*** Firenze, ITALIA October 2009 ***

Apartment

Apartment on Via Laura. A narrow building, a single apartment on each landing, which is a common setting. Somebody definitely lives one floor down - I see the laundry drying up on the courtyard side of the building and a plethora of potted plants on the two narrow balconies right beneath mine.

Our third floor is actually the forth as it is in Europe and Israel, and the top floor too. The marble steps go round and round, the banister is light if not flimsy.

Apartamento itself, very small, forty sq meters, with a small entrance hall, two small rooms, a kitchen,and a bathroom. The wardrobe in the bedroom is the same style that greeted me in my first room in Ostia so long ago: inlaid wooden design, very Italian. The other wardrobe, in the second room, has more of an antique feel of substance. Its single door is covered by a good mirror, a wide drawer is tucked underneath, very nice carved wood.

The second room also features the whole illustrated La Divina Commedia printed as an antique poster in the tiniest font. It is framed and covers most of the wall above the bed. A magnifying glass on a chain is attached.

Our two balconies are so narrow, about a foot wide, I'm reluctant to step out. They do give a nice feel of a balcony nevertheless.

The tall and narrow window at the entrance hall is actually a door, when I open it, I am protected by a not so reliable railing outside. It overlooks the courtyard, windows and balconies of the neighbors.

Two strings of wire run from that door to the window of our second room. The wire is to dry the laundry. The washing machine is in the kitchen!



Everything that one needs is here and I like it.

Synagogue

The beautiful Synagogue, Tempio Israelitico, is in a few minute walk from our home: from Via Laura to Borgo Pinti, then immediately onto Via Colonna to Via Farini, and here it is, behind a fence, with the carabieneri walking back and force in front of it, sometimes. This time it is not covered with scaffolding the way it was in 2005 when it was under restoration...

The Jews came to Florence in the beginning of the 15th century and started the first loan banks. By 1570 they lived where Piazza della Repubblica is now. The Florentine Mercato Vecchio (Old Market) along with the Jewish ghetto were cleared in 1860s. That was the unfortunate successful implementation of the great remodelling plan during Florence's short stint as a capital of Italy from 1865 till 1871. The eager modernists had managed to destroy everything for the Piazza della Repubblica and had also torn down the 14th century city walls...

The new Synagogue on via Farini was built in 1874-82. The style is Spanish-Moorish, with the green copper covered dome. Inside the walls are covered with geometric design arabesques. Menoras are gracing the balconies. Gorgeous arches are festooned with lace-like wood carvings.

Shabbat services are held there, as well as a daily miniyan when enough people happen to show up.



Historically, Florence had not been friendly to Jews. Under the Medici the Jewish bankers and merchants were forcefully replaced by the Italians, so essentially the beauty and glory of the Renaissance in Florence are built upon the ruined Jewish financiers and businessmen.

Under the Medici the Jews were forbidden to join Guilds and the only occupations allowed were in textile and second-hand trades. It was the Great Duke Cosimo III who passed laws forbidding Christians to work for Jewish families and businesses.

Only in the mid 18th century the process started of gradually lifting various prohibitions.

Food

Via Farini dead ends into Via Dei Pilastri where one small storefront is the Chabad house and another one, almost next door, is a small store with kosher wine, a few cheeses, some cold cuts, and several Israeli jars and cans. The prices are out of this world. Taking into account the miserably sunk dollar exchange rate, the prices are largely prohibitive. So for Shabbat I'm getting a bottle of wine, and a small chunk of cheese, and the chalot. This is it, if i do not want to go broke...

Thankfully, the morning open market at S. Ambrogio is literally a few hundred steps away, and it is fun to shop there for fruit and veggies.
My walk back with unmistakably market-purchased (as opposed to store-purchased) produce makes me look like a true local. As long as I do not have to say anything...

