Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Journal of Italy - Firenze (Florence)
Florence - May 29, 2006
We got the train to Florence and this time I was snapping pictures (albeit not very good ones) of the journey. Just to remember the countryside and thoughts during those jaunts across Italy.
Yeah, we whizzed by Pisa and I think, in the distance, I might have seen a tower that was leaning into the wind. But I'd seen so many towers, and not sure it wasn't me leaning, at this point in the trip.
And as a welcome to Florence, the ever present grafitti.
One of the best meals in Florence was at "The Porcupine." I ordered baby lamb
chops and they were seasoned and grilled to perfection.
This is a street view from The Porcupine.
And this is a rooftop view from my hotel room. We stayed at The Bocaccio Hotel, which is within walking distance of the railway station (very convenient.) It was a clean and efficient hotel, but the neighborhood around the station is seedy and dirty, so my first impressions of Florence were sullied. There was however a blue in the sky toward late afternoon that I never saw anywhere else. Florentine blue? I didn't catch it in this picture, but I'll look for it in others.
I'm not sure I mentioned just how small the room was, once Carol left and they moved me out of a double into a single.
But let's not tarry in the room, let's see Florence!
Carol and I got out early on Sunday morning. Not many tourists crowding the streets at 8 am on Sunday. I snapped a picture of this family as we saw so few people until about 11 a.m. and then we were overrun. Note the famous bridge, Pont Vecchio is in the distance behind them.
Florence is abundantly about Michelangelo, but they haven't forgotten Di Vince either.
No, this is not "the" David but one of three (I'm told) replications that you can find around the city. In my next segment, (if the photos come out) I'll have a photo of the original which is kept in a museum, and not outdoors with the pigeons.
I was very much taken with the cloven hooves of this satyr/faun statue. Something very sensuous about men with cloven hooves, don't you think? It is said that when
Michelangelo saw the ornate Neptune fountain (this one) with its nymphs and satyrs, he said "Ammanato, Ammanato, che bel marmo ha rovinato." (translation: Ammanati, what beautiful marble you have ruined. Snort.)
From one of the bridges, Carol spotted schools of fish, BIG ones, in the Arno.
This is one of four orignal buttresses still standing that connected the defensive wall that surrounded Florence against her enemies during the raids by the pagan hordes. Oh my.
We stopped at a cafe right after this where I dropped and irreparably damaged my new Canon. I bought several "disposable" Kodak boxes so the pictures hereafter are the make do versions which I found quite inconsistent, a lot of them unusable.
The fourth largest church in the world, the Duomo is simply astounding to see. It is having restorations done (note scaffolding) but it is inconceivable that this huge edifice has lasted in this fabulous condition since 1436.
Carol left to go back to the states and her dear husband, and the next day I went to see the 'real' David, and booked a tour to Tuscany. As I took this shot, a uniformed woman came running at me, waving her finger, no photos, no photografia. Oops. Too late.
The little museum where David and a lot of other interesting art is housed is not even on the tourist map. The monstrous Uffizi, housing many times the amount of art is on every map. Here is the undistingued entrance to David's little Acadamie Museum.
I'm not sure how I got a shot of the ceiling of the Acadmie, the source that puts our
original David in a good light, but maybe in my haste to put the camera away, the silly thing was pointed upwards and I pushed a button? I'm a law abider, if I'm anything.
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Next
Home
We got the train to Florence and this time I was snapping pictures (albeit not very good ones) of the journey. Just to remember the countryside and thoughts during those jaunts across Italy.
Yeah, we whizzed by Pisa and I think, in the distance, I might have seen a tower that was leaning into the wind. But I'd seen so many towers, and not sure it wasn't me leaning, at this point in the trip.
And as a welcome to Florence, the ever present grafitti.
One of the best meals in Florence was at "The Porcupine." I ordered baby lamb
chops and they were seasoned and grilled to perfection.
This is a street view from The Porcupine.
And this is a rooftop view from my hotel room. We stayed at The Bocaccio Hotel, which is within walking distance of the railway station (very convenient.) It was a clean and efficient hotel, but the neighborhood around the station is seedy and dirty, so my first impressions of Florence were sullied. There was however a blue in the sky toward late afternoon that I never saw anywhere else. Florentine blue? I didn't catch it in this picture, but I'll look for it in others.
I'm not sure I mentioned just how small the room was, once Carol left and they moved me out of a double into a single.
But let's not tarry in the room, let's see Florence!
Carol and I got out early on Sunday morning. Not many tourists crowding the streets at 8 am on Sunday. I snapped a picture of this family as we saw so few people until about 11 a.m. and then we were overrun. Note the famous bridge, Pont Vecchio is in the distance behind them.
Florence is abundantly about Michelangelo, but they haven't forgotten Di Vince either.
No, this is not "the" David but one of three (I'm told) replications that you can find around the city. In my next segment, (if the photos come out) I'll have a photo of the original which is kept in a museum, and not outdoors with the pigeons.
I was very much taken with the cloven hooves of this satyr/faun statue. Something very sensuous about men with cloven hooves, don't you think? It is said that when
Michelangelo saw the ornate Neptune fountain (this one) with its nymphs and satyrs, he said "Ammanato, Ammanato, che bel marmo ha rovinato." (translation: Ammanati, what beautiful marble you have ruined. Snort.)
From one of the bridges, Carol spotted schools of fish, BIG ones, in the Arno.
This is one of four orignal buttresses still standing that connected the defensive wall that surrounded Florence against her enemies during the raids by the pagan hordes. Oh my.
We stopped at a cafe right after this where I dropped and irreparably damaged my new Canon. I bought several "disposable" Kodak boxes so the pictures hereafter are the make do versions which I found quite inconsistent, a lot of them unusable.
The fourth largest church in the world, the Duomo is simply astounding to see. It is having restorations done (note scaffolding) but it is inconceivable that this huge edifice has lasted in this fabulous condition since 1436.
Carol left to go back to the states and her dear husband, and the next day I went to see the 'real' David, and booked a tour to Tuscany. As I took this shot, a uniformed woman came running at me, waving her finger, no photos, no photografia. Oops. Too late.
The little museum where David and a lot of other interesting art is housed is not even on the tourist map. The monstrous Uffizi, housing many times the amount of art is on every map. Here is the undistingued entrance to David's little Acadamie Museum.
I'm not sure how I got a shot of the ceiling of the Acadmie, the source that puts our
original David in a good light, but maybe in my haste to put the camera away, the silly thing was pointed upwards and I pushed a button? I'm a law abider, if I'm anything.
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