A sampling of Florence

We like Rick Steves’ books and often use his tours as the basis for our explorations. Today, we took two of his Florence tours: the Renaissance Walk, which is an overview of Florence from the Duomo to the Arno (and a bit beyond) and the Duomo Museum tour. We also visited the other sites covered by the Duomo’s Ghilberti Pass (the Bapistery (which is being renovated) and the Crypt of Santa Reparata (inside the Duomo itself – having the pass meant we didn’t have to stand in the very long line for free entry to the Duomo).

I took many, many pictures. Here are some of the best.

From our AirBnB to the Duomo

Square of Italian Unity

Around the Doumo

Campanelle and Duomo
Replica “Gates of Paradise”
Atop the “Gates of Paradise”
In front of the Bell Tower

From the Duomo to Piazzza della Signoria

Piazza della Repubblica
Orsanmichele Church: St. George (Donatello) and St. Matthew (Ghiberti)
Keeping Florence Old
Orsanmichele Church: Madonna of the Rose (Tedesco)
Four Crowned Martyrs (di Banco)
St. George (Donatello)

Piazza della Signoria

Palazzo Vecchio
Not the real David
Perseus (Cellini)
Hercules and Cacus (Bandinelli)
David (replica)
Palazzo Vecchio interior
Neptune (Ammanati)
Savonarola was hanged here

Outside the Uffizi Gallery

Uffizi Courtyard: Giotto
Uffizi Courtyard: Donatello
Uffizi Courtyard: Cellini
Uffizi Courtyard: Leonardo
Uffizi Courtyard: Dante
Uffizi Courtyard: Petrarca
Uffizi Courtyard: Machiavelli (he looks like he’s plotting something)

Ponte Vecchio and Oltarno

Ponte Vecchio
Duomo from Ponte Vecchio

Returning to the Duomo

Albero della Pace (Roggi)
Loggia del Lanzi: The Rape of Polyxena (Fedi)

The Bapistery and the Cathedral itself

Florence Cathedral
On the Cathedral
Bapistery Ceiling (not currently visible)
David and Saul in the Bapistery
In the Bapistery
Duomo Dome interior
Dante and his Poem (di Michelino)
John Hawkwood (Uccello) – it’s in 3-D!
In the Crypt of Santa Reparata
In the Crypt of Santa Reparata
In the Crypt of Santa Reparata
Brunellischi’s Tomb

Duomo Museum (much of the art you see on the Duomo buildings isn’t original – the originals are in the museum!)

North Doors of the Bapistery
Mary in Majesty (di Cambio)
St. John the Evangelist (Donatello), St. Mark the Evangelist (Lamberti)
Four Doctors of the Church with a Roman-Period Sarcophagus
Bapistery South Doors
The Madonna of San Giorgio alla Costa (Bondone)
Saint Mary Magdalene as penitant (Donatello)
Michaelangelo’s final Pieta
Habbakuk (Donatello)
Jeremiah (Donatello)

And one last Golden Hour photo on the way back to our AirBnB

Santa Maria Novella (just your basic local Florentine church)

It was a rather full day.

Daytrippin’

We’re going to be in Florence for a few days. The obvious way to get to Florence from Venice is to take the train – it’s comfortable, fast, and cheap. But our travel agent, Dave Natale, suggested we do something else – take a DayTrip so that we could explore a bit of the countryside on our way to Florence.

Duccio, our driver, picked us up at the port just before 9am and we began our adventure. We’d chosen two stops – the first was about an hour down the road in Arquà Petrarca, home of Petrarch‘s house and tomb. We visited both; we also enjoyed a cappuccino at the local bar.

Arquà Petrarca City Hall
Petrarca’s House
Petrarca’s embalmed cat (not really – it was a story for 17th Century tourists!)
from Song of the Metamorphoses
from Song of the Metamorphoses
from Song of the Metamorphoses
from Song of the Metamorphoses
from Song of the Metamorphoses
from Song of the Metamorphoses
from Song of the Metamorphoses
In the Room of Venus
In the Room of The Visions
Refreshments in Arquà Petrarca
Parrocchia Santa Maria Assunta
Petrarca’s tomb

Our next stop was about an hour later in Ferrara. When we told our cruise director that we were stopping there, she suggested we try a local specialty, Cappellacci di Zucca (a pumpkin-stuffed pasta with sage), and our driver said we should have it at Al Brindisi, which claims to be the oldest tavern restaurant in the world. The visit was a success, though I’m not sure that their musical instrument collection really fits the “old restaurant” theme.

Al Brindisi’s Musical Instrument Collection
A happy customer

We also made a short trip through Ferrara’s old Jewish Ghetto and wandered around the downtown for a while. It was a busy weekend in Ferrara – they were holding an “Open Monuments” event, giving free admission and guided tours to twenty or so of their ancient buildings; unfortunately, we didn’t have time to take advantage. There was also a Dark Arts festival featuring Goth and Steampunk cosplayers, and as we drove out of town, we saw signs for a tattoo festival, too. An interesting place indeed!

Piazza Trento e Trieste
A restaurant in the old Jewish Ghetto
Jewish Community Headquarters (with Shoah memorials)
Noctis Domini L’Armageddon (8th Edition) participant
Memorial to the fallen of WWI (erected by the Fascist Party in 1928)
Commemorating Ferrara’s resistance to the Nazis, 1943-1945
Ferrara Cathedral
Estense Castle

It took another couple of hours to reach our apartment in Florence; the only real sight we saw on our way was one of the old city gates.

Porta al Prato, Florence

Taking a DayTrip was definitely more interesting than taking the train would have been, but it did take a lot longer and cost significantly more.