Accademia If I walk out of our building and start toward the far end of Via Laura, I stroll by buildings being restored, a school, a hotel, a university bookshop, all that on the right side. The left side is one long yellow wall sparingly covered with graffiti. It is the back of the Museum of Archeology which is housed in the Palazzo built in 1629 for Princess Maria Magdalena de Medici.

Our rather short Via Laura takes us practically to Piazza della Annunziata where delicate round arcades run along the Western, Northern, and Eastern walls. These arcades by Brunelleschi, the father of Renaissance Architecture, had ushered in this hugely popular style of simple and elegant arcades which many architects were building with great enthusiasm.

I keep walking West, just one more block, and it is green Piazza San Marco in front of me. I turn left on Via Ricasoli, and Accademia is on my left. This is where the original David by Michelangelo is housed. His two copies are being weathered outside, one on Piazza della Signoria, and the other on Piazzale Michelangelo.

A line of people waiting for their turn to purchase a ticket and enter the Gallery is long.

Luckily, various free events are hosted in the Accademia on some evenings, and if we pay attention to the simple typed announcements taped to the doors prior to the events, we arrive when told by such announcement and join a crowd of the locals and get into the building, and listen to the lecture which last week happened to be in English(!), and walk around enjoying the works of art afterwords.

Concerts

Next to the Accademia is Conservatorio Di Musica where we eagerly join the locals for nice free concerts of classical music. All we do is walk by these buildings regularly and pay attention to the announcements! One week we got Franz Schubert, Mozart, and Mendelssohn. The following week we listened to Chopin's Piano Concerto and Tchaikovsky's Cappricioso for Cello and Orchestra. We have missed Gershwin and Beethoven on the night of our arrival... Pity, but considering the jet lag and being incredibly tired after the flight to Milano and the train ride to Firenze it might be as well...

The best concert of all so far has been the one by the Department of Musica Antica, all Bach, concertos for four, three, and two clavicembali accompanied by two violins, a viola, a cello and a bass, all in Minor, followed by the Bradenburghe concert in Re Major No.5. The music Antica, the instruments Antica, the sounds Antica, but the enjoyment very contemporary and real.

We also go to organ concerts, the one last night was Vivaldi concerts for Fluite and organ. Before that it was all Buxtehude program.

A simply wonderful concert of 18th century Italian chamber music was performed on the instruments of the period in a beautiful auditorium on via Folco Portinari. The Auditorium is owned by a bank called Cassa di Risparmia di Firenze.

When we go to lectures and to these concerts we are so unlike visitors. It feels like we live here. You watch people greeting each other, having quick conversations, exchanging smiles... It is such a small city after all. And imagine this, we too ran into people that we had known: I saw them last time only twenty-six years ago... But V. worked with the guy last time in 2005. So we too got to kiss the air on both sides of old friend's head the way all around us had been doing it before and after the concerts.

Internet

A bit farther West and a tad South from the Conservatory are multiple Internet and telephone joints that have mushroomed liberally and are run mostly by immigrants from Sri Lanka. One may come across such places all over the city, but in that location a bunch of them are pretty much on top of each other. They are not pleasant, but for a Euro you get 30 min of internet connection using their rather filthy computers.

The overall Internet situation is very sad. We can get connected if we bring a computer into Caffe Michelangelo, a few steps from the apartment, but the signal doesn't make it as far as our home, so physical presence in the cafe is necessary. The owner is hospitable, but not being able to buy anything in the cafe makes sitting there and using their access rather awkward... So I do not get to check my email when i want to, send very few messages, and stay ignorant as far as the world news are concerned...

With Friends

My friends from Bochum, Germany, arrived and were staying in Florence for nine days. Natasha's mother and mine used to work together and were friends. Each had a daughter whom she tried to convince to meet the other girl. Both mothers felt that the girls could have become friends. The girls wouldn't hear of it. As adults, both married, one with a year old child, the other - to give birth in a year, the girls met by chance and indeed became life-long friends. Last time we spent time together roaming the streets of Berlin was two years ago. Before that - in Paris..., in Luxembourg Garden. And now we are enjoying Florence.

