Eight Days in Italy

Part II : Finally Florence (Firenze)
church bells, marathon runners, doors for giants, and one-third of the world's supply of Vespas

A room with a view ...

... of some of the ubiquitous Vespas in Italy. Drivers need a special permit to drive full-sized vehicles in these narrow streets, but anyone with a license can drive a Vespa.

I missed the marathoners on the street below, but I liked the angle of the shot anyway.

Some tired, happy runners parting ways with friends after the marathon. The atmosphere was much more relaxed than the atmosphere at the Boston Marathon each year.

The red-carpet finish line. A nice touch, if a bit damp.

Interior courtyard of the Pitti Palace in Florence. Naturally, I loved this place.

A look down the covered section of the Pitti Palace courtyard. I'll get a better camera angle next time.

A laughing door on the Ponte Vecchio, a busy, inhabited pedestrian bridge over the Arno River built in 1345, then rebuilt in 1564. The lion was considered a symbol of independence for Florence.

Like so much of Florence, the bridge is organic and alive, the result of hundreds of years of living in the same place and patching the holes. Even the protective ironwork over the window is beautifully worked.

A view toward the Pitti Palace from the Ponte Vecchio. The corridor above the massive archways allowed the nobility to come and go from the Ponte Vecchio without having to mingle with the common folk.

The trouble with locks is that once they're on, people forget about them. This seems to be some kind of tradition, although I never did find out what.

More locks, this time to what I believe is an old hitch. Italy is full of old ring-bolts set in walls, presumably for hitching horses. Now they're for hitching locks.

In the hills outside of Florence.

In the hills outside of Florence.

In the hills outside of Florence. This is one section of city wall, c. 1284. Tuscany is all blues and greens and soft earth tones.

If the sun had been out, it would have been a postcard shot: Florence from high above. Beyond beautiful, even in the damp, cloudy weather.

We woke to a mad clanging of churchbells. I thought of Hunter Thompson on assignment in South America in a place where anyone could ring the bells, and often did, and how crazy it made him. I rather liked it, but had it continued all week, I might have changed my mind.

We had arrived just in time for the Florence Marathon. We went outside and cheered on some runners, then wandered over the the Piazza di Santa Croce to check out the finish line. My mother told me that they used to have jousting in the Piazza di Santa Croce and that she thought it too small, but having seen jousting up close, I could easily see a horse starting at either end of the piazza. Plenty of room. I was only sorry there was no jousting to watch.

We found some pizzitas for lunch and wandered through an enormous flea market, where I fell in love with, but did not buy, a very expensive antique watch. What I did more than anything was take pictures.

"Dog shit abounds," I wrote later. "No pooper scooper laws, I guess. Anyway. Everyone has shutters and uses them. Doors are oddly massive, considering that humans were smaller in, say, 1294. Beautiful, intricate carving on the wooden doors to the Pazzi Chapel at the Basilica di Santa Croce. Everywhere I look, there's detail. Years and years of architectural detail.

"I want to take pictures of every inch of this city. I want to breathe it in, soak in it, absorb it, delight over every little gargoyle and fresco, dance around the fountains in a thousand tiny piazzas. I want to take some of Firenze home with me and leave part of myself here, so I know I will return."

Maybe next time, I'll rent a Vespa.

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