"I stumble about, dazed..." -- a poem
Ornate wallpaper and a vase in the Palazzo Pitti.
On my last day in Florence, I spent many hours wandering around the Palazzo Pitti, a Renaissance Palace which is now a museum filled with art. (Also Read: Story of My Trip to Italy: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, and Seven, and: My Paintings and Sketches from Italy.)
Outside the Palazzo Pitti are the Boboli Gardens. I had already spent some time in the gardens on an earlier visit.
A passage from my diary on my last morning in Florence:
26 July 2017...
Morning again, a fresh new start. Yesterday the Uffizi, today, the Pitti Palace...
Lumi, the woman who runs this hostel, makes me an espresso, with some nutella and biscotti for breakfast. Bells are ringing, the air is cool. I will leave my luggage here in the hostel and wander around Florence. Then I will come back at two and catch a train to Rome.
Last night I walked far down along the Arno River to a restaurant right on the river bank. I watched a glorious sunset and ate good food. I felt a little lonely; I think I might be ready to go home again.
The sunset view while enjoying my last dinner in Florence.
My dessert, lit by the sunset.
Here are a few of the many photos I took inside the Palazzo Pitti:
One of many grandiose hallways!
Standing in that same hallway, looking up at the ceiling. One of many, many ornate, painted ceilings.
Walls and walls packed with gorgeous paintings.
A tender painting by Artemisia Gentileschi.
I forget who painted this, but it's Venus checking Cupid's hair for lice!
Detail of a Boticelli
This is a bathroom in the palace.
A statue in that same bathroom.
More ornate ceilings....sigh...
One of many, many rooms of similar opulence.
Starting to miss my kids...I had never been away from them for so long before!
A famous Raphael painting.
Detail of a woman clutching her breast, perhaps overcome by emotion... like me!
Shattered Vessel
I stumble about, dazed,
ravished by sunlight…
My soul is a shattered vessel;
each day it breaks,
many times each day,
again and again it cracks open,
and is reformed, remade,
and filled again with beauty,
unbearable,
unendurable,
beauty.
---one of my Italy poems