As my friend Natasha and I stop on forever crowded Piazza Duomo, taking in the composition in green, pink, and white marble that covers the whole complex of Duomo, an old slight lady stops by and starts her conversation, or a monologue, to be precise. She has lived her whole life here in Florence, and now she is 83. The city is so beautiful, even when it is raining she needs to go out and to look at the beauty. She said other things, but I didn't understand the rest. She didn't seem to need our verbal response, seemed to be satisfied by the fact the we were listening (but were unable to let her know that we could hardly understand a thing...) A while later she smiled and said Arrivederci, we responded with the same. That completed the encounter.

Another encounter took place a few tiny blocks South and was with a tall and ageing mime impersonating Dante Alighieri, all dressed in white, standing on a small pedestal surrounded by pots with flowers.

Here he is frozen in one significant pose, then he changes it to another, here he gestures to a passerby to come to stand by him, so that a picture of the two of them can be taken.

An 11th century church where Dante met Beatrice is a few steps away.



We keep walking South and enter Piazza della Signoria. It is poor of people, because of the drizzle, and rich of sculptures, as it always is. Palazzo Vechio where Cosimo I de Medici had his office is there.

We follow from the outside
the regular Cosimo's commute from work
as it was inside of the Vasart Corridor,
the covered gallery
that connects Palazzo Vechio with Uffici,
runs over the shops of Ponte Vechio and
enters the Pitti Palace on the other side of Arno River.



A very fine guitar player
with Polish looks and
the name of Tomashevsky
can often be found
playing his guitar
by the steps to
the Gallery of Palazzo Uffici and
facing the side
of the Loggia dei Lanzi.

Big Event

On Sunday the crowds on and around Piazza del Duomo are overwhelming. Presence of police, media, and the many quick people who are dwarfed by their huge movie-cameras, all that suggested an event. Are they making a movie there?

Then we hear the drums and the trumpets, and a colorful procession enters the Piazza from Via Roma.

The procession is long and is made of soldiers, musicians, flag-throwers, they march in and blow into their trumpets or hit their drums or carry medieval weapons, they are of all ages, from pre-teen boys to rather old men.

By the time they are done we have learned that this is a celebration of converting Piazza del Duomo (and the first blocks of the streets flowing into it from the north) into a pedestrian only area. The date is October the 25th, and the impact on the city is huge.

But the Piazza and the streets around are now so much more attractive as the worst that may happen to you now is a bump into another human being.

Fiesole

That Sunday we also went to the village of Fiesole that is located on the hilltop some 5-6 miles North from Florence.

Our trip went well but not without the initial bus route related confusion: first we had dutifully walked to the train station where were told to go to Piazza San Marco. Upon arrival there found people waiting for the bus, but learned that the stop was moved to a different location on the same Piazza. Got on the bus and rode it pleasantly staring out of the window as the bus did the climbing up the hill for us.

It was windy on the top, and just beautiful.

On the main Piazza, a short walk up from the bus stop, stands a 14th century Palazzo Communale where red flowers are hanging down from the planters lining up the loggia of the second floor.

In front of Palazzo Communale, two broze horsemen, King Vittorio Emmanuel II and Garibaldi are cought in an animated conversation much like the bus drivers in Israel who stop to exchange the news once their buses have approched each other from two opposite directions and the drivers have managed to line up the side windows for a quick get together...

The amphitheater which I remember from many years ago is only accessible after purchasing tickets for too many euros. So we walk around along the narrow streets and find a few spots to look down at the overpriced Roman remnants. Interestingly enough, some Etruscan remains were available for staring at with no fee. Anyway some two hours that we spent in Fiesole were quite wonderful.

Traveling by Bus

One evening, or in the late afternoon actually, we, two German speaking friends of mine and I, decided to go to Piazzale Michelangelo to see the lights of the night Firenze. And so with all the bus changes we figured that the many helpful policemen and policewomen would point us in the right direction toward the closest stop of the bus that we could ride to the Piazzale. Walking to the Arno, over one of the bridges and climbing up the hill would have taken too long... We thought... A bus ride sounded as a better way to get there...

