Tourists

We are back home. For some reason remembering holidays is almost as sweet.

Seems a bit sad to eat pizza out of a box outside the Bargello.

Quite a lot of women with orange hair.

What a very large trumpet....

 It's lucky the Loggia has a nice wide stone ledge to rest weary rumps on.

There seem to be fewer pigeons than there used to be, but quite a few have alighted on the statues.

 Oh, oh, oh!

The same shot that several gazillion other tourists were taking at the

same time as me. But you can see why we were entranced.

Stormy day. The little black specks in the sky are birds.

Time to pack my suitcase and get on the train and then the airplane

then the train then the subway.

Then home.

Giulio Giannini & Figlio/Florence

    Food apart, paper junkies come to Florence for the above.

With what astounding greed I eye the window at my favorite paper shop!

All the paper is made on the premises. I want all of it: books, cards, wrapping paper.......

               ........ the little books to write important stuff in.... 

Books I Have Read, Hotels I Have Stayed In and so on and so forth....

     

      And then all those lovely notelets to write all the thank you letters 

for all the presents I have been sent and the yummy dinners I have eaten.....

           

               Then the paper itself!-- looking like the end papers in leather-bound

books in quarto and folio and half-calf and so on....

Send me all of it soonest.

Postcards of Autumn Scenes Around Florence

Feeling a little nostalgic already...

The autumn is so very beautiful here. Well, obviously. 

Milton said the fallen angels were as plentiful as 

'the fallen leaves that fill the brooks in Valombrossa.'

This photo from Piazale Michaelangelo.

The same.

 Ponte S. Trinita from the PV

 From Piazale Michaelangelo.

Look at the sfumato (mist) in the valley.

 Look at the umbrella pines. We leave here tomorrow.....

More About Florence

    When we lived in Florence more than thirty years ago I didn't have a camera and so have very few pictures of those long ago days. I am now making up for lost time.

   
     A  vinaio on via dei Neri. The chianti nuovo has arrived. Quite delicious -- even if the guy in the bar where we have breakfast says it's like spremuta (fruit juice).

    
     Early morning on the Ponte Vecchio before most people have got up.

   
     The fruit and veggies are so fresh and lovely.

    
    The colors just about pop out at you.

   
     If you have eaten your veggies, you certainly deserve cake and lots of it......

   
     Florentines take books and writing and printing and paper very seriously indeed as we all should.
     I have so many pictures they have spilled over here

A Florentine Morning

In Florence....

....cyclamen are very much in season.........

.....as are green cauliflower......

.......I want to eat every single type of pasta.....

 .....but the bread tends to be a bit plain (on purpose, so it doesn't conflict with the taste of other things).

 The shop owner was intent on his paper.
I pretended to be taking photos of the stuff in the window. Oh well.

Lunch at a vinio.  Parma ham on foccacia and lots of local red wine. Yum.

Ghosts/ Happy Halloween

In Florence the ghost of Rembrandt haunts the pavement and people tread on him which is very sad.

The old skull theme is very suitable for a tomb in the floor of S. Croce........

 
....and in the window of a biscotteria....with all that ectoplasm stuff floating about.....

 ...just as it does in a painted over portrait on 22nd Street in New York.

Ah! The autumnal peace of a little Halloween lie down behind the leather school with all that Virginia creeper as warm bedding.

Happy Halloween!

Wet Day/Tagged

Alicia Padron a most wonderful illustrator of charming children's books tagged me to write seven things about myself. (You should go to her site to see the banner of a dog flying over the Empire State Building.)
How can I resist?
So:
1. I love rainy days...the rainier the better...
Here people trudge along 8th Avenue.



2. I revel in reading really long books. Middlemarch and War and Peace are my idea of fun.
Another person on 8th Avenue. Doesn't black and white look more chic somehow?



3. I think people who talk on cell phones while checking out at the super market are excessively rude. Is the salesclerk not worthy of 'Good morning' at least? They should pay $20 extra as an 'unpleasant person' tax.



4. I like the crossing guard's super bright slicker. (You can see I'm running out of puff here...)



5. Being inside on a wet evening is bliss. Time to read all those long, long books...
6. My favorite food is probably bread --hot, crusty bread straight from the oven with butter and crunchy honey or strawberry jam.



7. In case you have fallen asleep at the dullness of this post, I throw in a photo of me as a drippy hippie selling beads I'd made on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence circa 1973
Once upon a time....