Evening
I managed to sleep through the night in spite of the back problems. By the time I got up, some of the stiffness had gone away, but it was far from perfect. I decided to be on the safe side and cancel my plans to go to Perugia for lunch with Sara and Caroline. At the same time, I knew it would be good to get out and walk.
I went up for breakfast on the terrace where I ran into the concierge. "You wouldn't know where I could buy a back brace around here?" I asked.
She thought about this a second.
"Well, love," she said, "I don't think they'd have one at the supermercato. Now you can get one at a farmacia, but you really want to go with the Chinese on this."
Chinese?
She slapped her side.
"I'm wearing mine right now. Awful back problems myself. You can pay a lot at the farmacia, or you can find a Chinese shop. The one they have won't be as good, but it'll be cheaper and it'll get you through a couple days at least."
Normally I would go for the good stuff, but I'll only be in Italy for three more days and I have a good one at home.
"Where can I find a Chinese shop around here?"
She thought about this a moment.
"I don't really know, but they're all over the place. Maybe there's one by the church."
She peered down the street as though looking for one.
"I'll tell you what you do," she said. "You just go into any shop down there and tell them you're looking for a 'negozzi Cinese.' They'll know where they are."
This was pretty vague, but I needed the walk anyway. If worse came to worse, I would find a farmacia and they would have one.
I went down to my room to get my camera before taking off on my walk. Before leaving, I checked my email. There was one from Bruce asking me if I wanted to stay in his second bedroom in Florence. Although it was already inside 72 hour cancellation limit at La Scaletta, I thought that I could pay the one night penalty and save on the second night. I was about to do this when I got a second email from Bruce. He wanted to warn me that his flat is a fourth floor walk-up. Given my back and the size of my suitcase, I decided to stick with the La Scaletta option.
I walked down toward Santa Maria degli Angeli. My back was handling it OK, except for those times when I would hit a sudden dip for a driveway or an unexpected curb. Then it felt like a pile driver on my lower back. When I got to the shopping area I started to look for anything vaguely Chinese. Nothing. I did, though, find a farmacia and decided that expense was the better part of valor. I went in.
I could see that the small shop was well stocked so I had a glimmer of hope.
"Parla Inglese?" I asked the clerk.
The man just shook his bald head.
Great. How the hell do you ask for a back brace when you don't know the words? I pointed to my back and mimicked pain. He smiled, nodded his head reached behind to grab a pack of some kind of back pills.
"Non, non," I said. I mimed wrapping a belt around my middle and standing straight. He looked at me quizzically then suddenly lit up.
"Si, si," he said then repeated this over and over again as he searched for what I was looking for. He found a solid looking elastic brace for 19 Euros. Actually, the roughly $24 USD that it would cost is a lot less than I'm used to paying for such things. I bought it.
Before heading back, I wanted to sit on the steps at Santa Maria for a while. If yesterday was a melange of tour groups, today, Sunday, was a plethora of monks and nuns. Once mass started I was tempted to go in. It passed when I imagined doing all the "stand up/sit down" a Catholic mass requires. Just the thought of it sent me home to put on my brace.
Relief - at least relative relief - came as soon as I fitted the brace tightly around my waist. I wanted to take it easy so spent the next several hours writing. About 2:30, I got the sudden urge to go out, jump on the bus, and head back toward the ancient city. It would be nice to get in a last walk before leaving in the morning, and it would be good for my back.
I was not prepared for how much the temperature had spiked in the few hours that I had spent in my room. Suddenly, it was around 100 degrees and the direct sunlight was brutally hot on my black-clad shoulders. I stopped to buy some water then went back toward the church to catch the bus. Since I had no idea when the next bus would come, I figured I could always wait in the Basilica where it would be much cooler.
As it turned out, I did not need to put this plan into effect. When I checked the schedule at the stop I saw that my timing was very good. The bus was there in about three minutes.
When the bus stopped at the train station, five Chinese tourists of varying age got on. One, a woman in her thirties, sat next to me. They conversed in Mandarin for a while. As we were passing under the Basilica di San Francesco the one seated next to me turned.
"Is that where we should be getting off," she asked in pitch perfect English.
"That depends on where you're going," I replied.
She told me that they didn't have specific plans, but that looked like it might be a good place to start.
"No," I said. "That would be the worst place to start." Remembering the advice the concierge gave me about starting at the top so you would always be headed downhill, I told her about getting off at Piazza Matteotti then told her which signs would be best to follow to get her and her cohorts to San Francesco. I also made sure to tell her how to get to Piazza Giovanni Paolo II from the Basilica since this was the stop for the C Line, the one they would need to get back to where they came from.
The woman was very pleased with this advice then turned and told her cohorts.
A few minutes later I got off the bus. I saw them start to get up. No, I told them, this wasn't Matteotti. They needed to stay on for one more stop. Again she thanked me.
I got off at Largo Properzio, one of the porta in the city wall. At first I thought I would have to climb to get to the city, but some developer had the presence of mind to put in escalators. Nothing could have been more of a godsend on this hot day.
I had no plan. I just wanted to stroll through streets that had gained a certain familiarity in the past few days. As usual, I decided to sit in the Piazza di Comune and just let my mind (and camera) wander for around a half hour. I got up and started walking toward the road that leads to San Francesco when I suddenly heard several high-pitched voices squeal things like "Hello!" and "It's him!" I looked to the source and there were four of the Chinese tourists from the bus, all now speaking perfectly good English. They were posing for a picture in front of the Temple of Minerva. The photographer was the woman who had been seated next to me.
"So glad to see you," she said. "Your advice...I think would be all dead without it!"
I told her that I was glad to help and asked her if they were enjoying the city so far.
"Very much," she said, "but San Chiara is too crowded."
I thought this was odd since it was very quiet when I went in the other day. I told her this.
"Oh, we didn't go in!" The tone in her voice made it sound like going in would be breaking the law. What she meant was that the piazza in front was too crowded to take a good picture. She then asked if I wanted her to take a picture of me in front of the temple with my camera. I thanked her, but said no. She shrugged and said goodbye. I could see that she and her group were starting to leave. Almost involuntarily, I shouted "Wait!"
They stopped and I went over to them.
"You really need to go inside the Temple of Minerva," I said, shoving my thumb in the direction of the Roman edifice. They looked at each other somewhat confused. "Really, I said, "it's amazing inside."
They turned to the woman I had been talking to and conferred, now back in Mandarin.
"Go in," I said. "You'll love it."
I could see them suddenly throw caution to the winds. They headed for the temple. The woman came back to me. "Thank you," she said. "And where are we to catch the bus again?"
I gave her instructions on how to get from San Francesco to the Piazza Giovanni Paolo II. As she was turning toward the temple she called over her shoulder, "Maybe we see you on the bus."
Sadly, we did not. On the other hand, maybe we weren't on the same bus because they finally decided it was all right to go inside the churches. After yesterday's crazed Chinese woman with a camera, I felt like I was able to do a good deed by getting this group to stop and smell the antiquity.
That's not a bad way to say goodbye to the home of St. Francis.
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