A big mistake... No one seemed to know which bus goes there or where such bus stops. Everyone was very friendly though and waved hands in different directions while smiling at us indulgently.

On Via Ricasoli a block away from the Duomo, the number 13 was mentioned: a bus numero tredici departing from Piazza San Marco.

At Piazza San Marko which now, after closing the Duomo area for traffic, houses lots and lots of bus stops, we were told that Bus Numero Tredici would indeed take us there, and the stop is to be found farther north.

Farther North a bus driver on bus number 11 told us to keep walking North to Piazza Liberta.

The Piazza Liberta is a huge park with a fountain and not just one but two huge Truimphal Arches surrounded by fast moving traffic and only one place where pedestrians could cross the road. We did. Alas, no bus stops around.

Finally found one, for a bus with a different number, but a bus stop nonetheless, and a single person standing there waiting for a bus. My German speaking friends nudged me to ask the solitary person on the bus stop about our numero tredici. They thought that my questions in English would have more chance for an answer than their in German.

I approached the guy, with an apology in Italian, and asked if he spoke English by any chance. Not at all, was the answer. So we had a lively (already quite well rehearsed by me) exchange in Italian, with me asking about the location of the bus stop (Fermata) for the 13th (Numero Tredici) and him telling me that he had no idea.

And so we decided to postpone the Piazzale Michelangelo till the next day.

We went to our apartment instead. There we joined V. who had already returned from his office at the University, and enjoyed a nice evening of wine, cheese, and laughter.

In the morning I learned at the tourist information center that Numero Tredici starts by the train station and makes no stops at all on this side of the Arno River. So we headed to the train station that evening and traveling by bus had become uneventful.

Too Many Euros

Talking about tickets, admission charges, and such, it has become rather prohibitive. It feels like wherever you turn, you must have a ticket. There are no days/hours where a free entry is offered, as it used to be. Good thing I am here for quite a while. Going to the free lecture at the Accademia grants me an admission to the museum for that evening. It feels very selective which i do not mind it at all.

Discovery

Regarding Sundays in Firenze, I had discovered where we were heading the following Sunday - in the morning: to the Old Jewish Cemetery, on the Boboli Garden side of the Arno River. It is located right outside the old city wall, by the San Frediano gate on Viale Ariosto, 16. It is open on the first Sunday of the month, from 10 till noon, and it costs three euros to enter.

It was founded in 1777 and closed in 1880 when a bigger site was open in Rifredi.

The restoration work started in the summer. The City of Florence committed funds, but the national government intervened quickly and put an end to this funding claiming that the cemetery was not a public place. The private donations will help to restore the graves that are damaged the most...

When we find the place it is exactly 10 am, and the gate is open. Several people are already there, a few more came later. A woman from Australia, a couple from Chicago, a foursome from San Diego, two people spoke Italian, an Asian woman spoke both Italian and English, she was a student in Florence...
Cypress trees line the main pathway.

To the right and to the left you see the many gravestones either ruined or very damaged.

A shed where the work of reconstruction is performed is on your right. By some remnants of tombstones a plastic sturdy crate stands. It contains survived fragments of marble with lettering. Those will be pieced together as pieces of a puzzle.

On the tombstones that have survived the symbolics is interesting: a bas-relief of the hands of a Cohen, a bas-relief of a hand holding a jar and pouring water indicating a Levi, some images make references to professions of the deceased.

Shlepping Along

Walking the streets of Florence is a bit like walking on a boat.

The sidewalks are going up and down: down when approaching an entrance to a house and then up when departing from it. Considering the fact that on a regular medieval street the buildings are quite narrow, these wavy surfaces succeed in disorienting even an able walker.

