Being a tourist and snapping away

View of Florence from Palazzo della Signoria

Here I am, enjoying a few days in Florence. I had not been to Florence since the early 1980s (I know, it has been THAT long) so I finally decided to avail of some friends' kind offer of hospitality, there is so much I really wanted to see here and see it properly, not in the hurried way I did it when I first came in the 1980s. I flew to Pisa on Tuesday and then moved to Prato on Wednesday.
The past two days have been incredibly hot, yesterday it really rained in bucketfuls and as I am not keen on rain I had to delay quite a few things, such as visiting the beautiful Boboli Gardens, which have always been the butt of jokes in my family, because of some incident involving my brother-in-law, who is a Florentine born and bred.
On my first day in Florence I got to the Cathedral and the queue of people trying to get in  - it's free - was endless. I am not very good with queues and I resolved there and then that there was no way I would stand in the sun to be admitted in. Something had to be done. I noticed some people took a different entrance and did not queue at all  Intrigued, I asked and discovered the existence of the FirenzeCard for which you pay seventy two euros upfront and for three days you have priority access to all monuments and museums and you even get a ticket valid on all busses and  on the tram - not that I have been using this ticket much, it's so wonderful to walk around and Florence is quite small. I immediately bought the card. I negotiated the Brunelleschi's Cupola and Giotto's Campanile, quite a climb, with 'traffic jams' involving groups of people on the way up the very narrow stairs and back down. I also had a good view of the church's interior, from the balconies. Then off I went to the Uffizi and all the other museums, including my very favourite, Palazzo Strozzi, filling myself up en route with gorgeous gelato (ice cream), which here they make supremely tasty and serve in very generous portions for just a few euros. You call this small, I asked the lovely girl that gave me a huge cone filled with gelato al tiramisu'. Yes she said and pointed to the large version which honestly was enough for two people.
I soon got over the fact that everyone thought I was French - it happens all the time, even in England, only the French do not ever think I am French because my French is accented, albeit fluent. I was complimented for speaking 'such good Italian' by various people and found it hilarious. I got so tired of explaining my personal circumstances, I just went on with the fiction of being a foreigner who speaks the local language and wants to practise it, no one ever asked me where I was from and I never volunteered the information, how bizarre, when I am in England people ask all the time. I never tried to fool anyone, I just let people believe what they wanted to believe, in other words.

Fashion shot by Kati Turkina at London College of Fashion. Model: Me

But I realise I am getting carried away and digressing. I really wanted  to post about taking snaps in museums and galleries, as this has suddenly vexed me. So I will proceed.

(The photo above has nothing to do with this post's  topic, it is just an interesting shot of me taken by young photographer Kati Turkina).

I went to the Accademia to admire Michelangelo's David, the one in Piazza della Signoria is just a copy. And I was appalled by what I saw. I took a camera with me and began to take pictures but then I changed my mind and put the camera away because  there were hundreds of people just snapping, everyone wanted a piece of the art work and the only thing that mattered was snapping, snapping, snapping, they would not even look , just snap. I saw girls and grown women turning themselves into 'models' and posing by the David or other famous work with a pout, while a friend of theirs snapped with a smartphone, people making silly faces and being snapped. It's not something I thought would ever bother me but suddenly it did, because I wanted to look without being elbowed and without being distracted by the endless snapping. I was relieved when I went to see the current exhibition which my card gave me access to and was told that no photos were allowed. Suddenly the number of people in the galleries appeared to be more manageable, it seems that people only go and see certain pieces, and that's it, exhibitions hold no interest to them, is it because no snapping is allowed, I wonder?

Clothes on display at Palazzo Pitti, Florence

At Palazzo Pitti, which is where all the major fashion shows take place, I saw the beautiful 'Costumi' collection, tastefully arranged, with each gallery showcasing the clothes of a few women who were renowned, throughout the 20th century, for being elegant and chic and for being collectors of fashion. It was a great display, yet hardly anyone was around.  I did take photographs, even though by the time I finished my tour of the galleries I was so enthused I decided to go and buy the catalogue, which has much better pictures than the ones I took - mine are of the clothes behind glass cabinets, whereas the catalogue has excellent prints of the clothes out of their cabinet and also pictures of their wearers.

 As a blogger I need pictures, my own preferably, so as not to run into copyright problems. But do people take snaps of art works they see when holidaying only because they want to put them on social media? I am guilty of doing the same the thing, I have certainly done it in the past without giving it a second thought, only now I am  having some serious doubts on whether it is a desirable practice. After all if we go to a concert or a theatre or a dance performance we are not allowed to snap or record the event. But taking pictures in museums and galleries? Museum shops have hundreds of excellent postcards of their exhibits and they are cheap. There are catalogues, and images are also available online. So what is it about snapping? I am still pondering over this whole matter. Meanwhile I have decided to take pictures only sparingly whenever I find myself visiting a museum. I guess the attitude to adopt is the same as when you eat chocolate: a little bit is wonderful, too much will give you indigestion.