My Own Divine Comedy

 

Florence is all about its famous Florentine’s, and it just so happens that one of my personal favorite Florentine’s pretty much wrote the story of my trip to Florence: Dante Alighieri and his Divine Comedy.

In the Divine Comedy Dante gets a tour of both heaven and hell, and I am pretty sure I too got a little tour of both of these while in Italy.

 

Me in front of Dante's tomb

 

My lovely tour guide for the heavenly part of my trip was my friend and former Rockhurst housemate Samantha, who is studying in Florence.  She showed me all of the coolest churches and museums in Italy (two of my favorite things) and kept me well fed with the best pizza, gelato, and “Secret Bakery” treats you could imagine.    

Sam and I at the Piazza Michelangelo

 

The heavenly high point was our trip up to San Miniato.  We hiked quite a few steps to get to this beautiful little church, but it was completely worth it.  We had a perfect view of the city, and especially of the famous Duomo.  The view alone would have made the trek worth it, but San Miniato had more to offer. 

 

We went into the church itself, and it was unlike any cathedral I’ve visited so far.  It was very dark—lit only by candlelight—and the place where the altar would normally be was actually divided into an upper and lower level.  The lower level featured an almost cave-like space.  There were vaults and columns and an altar nestled in the back with rows of pews hiding in the forest of columns.  We sat there for a while and felt like early Christians in some sort of secret underground church.  The best part was that on the upper level there was an organ, and for some reason on this random Monday afternoon someone was playing it, so we had some ethereal background music to our underground experience.  We wrapped up this divine visit with a walk through the most beautiful graveyard I have ever seen—filled with beautiful sculptures, flowers, and a sense of peace you could only find on a heavenly mountaintop like that. 

The rest of my time in Florence itself and our day in Venice was equally heavenly—the hell didn’t start until the Rome airport. 

I am now convinced that Dante failed to discover a level of hell—the one where you miss your flight and spend eternity in a Rome airport eating muffins and McDonalds, sleeping on metal chairs, and wondering if you are crazy or if there really aren’t toilet paper dispensers in ANY of the bathroom stalls.  Apparently this level of hell is reserved for those who hogged a bench in front of Michelangelo’s David sculpture for too long.  Thus missing the train they needed. 

 

This picture I snuck could also be what landed me in hell.

 

I wish I could say that I handled this low point of travelling with good humor and grace, but those are pretty much the opposite of how things went down.  My 24 hours began with me sniffling on the phone to my mom (sometimes you just need to hear your mom’s voice in these situations, even if there is absolutely nothing she can do), followed by the purchase of multiple books in a fit of self pity (I actually read all of them), and ending with me descending the escalator to my gate looking like some sort of airport jungle woman with bloodshot eyes, hair sticking up everywhere, and a muffin clutched in my hand.

Clearly delerious enough to document my attempt to sleep on an airport bench.

But like Dante, I have made it through both heaven and hell and am home in Prague, already thinking mostly of my heavenly experience in Florence.