Besides that the sidewalks are so narrow that all walk single file. When people moving from the opposite directions approach each other, they either turn sidewise to pass or one steps down onto the street (which is very narrow) while small cars are swishing by and motorcycles and scooters loudly announce their fast approach.

In addition, the stone that make the sidewalks are far from being even, so looking down when walking prevents one from looking up at the facades of the buildings...

And as if that is still not enough, the ornaments and/or the iron work that are adorning the belle Etage windows are often dangerously on the level of a head of a human being of a rather standard size...

Now add to this the parked motocycles and mopeds equipped with large storage boxes that hang over sidewalks, and occasional bicycles left in the middle of a sidewalk...

Reflections

Walking along the river allows one to enjoy wider sidewalks and the views of Palazzos standing shoulder to shoulder and reflecting beautifully in the waters of Arno.

Giardino dei Semplici

The Botanical garden was founded in 1545 as a garden of plants that were used by medieval apothecaries for preparation of medicines.

The garden retains its original layout but the collection has expanded to include plants that are not necesseraly medicinal but are native Toscanan.

Library

The old Convent building has two entrances from two almost parallel streets. It houses a public library these days and one can enter freely.

I walk in where the carved wooden doors are wide open. Three quiet courtyards, the biggest one with a square of grass and a tall tree that extends all the way to the gallery on the top level.

I make it to the top, and what a view opens to me!

- Terracota roofs, the Dome of Duomo on one side,
- Terracota roofs and the hills of Toscany way away - on the other.

Courtyards

When you are really lucky you might catch a glimpse of a private paradise behind a pair of wonderful wooden carved doors of unreal size suited only for giants or tall people mounted on horses. That happens when the doors open and a normal size human emerges on his or her own feet, and while the person is walking over the treshhold and takes time to shut the door behind him or her, you might get to see a fountain, an intricate ironwork, a statue, trees, a wisteria on trelis, potted plants.

Or you can walk under the arched opening in a facade of a building and approach gorgeous wrought iron gates. Locked.

But you CAN see through, between the iron rods.

And you CAN sneak you camera between those iron rods.

And here you get a picture of another paradise.

And of course, you can keep that picture.

Or you might walk under the arched opening in a facade of a building
and keep walking
and wander into a courtyard,
then into another one,
and look and enjoy what you see.

Or you may develop a habit of walking into the courtyard of Palazzo Strozzi.

This is a large courtyard, which is no wonder since Palazzo Strozzi is the biggest palazzo in Florence.

So you walk in and sit down onto one of several stone benches.

And then you take in again the harmony of lines, the ironwork above the doors, the windows on the second level, the gallery above, the views of streets through the arched passways.

Photography

Seems like photography is the theme in Florence:

And this is just a sample of what is going on here, photographically speaking...

* * * N O V E M B E R * * *

The Flood of 1966

Today is the 4th of November and it happened so that today I noticed a mark on the wall not far from where we live. I stopped under the roof of the arcade in front of a former convent. I stopped there to hide from the rain that had just changed from a drizzle to copious large raindrops. The tablet on the wall showed a line about three feet above my head marking the water level on November 4th, 1966.

Florence is a river city, like Paris, Rome, St.Petersburg, Pisa, Prague, and New York. When a city is graced with a river, the river also brings a threat of floods. I have read somewhere that the nastiest floods of Arno in Florence, the floods that brought devastation and huge losses, happened with an interval of more or less a hundred years and took place in years 1333, 1466, 1557, 1844, 1966. Notice how persistently the double digits appear in this series! Some kind of a numerical significance?

The level of water reached six meters inside of Duomo (a few min walk from this arcade in the direction of the river).

Precious Florentine paintings, frescos, sculptures, manuscripts, and books were lost in rushing waters mixed with mud and heating oil.

The Mud Angels arrived and immediately joined others in human chains moving endangered treasures to safe places and thus saving so many of them from ruin. Students, hippies, young professionals, Italians and foreigners, they made their way to Firenze in the dramatic hours of the flood and spent long days working in cold and wet basements filled with mud.

