Last week Tristan and I had the week off from work (because of "Carnaval") and we went on a little trip. Ever since I was young, I always wanted to go to Tuscany in Italy and especially to Florence. And now I had the chance to follow that dream, when we saw a very affordable 4-day trip to Pisa. Of course, this gave us the chance to see the world famous "Leaning Tower of Pisa", but it is also just a 1-hour train journey from Pisa to Florence. We had three full days to spend and two of them were for the visit to Florence. Now you might think: "Nice story Liv, but what does this have to do with movies or series?". Well there are a lot of movies that have been filmed in Tuscany and one of them is "Inferno". Although we did not have a lot of time and there is a lot to see in Florence, I did manage to visit some of the locations featured in Dan Brown's novel and the 2016 movie based on it, starring Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon...
The story of "Inferno"
"Inferno" is a 2016 movie based on the novel by Dan Brown. The movie is directed by Ron Howard and stars Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, a world-renowned Professor in religious iconology and symbology. "Inferno" is the third installment in the series of Robert Langdon movies based on the novels of Brown. Just like the other two, "The Da Vinci Code" (2006) and "Angels and Demons" (2009), "Inferno" is directed by Ron Howard.
The story starts with Langdon waking up in a hospital bed with a terrible headache (caused by a headwound) and some very disturbing visions of people suffering in pain and chaos. He meets Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), who tells him that he has been brought into the E.R. a few hours ago. Langdon can't remember anything that happened and he thinks that he is in Boston, but when he looks through the window he sees something else. Langdon immediately recognizes the famous skyline of Florence, with the characteristic Duomo and the Palazzo Vecchio. When the Italian police checks in at the entrance to have a talk with Langdon, Sienna tells him that his headwound was caused by a gunshot and that he suffers from amnesia caused by the wound and the concussion. When the police officer shows up at the unit Langdon is in, it turns out that she is there to kill Langdon (her name is Vayentha and she is an assassin). Sienna helps Langdon escape and they get in a taxi, where Langdon passes out from the pain. When he wakes up he's in Sienna's apartment and it turns out that Sienna is a very smart woman. Soon he finds a faraday pointer among his belongings and this contains Botticelli’s "Mappa dell’ Inferno" (designed to illustrate Dante's "Divine Comedy"). Soon it turns out that this map is a puzzle and that a man named Zobrist has developed a deadly virus to wipe out half of earth's population. Zobrist thinks that the over population of the earth will lead to the extinction of mankind and that the world needs to be cleansed. Furthermore, it turns out that Langdon has already been digging into this, before his "accident" and that there are some people after him (including the WHO). This is the beginning of a race against time to find out where the virus is and this will lead Langdon and Brooks through the streets of Florence, Venice and Istanbul...
In this article I will just focus on Florence and tell you about the places from the movie (unfortunately we did not have enough time to do and see everything. Still let me tell you about some of the places of Brown's "Inferno" and follow me in Langdon's footsteps in the beautiful Firenze...
Porta Romana
When Landon and Brooks escape from Sienna's apartment, they get in a car and head to the Palazzo Vecchio. However, when they get to Porta Romana they stumble upon a lot of police and people from the WHO (in search of them). The Porta Romana is the stone gateway into the south side of the Oltrarno section of Florence (the Oltrarno section is the name for the part of the city on the south of the Arno river, the name Oltrarno means 'beyond the Arno'). It was built in the 13th century and the wall also contains one of the gateways into the Boboli Gardens. The Porta Romana gate is one of a few gates still standing in the city of Florence, a big part of the walls and gates were destroyed in the 19th century. Six roads converge in front of this gate and that means a lot of traffic and honking horns. One of the roads is the central road along the Boboli Gardens that leads to the Palazzo Pitti. This road allowed the inhabitants of the Palazzo Pitti to enter and exit the city with minimal travel on the streets of the city. Another road is the road that leads to the State Institute of Art.
Langdon and Brooks have to get into the Boboli Gardens without being noticed and because of this they climb over a wall near to the Institute of Art. Now I am not the best climber, so we just took one of the gates into the Boboli Gardens to follow Langdon's way to the Palazzo Pitti...
Boboli Gardens and Palazzo Pitti
To get to the Palazzo Vecchio, Langdon and Brooks have to make their way through the beautiful Boboli Gardens to get to the Corridoio Vasariano, an elevated closed passageway that lead from the Palazzo Pitti (on the south side of the river Arno, see picture above) to the Palazzo Vecchio (on the north side of the Arno). There is an entrance/exit to the passageway at Palazzo Pitti next to the Grotto del Buontalenti, but I'll tell you more about that later.
When the people chasing Langdon and Brooks find out that they went into the gardens, they set in a drone to find them in the immense Boboli Gardens. We see the drone fly over a fountain at the Palazzo Pitti (see pictures below) to enter the gardens.
We see the pair running through the arched passageways throughout the gardens, while being chased by that drone. Of course I did a running pose in one of these passageways, but it's impossible to know if I had the right one. Below you can see me running in Langdon's footsteps and some more nice pictures from the Boboli gardens...
Well that's it for the first part of this journey. Will you join me in part 2, when I continue with my walk in Langdon's shoes?
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