"He's an adonis," she said.
"He's a statue," I retorted.
"You should see his body."
"It's made of marble you nut."
"(Sigh) I know..."
Alas. Davina was right. When Michelangelo (at the tender age of 29) carved 'The David' out of a single piece of marble in the early 1500's, he sculpted us all a perfectly legitimate, timeless fantasy guy.
Here are his vital statistics:
- around 5 metres tall (seriously - he is freaking enormous)
- 6% body fat (my eyeball estimate)
- 1.2 million visitors a year
He is colossal, majestic and stark nekkid. He also happened to ice a giant with a sling. Hellava guy that David.
The David now resides in a museum in Florence. Florence (or Firenze, as the Italians call it) is the capital of the Tuscany region in Italy and is considered, amongst other things, the birthplace of the Renaissance. It's also the birthplace of Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Dante, Machiavelli and Galileo. More importantly perhaps, Guccio Gucci, Roberto Cavalli, Emilio Pucci and Salvatore Ferragamo were also Florentine originals.
My husband and I spent a few days there last week , driving through Tuscany, eating cheese and drinking Chianti, exploring cobbled streets and gorging on some of the best gelati we've ever eaten. We stayed at Hotel Lungarno, which I can highly recommend. They have about 3 hotels and 1 apartment building in the city and they're all fantastic.
www.lungarnohotels.com
Not big fans of organised tours, we found a wonderful Italian woman who had studied art history to take us around what is truly a medieval marvel:
The piazzas are still peppered with the arts and trades of times gone by. There are vintage carousels, mimes with white faces and young artists painting fresco-style masterpices on the cobbled streets. If that's not your cup of tea, the shopping is awesome. The usual suspects are there: Zara, H&M, Disney Store for kids. I fell madly lustfully in love with Zadig and Voltaire. My credit card did not. Nuff said.
www.zadig-et-voltaire.com
We will definitely go back to Italy. The language is easy. The people are warm. The gelati is ridiculous. It's also seemingly really bambini-friendly, and despite the welcome break from the mountain of duties of a working mom, I missed my kids terribly. (except in Zadig and Voltaire, where I was in some sort of trance)
Ciao.
X
