Firenze: Fog and tourists

The Pope and flag wavers have gone but there are still quite a few religious conference delegates around - wandering around with their ID tags.  There is quite a difference in the nationalities of tourists here compared to Venice.  This morning every second person seemed to be American, with a sprinkling of people from other countries.  In Venice there was more of a mixture of European and Asian tourists -whoever happened to be on the despised "grandi navi" or cheap weekend flights.

From our observations more English is spoken here and few English speaking tourists seem to try to speak Italian in shops, restaurants etc.

The fog has arrived in Firenze, it is not as dense as in Venezia but enough to soften buildings in the distance.

Ponte Santa Trinita from the Ponte Vecchio. The water  was so still today

Palazzo Pitti, a very imposing building.

 I'm playing around with B&W photos again.

 A door knocker on a building bordering Piazza Pitti

 Entrance to Chiesa San Stefano

 The Arcone or Arch viewed from the top of la Rinascente building

 Had lunch at Caffe' La Terrazza on the rooftop of la Rinascente. A fabulous view of the Duomo and rooftops of Firenze. Couldn't help but take a few photos

We were lucky as while we were having lunch a young woman was singing, mainly opera, just below us in Piazza Repubblica.  Fortunately she was using a microphone.
 Unbelievably while we were watching, a tourist went up to the her and put her phone as close as she possibly could to the singer's mouth and then tugged at her arm as she turned her head to sing.  It was such incredible rudeness and to make it worse when the tourist had had enough -before the song ended- she just walked off without giving the singer anything. No wonder many people don't have much respect for tourists.

Firenze : Pope and white truffles

It was supposed to be raining when we arrived in Firenze but once again we have been lucky with the weather. We have rented a great apartment   which is close to everything but not so close that we cant walk out of the door without tripping over other tourists.  Our apartment is probably the best that we have ever rented in terms of comfort and cleanliness and we're looking forward to enjoying our stay here.  I'll post details and a link to it when we leave.

Today the Pope visited Firenze -we didn't know that he would be here and as would be expected, many roads were closed off to all traffic -pedestrians included. To avoid the huge crowds we decided to go for a wander away from where he was listed as visting.  We got 50 meters down the road and the Pope went by in his 'popemobile'.  A crowd was enthusiastically yelling and waving flags.  I managed to take photos of the back of people's heads but the photographer in the family got some video of the Pope speeding by.

 These guys were busy selling flags and blocking everyone's view in the process

The Arno on a beautiful day 

 We avoided the crowds on the Ponte Vecchio today but will go tomorrow.  We've both had colds so had an easy day. That didn't stop us from dropping into the Mercato Centrale for truffles :)

For the foodies :)

 Lightly fried eggs with white truffles - best I've ever had

White truffles and taglialone (looked like tagliatelle to me) -best pasta that Rob has ever had, a big call.

La nebbia

Fog (nebbia) is incredibly beautiful in Venice and it gives the city a really mysterious and secretive feel.
When we're in Venice there are often days with really heavy fog but this year we have had clear bright days except for our last morning. After checking out of our apartment we spent the last hour before our train left racing around taking photos.  I'm glad that we did as the fog was beautiful and in some parts of the city and on the water, visibility was really low.

 View from the Rialto

 The Rialto markets 

 Campo S. Angelo with the leaning Campanile barely visible in the background

 Gondolas near the Rialto

 Three gondolas in the Grand Canal with one stupid tourist trying to stand up. If he'd fallen in it would have been very difficult to find him.

 The same gondolas about 30 metres away

 View from the Ponte degli Scalzi

Chiesa San Simeone Piccolo across from the railway station is visible through the fog

Slow blogger

Sorry that I have been so slow with posting but we have been lucky to have perfect weather so have spent ages outside and too tired by the time that we get back to the apartment. 

This is the best October/November that we have ever had with only two days of drizzle.  It has been relatively warm and we've rarely needed to wear really warm clothes.  Yesterday we went to the Venice Biennale -I'll do post on that.

A domani :)

Calli e canali

In Venice one of the names for streets is calle (calli plural) and the canals, canale  (canali plural, much easier).  It is almost impossible to find a canal which isn't beautiful or interesting in some way and the streets are equally interesting. I'll post more  as I go through the 1000s of photos that we have taken.

San Polo

Canaregio

Cannaregio

Cannaregio

San Polo

Grand Canal

Ways of doing things Venice style

Delivering goods to shops

Furniture removal guys

Virgili del fuoco, the Fire Brigade

More removalists

Taking your dog for a paddle instead of a drive

Hanging out the washing

Delivering luggage to a hotel

A lightening visit to Vicenza

We have been meaning to visit Vicenza for a long time and finally got around to it yesterday, catching the train from Venezia.
It is a lovely place and the comune is obviously wealthy as all of the public buildings and infrastructure are very well maintained.

 Market day at Piazza dei Signori overlooked by Basilica Palladiana

 The Basilica once the crowds have gone

We spent ages wandering around looking at the buildings by Palladio, had a great coffee and then visited the Teatro Olimpico.  This theatre was built in the 1550s and is the oldest surviving renaissance theatre with a covered roof (check the link for further info).
The theatre is absolutely beautiful and is a combination of work by Palladio and Scamorzzi. The theatre is amazing and has incredibly beautiful original painted wooden sets which create an optical illusion because they are constructed and painted using trompe l'oeil technique.

We sat in the theatre for ages and are so glad that we went. We only knew about the theatre because we had seen it in an art history program.

The original wooded seating is like an indoor Roman amphitheatre

 The central 'street' of the set is 12 metres long, but it seems much longer. The street is sloped and is higher and much narrower at the back. The walls of the  buildings are lower at the back and overall it looks like a long street lined by tall buildings. One of the staff kindly demonstrated the differences in width and height so that people could have a better understanding of how the sets work.

If you are interested, the The History of Theatre on youtube has quite a good explanation of the workings of the theatre.

Vicenza virtually closes down between 12 and 3.00pm and so we weren't able to see all of the places that we had wanted to.  We did get to visit the Palladio museum after lunch and saw the drawings and models of many of his most famous buildings.

We had an enjoyable lunch in the sunshine at Caffè Garibaldi in Piazza dei Signori.

 

Le signore hanno fatto una bella chiacchierata

  A relaxing place to go for a walk with your dog

Definitely worth a return visit, maybe next time by car so that we can explore a bit more.