While waiting for the WC at Ufizzi Gallery in Florence, the Medici family home now considered to be the Louvre of Italy, an insight about things not to take for granted.
Ufizzi was a family castle/home first built to display the wealth, patronage and love of all types of art. The art acquired and commissioned by Medicis from Boticelli’s Venus to Stratavarius violins must be housed in distinguished settings.
My second call of the day and I realize I could rusticate for a while in absolute comfort in this and most WCs I’ve had the pleasure to meet on this journey. I think to quickly snap a photo of the surroundings when I am caught by the fashionable (aren’t all Italian women?) signora waiting ahead of me.
With conspiratorial laughter she says, “Yes, even the bathrooms are fabulous!”
I spent two years lusting after washroom luxuries before settling for the best that Lowes and Home Depot had to offer my budget. Thankfully, with negotiated designs made on the spot to the consternation of a talented Albanian craftsman, my modest bath is all I wanted it to be.
These Italian Mediterranean travels confirm that an elegant bath is one of life’s lovely pleasures however one spends time there. Ufizzi’s feature lengths of marble sinks and floors. Separate walled stalls are the norm. The doors are another thoughtful design choice. The WC at the Ferragamo museum has giant bottles of rich cologne. Even a modest WC tucked into a far corner of a small pizzeria has elegant drum shaped sinks.
Have I spent more time describing baths than food or art? They are all a part of the cultural riches, after all. I certainly appreciate my domestic version of a Roman bath even more.
