Get Thee to Italy

It was "aught two" and I had just been laid off from Arthur Andersen after the Enron tornado had swept through the company, leaving its path of destruction. I was now unemployed, and my good friend Matt was in Florence studying at a culinary school. So I hopped a plane. The first evening found us at a party given by one of the teachers at the school -- wines, cheeses, pasta...things I had had before, but never on a rooftop penthouse overlooking the Arno river, and never in such proximity to the place where many of these delights had originated.

I slept in most every day, and each night was spent on the patio singing and strumming a guitar. After a few days, we rented a car and puttered over to Verona, the backdrop for Romeo and Juliet. Without a plan, we managed to stumble across a parade, a photo exhibit by a famous photographer displayed inside the ruins of a Roman palace, and a phenomenal lunch spot where I had four-cheese pizza that I would shiv my cell-mate to get another taste of. The gorgonzola brought me to my knees. Driving through the Italian Alps, I found a radio station playing a German Opera after the sun had just set, and we let that serve as our soundtrack as we meandered through the curvy roads, ancient castles spot-lit from below looming with ominous splendor around every turn.

Italy was a deluge of fine foods, but I remember most a little sandwich shop called Antico Noe. Just a notch in the wall under a bridge in a place known as Florence's "crack alley," but a far cry from a crack alley in LA, one of the local homeless guys recommended a nice Pinot. Best sandwich I ever had. No lie.

The capper was the Academia, where they now keep the original statue of David by Michelangelo, the greatest work of art these eyes have ever gazed upon. If you left Florence without seeing that, you must have left in a body bag.

Looking back, I think my decision not to pack every minute with activities while I was there was indeed the right choice. I was not tempted by Rome, or Venice, I just wanted to get a feel for Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance, of the modern world really -- DaVinci, Galileo, Michelangelo...these great minds still infuse the city walls with a kind of magic you can't experience anyplace else, and it all made for the most enriching travel experiences I have yet had.