Dinner at Ostria Pepò. Having arrived on American time, before the rest of the city was ready for dinner, we got the best table in the house. We sat up in front at a corner table looking out on the street. I ordered penne. Trudy ordered chicken cacciatore and a glass of wine. We relaxed […]
Yearly Archives: 2015
Amazing Day part 3: Climbing Il Duomo
Mon, 5 Oct 2015, 08:18 PM (-06:00)
When we got to the cathedral, a line of people stretched away from the cathedral and wound around the piazza. Frankly, it was too long to be worth it. But, we had bought Firenze Cards, red plastic credit card sized cards that get you into museums “free” and (bonus!) let you go to the front […]
Amazing Day part 2
Sun, 4 Oct 2015, 10:21 AM (-06:00)
Our lunches came with dessert. Mine was a a glass of fruit. Trudy’s was some kind of pudding thing. Afterwards we were rested and quite content, ready to tackle the rest of the day. “Well, so where should we go next?” I asked. Heh. Where should we go. The right question would have been, Where […]
Amazing Day part 1
Fri, 2 Oct 2015, 10:13 PM (-06:00)
Prelude. This was to be our big day in Florence. The big day of the trip in a way, except that every day had been so big. It was hard then and is hard now to imagine days so packed with … So packed. Amazing days. And this was to be a big one. And […]
Contented Smiles
Thu, 1 Oct 2015, 08:40 PM (-06:00)
1. That Night We tired ourselves out, me more than her, because I had blisters, which as I have said made us nervous about our plans for Alpine hiking. So after dinner and hanging out around Il Duomo, we found a place to sit in the Piazza della Repubblica not far from an old fashioned […]
Il Duomo
Wed, 30 Sep 2015, 08:39 PM (-06:00)
Well, we all know that ringing is in no way comparable to peeling. And so those bells weren’t peeling, of course, but rather they were pealing. Not only a qualitative difference but a quantitative one, too. My embarassing bad. And so, onward… Blisters!? I haven’t had blisters… for ever. Not good if we’re supposed to be […]
Bells
Wed, 30 Sep 2015, 07:06 PM (-06:00)
In the middle of old Florence, we sat. For a while on a stone ledge outside Palazzo Medici Riccardi. We sat in the shade. With a gentle breeze blowing up the cobblestone street. And the bells of the cathedral began to ring. No. The bells did not ring. It is not ringing that cathedral bells […]
Looking Up to David
Tue, 29 Sep 2015, 07:46 PM (-06:00)
He stood there gazing into the distance. And we, well…
Now I Know
Sun, 27 Sep 2015, 04:51 PM (-06:00)
1. Leaving Rome Our train didn’t leave until the middle of the day, so we had time for one last stop: Galleria Doria Pamphilj. Nominally, our objective was the Velazquez portrait of Pope Innocent X. But the gallery captivated us in much the same way that the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. captivates: it doesn’t […]
Roman statuary
Sun, 27 Sep 2015, 02:06 PM (-06:00)
Don’t stand there taking pictures. Enjoy the moment. But as he passed sculptures looking the wrong way or birds sitting on top or non-standard angles, he couldn’t stop himself.