous on the tourist map but what attracts his attention in these places is the weird amidst the wonderful, the curious and the quirky details that pass unnoticed by the majority of tourists.
In addition to this, the author takes the reader off the beaten track to places most tourists never venture. There are frequent laugh-out-loud moments at his technophobia, his blunders, his brushes with officialdom and those who just happen to cross his path, who either amuse him, intrigue him or as often as not, provoke his irritation.
A word of sympathy however, must be mentioned for his long-suffering wife and travelling companion who, amidst all this mayhem, is an innocent and unwitting accomplice.
About the Author
Born a long time ago in a place far, far away even from most other places in Scotland, David M. Addison grew up, at least in the physical sense, and moved away from his native north-east and began travelling the globe, though he does make occasional returns to his native soil to visit old haunts and haunt the old relations who have not disowned him. This is the fifth book recounting his travels and once again he has been drawn back to Italy for which has a particular fondness.
For more information on the author and his books visit his website www.davidmaddison.org or http://www.filedby.com/author/david_m_addison/1371971/