Museo Bandini — Attraction in Fiesole

Very rude and contemptuous staff member at the ticket office. There are two types of tickets. One is for both the museum and the outdoor Roman/Etruscan ruin (€10). The other type is just for the ruins (€7). My travel companion had already been to the site twice and opted to give the museum a miss this third time. She opted to accompany me through the ruins, then head off to the cafe and wait for me while I went to the museum, then we would meet up again after that. We tried to buy a €10 ticket for me and €7 ticket for her. The ticket seller refused point blank to sell us two different types of tickets.

Her English was limited, but she made it clear that she believed we intended to defraud the organisation of €3 (the price of two coffees in Italy) by "swapping tickets" after I had visited the museum. When we insisted on her selling us separate types of tickets, she handed our money back to us. She was prepared to lose €17 for the museum and personally insult us as part of the process. I'm over 55 years old and my companion is over 30 years old. We have both travelled extensively. I can truly say I have never been so humiliated in public by a customer service officer, in my life.

There is nothing on the website or at the ticket office that says people who enter at the same time must buy the same kind of ticket. As it turned out, the staff member's concerns were totally unjustified because the combined €10 ticket had a tear-off stub for the museum entry. This is clearly the way that the management has chosen to deal with the risk of fraud. The staff member didn't have a name-tag on. I asked for her name, and she told me that it was "Patricia Quinn', but that clearly wasn't her name. I told her that I intended to submit a formal complaint about her to the organisation and asked for her name again, and she, said "Queen Elizabeth". Another staff member gave me her correct name because he clearly believed that she was not acting within the staff code of conduct.

In response to my written complaint, the director of the museum skipped over the need to apologise for ticket seller's outrageous behaviour. Instead, she seemed to defend it by saying that the staff member had worked at the Musei for 13 years and that this was a "one-off" event.

Well, if the staff member has worked there for 13 years, then she must have known that the combined ticket had a tear off stub. And she must also have known the ticket policy did NOT allow her to insist that customers buy the same type of ticket or take their money and go away.

The director of the museums told me that they "regretted" that I had been upset, but stopped short of that all-important word - "sorry". She seemed to be putting responsibility back onto me for being upset by this unexpected personal attack. Who wouldn't be upset by an unjustified personal attack when a person was trying to support their facility but were refused entry on what seemed to be (at the time and continue to be) capricious and arbitrary grounds.

Since receiving the email response from the director, I have found a review of the park, written a year earlier than my traumatic experience. This other person had exactly the same kind of experience. In this other customer's words, if a customer has "any doubts or questions, the staff start sneering at you and making fun of you. The only problem for them is that I also speak Italian. As a worldwide traveller I have never came across such unprofessional behaviour from the tourist business".

Obviously the Director of the Musei is failing to read the reviews that people are putting online. It's also starting to look as though this tourist facility has an organisational bias against people who speak English and do not seem to speak or understand Italian. The other huge issue for tourists is that none of the signs in the archaeological park or the museum are in English. They are in Italian and Braille.

If you are not an Italian - then I would not risk being treated in this...

Angelo Maria Bandini è stato sacerdote ma è stato anche letterato e bibliotecario ovverosia un erudito ed infine un raffinato collezionista di opere d'arte sacra. E come collezionista oggi lo conosciamo, poiché ha legato il suo nome ad una importante collezione museale ospitata nel museo fiesolano a lui dedicato. Due piani che vanno visitati senza alcun timore reverenziale nei confronti di opere d'ingegno artistico realizzate dai massimi artisti medioevali e rinascimentali. La bottega del Della Robbia fa la parte del leone al piano terra, con terracotte invetriate raffiguranti soggetti religiosi mentre una Madonna con bambino in terracotta dipinta a freddo, di splendida fattura artistica, è attribuita al Brunelleschi ed un rilievo del Giambologna in stucco, raffigurante l'adorazione dei pastori, fa bella mostra di sé in parete. Il piano superiore ospita, invece, una importante collezioni di dipinti di c.d. primitivi e cioè di artisti che a noi, oggi, paiono acerbi e rigidi formalmente, avendo conosciuto la bellezza formale degli artisti rinascimentali cinquecenteschi, uno di essi, il Signorelli, presente nel museo Bandini, con uno splendido tondo raffigurante la Madonna con bambino tra i Santi. Benemerito Bandini, che ha voluto donare la sua collezione d'arte sacra al popolo di Fiesole per decoro, istruzione e...

An oasis of quietness in Fiesole. Great atmosphere and a pretty well conserved amfi theatre. Watch out for the small lizards cause they ran and jumped around the unbeaten paths, lol. There's also a small bar and Restaurant with a stunning view over the ruins and the valley. Tip: when you leave the site and go to thé left you'll find a beautiful piece of streetart in a little garden by Florentin...