Bridges

Ponte Vechio (Old Bridge) is a survivor. It survived all floods, and a great many battles, even the destructions of the WWII.
It was built in 1345 and looks like a street with shops lining up both sides. Those are mostly jewellers' shops.

Originally the shops were occupied by tanners, butchers, blacksmiths who routinely polluted Arno throwing their garbade under the bridge.

In 1593 Duke Ferdinando I, a powerful medieval environmentalist who was utterly annoyed by the noise and stench, evicted them, and that was when they were replaced by the goldsmiths.

Some of the oldest shops are extended in the rare, and the added parts are overhanging Arno. These extensions are supported by brackets called sporti.

When Vasari was building (in 1565) the elevated corridor connecting Palazzo Vechio and Palazzo Pitti for the private Medici commute between office and home, he ran it on the top of the shops of Ponte Vechio...

until it reached a medieval Mannelli Tower.

The Mannelli Tower was originally built in order to defend the bridge.

The Mannelli family, a fine bunch of medieval preservationists, held tight to their tower and refused to allow to demolish it. And so a section of the Vasari Corridor was built around the Tower and is supported by the sporti.

Ponte Santa Trinita is the bridge next to Ponte Vechio. The current version of it is circa 1567 and is said to be by Michelangelo design. On each corner of the bridge stands a statue of one of the four seasons.

This bridge was blown up by the Germans in 1944. After the liberation it was restored, and the statues were fished out of the water in a pretty good shape except for one, the Spring, which turned out to be headless. Posters with a picture of the statue appeared all over the city with a question to the populace: Have you seen this woman? The head showed up a few years later during some works done on Ponte Vechio. It had sat by the neighboring bridge, lodged into the riverbed, waiting for being found.

All other bridges also were blown up by the Germans in 1944, and had to be rebuilt after the liberation.

Oh wait, what's with the digits here?


- The years of the worst floods containing consistently double digits,
- The years when the greatest bridges were built containing consistently correctly ordered sequences of natural numbers...

AREZZO

The city of Arrezo is laid out as a fan.

Take a little over an hour long train ride from Florence, walk out ot the train station and start climing up the street. It is a gentle climb, and in November the city is virtually free of tourists.

Arezzo was born as a rich and powerful Etruscan city.

The famous Chimera was cast here.

The copy is standing in the middle of a fountain near the railway station, while the original bronze is covineintly located in Florentine Museum of Archeology, some 500 yards from where we live.

Arrezzo later became an important Roman city, of which the Ruins of the Roman Amphitheater are left.

Giorgio Vassary was born in Arezzo. In addition to his well-deserved fame as an architect and a painter, the man also was what we may call the first art historian. In 1530 he wrote a book Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.

A quite contemporary drama around Vassari took place very recently. Giorgio Vassari's archive had been housed in his home which is now a museum in Arezzo. It became known not so long ago that the archive had been sold to a Russian billionaire for 150 Million Euro. The idea of the archive leaving Italy outraged many.

Here is a morbid double slant to the story
1. The sale was arranged by the owner of the archive a few days before the owner's death.
2. On September 9th the Russian billionaire got killed in a car crash.

But the story does have a happy ending: the Russian firm pulled out of the deal and the archive will stay in Italy where it belongs.

Arezzo is also a birthplace of Francesco Petrarca.

The four shots below are of Piazza Grande. Needless to say how grand it is to have Piazza Grande empty and all to yourself.

SGRAFFITI

Monochromatic ornate patterns covering facades of 16th century buildings has a name, sgraffito

TEATRO

We walk up and down Via Pergola all the time. Via Pergola deadends into our Via Laura, and I take our garbage out to the designated collection boxes on Via Pergola. By the way, garbage is all mixed: plastic, glass, paper, whatever... and in a single plastic bag which I gracefully throw into the box...

