Read rapidly the title to this post could be frenzied Friday. Yes, being on vacation is hard work. I'm looking forward to being home with the cats, Calvin and Hobbes, and the dog, Django and his pal Tembo. There are also all of our friends. In the meantime though, I'm definitely enjoying the labors of travel.
This week we met two artists. Marcello paints in oils and Gabrielle mostly watercolors. We had first encountered Marcello when we walked past him at the Uffizi. One of many artists in a tourist area, we would have walked on by except for his dog. Later we saw the two of them heading east along the Arno. As we returned from our walk across the Arno, we went up a small street. Yes, most streets in Florence are narrow but Via della Mosca is even tinier than most. There big as life were the red dog and Marcello in a tiny store front eatery. Chioppo Due even has tiny hours... only open from 6:30 until 8 at night. Marcello insisted we come in and have a glass of wine on him. Several glasses later and some limoncello, we were leaving after discussing travel, art and politics. Gabriele, the shop owner, was fairly quiet during all of the talk and antics of the 45 minutes. We did discover that he painted and that he also sold on the street. The next day we saw him and snapped the shot above. And today we saw him and his wife going across the Arno as we returned from our walk to the Piazzale Michelangiolo, high above Firenze.
The Piazzale also netted us our third David – the one on the Piazza della Signoria where we are staying, the original at the Accademia, and the one high on top of the hill, below. They're all impressive, the two outdoor ones suffer from exposure to the elements. The "original" is breathtaking.
Today we ventured over to Piazza San Marco to see what might have prompted the poster we had seen at the Piazza Santo Spirito a few days ago.
On the way we encountered a group at Piazza San Lorenzo preparing to march on over. San Marco is quite small and we decided that too many people in a small area would not be a good thing for us. Off we went to Piazza della S S Annunziata and there we encountered three more groups either organizing or already marching off to San Marco. Reports in English are limited but the students seem to be protesting the governments attitude towards labor. We'll find out in tomorrow's paper. And yes there are a lot of piazzas.
Another stop was to visit with Stefania Ganci at Terre dei Gigli, a shop that sells wine, pasta, olive oil and bottles of wonderful sauce and vegetables. She is such a lovely woman and has been most helpful. She knows a little English and we know far less Italian but communication all works out in the end. Today we chatted about Woody Allen movies. She had just seen Whatever Works. We talked and talked and have promised to write to each other.
I ventured into the Duomo and took some photos that I'll organize and post later. We walk by it several times a day but have yet to go in probably because there are lines of people waiting outside to climb to the top for the view of Firenze. Once inside though you're also able to see the wonderful dome painted by Vasari and Zuccaro. Getting to the top and a closer look at the dome involves 463 steps and some other issues related to heights that may preclude both of us ascending. In any case, we ended the day with another round of Chianti accompanying pasta with a sauce made from fresh tomatoes, porcini mushrooms, onion, garlic, hot pepper and basil. Mangia as my Aunt Katherine would say.
More photos tomorrow... To bed, now it's almost midnight.
After midnight but there are more photos on
Flickr here.
This is what our fondest memories are when we travel -- being on the streets, with people – listening to the sounds, feeling the energy. Today had much of that although we did go to one museum, Alinari National Museum of Photography for its show of Futurism in Photography. This was yet another wonderful show and one that this fellow felt compelled to engage me in conversation about as we exited the museum. Not that he knew much English and I certainly knew less Italian. But we both agreed it was an important exhibit.
Between the Tombola and the Museum, there was the epic view from the Piazzale Michelangiolo. We had been up there earlier in the week, but the skies were cloudy and the light unbelievably bad. So we re-climbed the 200+ steps, took some photos, talked with Frederick from Albania and then proceeded up another 100 steps to Chiesa di San Miniato al Monte. That was where we found the woman with the orange hair who called out for us to take her with us. That we did after more photos.
