Vasari Corridor

Getting a tour of the Percorso Del Principe (Way of the Princes) encapsulates everything you've heard about Italy: It's not WHAT you know; it's WHO you know. And modern-day life is routinely stymied by labrynthine government bureaucracy and mind-boggling inefficiencies.

A friend who knows someone who knows someone arranged for me and some friends to walk the Vasari Corridor, the overheard walkway between the Uffizi and Palazzo Pitti commissioned by the Medici in 1560. Cosimo I wanted to bypass potential assassins and avoid mixing with the unwashed masses.

It's a strangely quiet sanctuary above the teeming crowds at Piazza della Signoria and Ponte Vecchio. Little has changed inside since Firenze's grand dukes walked from home to the office and back. In the 1930s, Mussolini added three picture windows overlooking the Arno for a visit by Adolf Hitler. And paintings scorched and melted by a 1993 mafia car bomb are on display.

But most interesting are the self-portraits of artists such as Rembrandt and Tiziano, whose distinctive styles of painting are apparent when they paint themselves. Here's modernist Marc Chagall:

Through official channels, the tour costs $135 and takes months to arrange. Many natives have never done it.

We were some of the last to go in before the corridor closes for two years. For the first time, crews are going to add heating and air conditioning (after four centuries of the corridor's existence and decades behind technology) to finally protect the artwork from sweltering summers and freeze-and-thaw winters.

Good Luck Charm

Normally, I think rats are disgusting. We had a nest of them in our back yard in Salt Lake City. Discovered them when we tore down a shed and found a cache of empty walnut shells.

But I make an exception for Coypu. These guys are Beatrix Potter cute. Muskrats that have emigrated from farms in the north, they've taken up residence on the Arno's banks. They're the size of small beavers -- and just as hairy.

Along with noisy families of ducks and geese, we seem to have a clutch of Coypu outside our window. Fodor's or Frommer's -- one of the Florence guidebooks -- says you're lucky if you catch a glimpse...

Signs of the Apocalypse

Or Halloween.

Italians don't do much with the Day of the Dead. Carnivale is a bigger costume party. And there are no orange carving pumpkins to be found--except on U.S. Air Force bases.

And yet....

A Study in Profiles

Jack and a sculpture at Boboli Gardens...Snub nose meets Roman.

Italy's Melting Pot

With a national birthrate hovering at less than replacement value for the past two decades, Italy had to find labor somewhere--people to build the cars and clean the hotels and work in Tabacchi shops. So, they turned to Albania, India, Pakistan, China and North Africa.

A few years ago, the only ethnic restaurants to be found were Chinese and American fast food. Now, there are Indian restaurants, Kebab shops and Shushi plates. And more and more headscarves dot the market.

Still, in a land where basketball is a distant second to soccer, I never expected to see a pickup cricket game (played with a tennis ball) this weekend on the concrete river embankment outside our window....

Reagan Outdoor Advertising

A friend was just remarking how you don't see many billboards in Italy....

Apparently, they just hang banners from the Ponte Vecchio for the right price. This one -- an ad for grocery chain Esselunga's silverware campaign (I'm dutifully collecting stickers and points so I can buy the serving spoon) -- appeared yesterday.

Next up: The Duomo.

Cat Ladies

Rome is famous for its feral cats -- nearly 200,000 of them -- and the ladies who take care of them. They're women of a certain age who haul cat food to points around the town day after day. The most famous gather at Largo di Torre Argentina, an ancient archaelogical dig with 250 wild cats in residence.

In America, the cat ladies would take the critters home and, inevitably, the neighbors would call animal services when the smell got too rank.

I've found one of Florence's m0st dependable cat ladies on my hikes up to Piazzale Michelangelo and the church of San Miniato al Monte. She stops at the same spot on the stairs every morning at about 9 a.m. Her grocery cart is loaded with dry food and plastic plates. And the cats come running.

She's a little cranky, so this photo was taken on the fly....

Buyer Beware

If I wanted to buy a designer purse, I'd probably be tempted by the knockoff Pradas and Guccis nestled into dirty sheets outside all the major tourist attractions in town. But I hope I would notice that the vendors bundle the whole shebang up like a...um...hobo bag and start heading in the other direction when the police are near.

In recent years, Italy has started to crack down on pirated fashion. Signs are posted to warn unsuspecting shoppers. For the price of the ticket -- $1,000 -- you could almost afford the real thing.

Wonder if they'd care as much about a Hermes bag....

After the Harvest

Never thought it could happen. But eventually, Florence starts to look like background to the mundane tasks of life: grocery shopping, school buses, dodging cars during morning walks.

We got out of town last weekend and drove to Montalcino. After a hotel manager/scam artist tried to charge us 185 euros a night to stay in his dated rooms with a "view," we drove down the road a bit further and found the agriturismo for Il Cocco vineyard. (Here's where I slip into diminutives...) It's run by the cutest young winemaker, Giacomo, who seems doomed to scrape by despite 16-hour days and a great Rosso di Montalcino. Still in the process of establishing his vintage, he's been taken by a California wine merchant who didn't pay for the bottles Giacomo shipped....

The accommodations were rustic but "not too precious," as Mary Malouf, the food editor of Salt Lake Magazine and a friend in town, put it. The place was guarded by a skittish Germ

an Shepherd named Cookie who only wanted to play soccer/keep-away. And the terraces were adorned with an unusual number of sexually provocative statues.

It was just the kind of can't-be-duplicated experience to remind us how lucky we are....

Fall-colored Fashion

The Italians are a little smug about American fashion. And with good reason. There's a lot to explain: Touring Europe in Nike running shoes, Dockers pleated khakis, Hawaiian shirts.

I'm turning the tables. In one afternoon at the Duomo, I snapped these shots. Fashion-forward as the Italians are, I don't think the crimson-hued pants many of the men wear are ever going to sweep the world.

I dare you men out there to put these on.

(OK. This guy is a street cleaner.)