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.