Some walls of the buildings on Via Pergola are covered with grafitti,

Via Pergola is a narrow street with narrow sidewalks much like so many other Florentine streets.

A long building has part of its facade covered with vines.

It is Teatro del Pergola.

One Sunday morning we go there for a concert. We expect by now an enjoyable performance. We have gotten used to nice performances. The program is Vivaldi and Hendel. And it is nice.

What we do not quite expect is another spacious paradise hidden behind an unassuming facade of Teatro Pergola on this narrow street.

Giardino della Gherardesca

On the map Giardino della Gherardesca looks like a large garden just two blocks north from us. On Saturday afternoon we walk over there. We find only a service entrance, with a bar down for the cars. We walk in.

It is a treasure! Centuries old park is lovely, enchanted, with a rose garden, laurels, old trees, manicured lawns, statures, fountains, benches, grottos, a tea house---closed but surrounded by chairs and small tables, a pretty pavilion with a dome and a stature in the middle... As we walk around we are alone. We love it there and spend a long time enjoying the garden.

In the evening I check the maps and notice that on the newest map of the city the whole enormous block is shown as a building, no indication of the park inside. Oooops, the beauty is privately owned by a hotel which has restored both the Renaissance Palazzo and the Gardino. Yes, sometimes ignorance is trully blessed: we got to enjoy the garden!

We were less lucky in the evening though. In a biweekly publication The Florentine I read about something called Encounter with Stradivary in front of David by Michelangelo - chamber music concert. Sounds very good indeed.

We stop at the Accademia repeatedly to learn more about the event. Nobody seems to know. We take chances and show up at 8:30pm since many events around here start at 9:00. The timing seems to be right. But...

Oh boy, taxi cabs keep coming and people all dressed up are emerging from the cabs. Most of them speak German. A few Americans. All are proudly producing large white tickets as they enter the Accademia where their fur coats will have to be X-rayed. So the Stradivary event is probably a fund-raiser, and we do not belong there. An American woman tells us rather dismissively that they purchased their tickets several months ago. Oh well, no Stradivary for us.

A Fair and Another Fair
The whole weekend Piazza Annunziata hosted a fair. Peasants and artisans from Toscany came to Firenze. In small tents they displayed their cheeses, breads, vegetables, wool, knitted clothes, wooden tools.
Somebody brought three sheep to grace the Piazza with their presence.

It was drizzling, but lively.

In the darkness of the evening on Saturday, a group of musicians playing an accordeon, a banjo, a tamburin was joined by singers and dancers. It is very engaging and before long the ring becomes quite wide with giddy tourists dancing along, clumsily but enthusiastically.

The following weekend the action is on Piazza Santa Croce

This is the Extra Virgin Olive Oil Fair.

The new oil has hit the town!

On this picture the white tent has already appeared on the Piazza and it is being fitted for hosting oil producers.

Friday morning as I approach the Piazza I hear the band playing. Middle school age kids with instruments. Very cute. The band is smartly dressed in yellow baseball hats and the name of the band is embroidered on the front of their vests. The name is Saraband. Curious. I thought, Sarabanda was an ancient dance performed at the funerals...

Inside the tent --- in each booth one can sample the oil that is being added into dishes constantly... The bread for dipping is provided.

A very thin woman who mans one booth makes one of the two possible statements:

  • Taste the oil. Olive oil makes you thin. Just look at me
  • Do not even think of tasting! That is if you would like to be thin...

More on Courtyards

On a narrow street it hardly matters how grand the facade of a building is. Why? Because most probably you wouldn't be able to see the whole facade anyway. Or, to be more precise, you must make a special effort to see it. Still it would be a limited view no matter how much of an effort is put into finding the right observation point.

On a narrow street the eyes get used to seeing things that are rather close, paying attention to details that happen to be nearby.

Thus any opening into a space is a feast for eyes. A piazza, a river view, a garden behind a see-thru fence, or a lucky moment of a chance opening into a courtyard...

Copyright © 2009 Lena Matis. All rights reserved.