We spent the rest of the afternoon getting settled; Florence is a busy place (our apartment is just across from the main train station), but we did manage to find a quiet spot for dinner and a supermarket to pick up breakfast supplies.

Tomorrow, we start exploring the city; we’ve bought tickets for the Duomo complex for tomorrow and have Uffizi tickets for Tuesday. Onward!

Mandatory Venice, Part 4 (Masks and a Gondola Ride)

We had planned to take the “Row Venice” excursion and learn how to row a gondola, but it got cancelled due to the weather forecast, so we joined the group heading to Ca’Macana to learn about the history of masks in Venice and how they’re made today. The shop was a short walk from our dock.

This building is in Venetian Gothic style
The terrace (Altana) is the Venetian equivalent of a backyard
The tide is so high this mornibg that boats cannot cross under this bridge safely
“Rio tera” on a street sign means that it had been a canal before being filled – usually by the Austrians during their occupation of Venice because they didn’t know what to do with canals!
Fresh produce for sale right off the boat!
S. Barnaba Church (18th Century), now the Leonardo da Vinci museum

When we reached the shop, we were greeted by Victoria, who’s been making masks for 15 years (a veritable newcomer!). She showed us a short presentation about the history of masks, demonstrated how to make a mask, and let us handle some masks (which turned out to be a problem for me – my hand turned red and started to itch; fortunately, Venice has fountains everywhere and I was able to rinse off whatever was bothering me as soon as we left the shop).

Ca’Macana (mask shop)
David mask
Making a mask
The mold
Painting the mask
After adding gold paint
Gilded cat mask
Up close with the cat mask
Doctor’s mask used during the Black Death – The beak was filled with herbs for protection and filtration

Some people stayed at the shop to make their own masks, but Diane and I wandered back to the ship for lunch.

I wonder if this means what I think it means?

Gondolier at work

The weather was better than the forecast, so we decided to take a gondola ride. We’d passed a gondola stop on our way back from the mask shop, so we walked there. There were two gondolas parked at the stop, but no gondoliers!

Waiting for the gondolier

We waited for 15 minutes and were ready to give up; then my phone rang. It was Jean, one of our new friends who wanted to go out exploring with us (her sister wanted to stay on the ship and Jean didn’t want to explore on her own). We went back to the ship to meet her and then headed back to the stop – there were still two gondolas parked, but now there were gondoliers, too. Off we went for a quick tour of the Dorsoduro and the Grand Canal!

Finally on board!

Our friend Jean

Will we fit?

Welcome to the Grand Canal
Browning died here
You’d think no one in Venice had ever seen a gondola before

The gondola ride was short but fun. We walked around for another half-hour until it started to drizzle fairly seriously; we returned to the ship before the skies really opened up.

Our farewell dinner was enjoyable and delicious. Diane and I had had our waiter Ion on our Rhine cruise last year; he remembered that our table always ordered French fries for dinner…so he brought a bowl for us to have with the main course (beef tenderloin or pan-fried branzano), though it wasn’t on the menu.

Farewell dinner

We leave Venice early tomorrow. The week here has been excellent, but we’re ready for something different.

Po River Delta, then back to Venice

This morning, we took a trip to the Po River Delta for a wildlife-spotting cruise (lots of birds).

Lighthouse (no longer at the coast)
Comorants
“Neverland” – new land being built, causing the waves to break.
Marsh Harrier
Battery Island (abandoned)
Shag and Yellow-Legged Seagull

“Love Shacks” for locals

Fisherman’s garage

We drove back to Chioggia and boarded the S. S. La Venezia for our final sailing through the Venetian Lagoon and to the port of San Basilio, where we’d begun our trip Sunday afternoon. Louisa, our cruise director, gave us a talk about the lagoon, the rising seas, the tides in Venice, and how they’re trying to keep the water from overwhelming the city (progress has been made, but it is by no means certain that Venice will be saved). I kept getting distracted by the views outside.

Elaborate fisherman’s shack in the Venice Lagoon (Thanks, Derek, for the photo)
Sea Cirrus (Petrol carrier) entering the lagoon with tugs awaiting it

The clouds returned late in the day, and the weather forecast is sufficiently uncertain that they cancelled the “Row Venice” excursion that we’d planned on taking tomorrow. We’ll have to walk instead!

Ca’Zen and a Progressive Dinner on board

This afternoon, we took an excursion out into the countryside to visit Tenuta Ca’Zen in the Po River Delta for a tasting of “local products” (cured meats, cheeses, breads, and wines from the estate). Our trip took us on foot through Chioggia (which looked quite different without the weekly market on the main street), on Bragozzi Ulisse across the lagoon, and on country roads to the estate, where we met the owner and heard the story of Lord Byron and his last great love, Teresa Gamba. She even shared his poem to Teresa, Stanzas to the Po.

Chisea di Sant’Andrea Apostolo
Bragozzi Ulisse
Captain Mario at work
Maddona in Mare
Tenuta Ca’Zen
Kitchen Birds
Chapel at Ca’ Zen
Inside the Chapel

After we returned to the ship, we had an hour to rest up before the progressive dinner, which took us “backstage” (or maybe I should say “below decks”) and let us see parts of the ship usually off-limits to the passengers, including the galley, the engine room, the laundry, the crew’s area, and the bridge. It’s impressive to see how the work gets done!

Quiet hour in the galley
Our Chef!
Serious Fire Suppression
One of two generators in the engine room
Tools Galore
Alina showing us the laundry
In the Crew Mess
Emergency assignments
Engineer, Captain, 2nd Captain, Hotel Manager