Last of Florence

A few random shots around town of florence.... aja loves feeding the birds, the morning is the time for cats, the cars are small, the town is full of culture and music and of course don't forget the real duff beer... who knew Matt Groening would rip off the name of his beer from a legitimate Itallian company..

Where is David?

In Florence it is hard to get away from the influence of Michelangelo or his famous sculpture.... This is our composite image for a game we played called 'where is waldoDavid' in our quest to find the real David.... can you spot the real David?

More art

Again I was astonished at the number of outstanding artists there are who get no recognition but who create amazing masterpieces in obscurity for the tourists .... where are the de'Medici's when you need them.

Duomo Dome

The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore... They say that this cathedral is inside out.... the outside is totally ornate but the inside is very sparce... Maybe one of those forward thinking renaissance guys thought that would keep the tourists on the outside and only the faithful would want to come in...

This cathedral is more famous for the engeneering that went into making the dome and the architect who figured out how to do it on such a grand scale.... as we listened in on a tour guide telling some tourists the process.... it all sounded complecated so we moved on listening to other tour groups... we heard that one person at the time who suggested they fill the lower building with sand and coins while they built the dome and after it was finished get the poor people of Florence to dig all the sand out... now that is clever engeneering that we can understand... we quickly moved on to listen to another tour group before that one wanted coins from us...

Divine Comedy

This is the spot... (well it used to be a cafe a couple of hundred years ago) where Dante wrote the divine comedy... his epic poem is about his descent through purgatory and the 8 levels and many circles of hell guided by the Roman poet Virgil ... the reading took three days (if you don't count the three weeks at university spent trying.... before i gave up got the coles notes...(pre internet -internet)....however, sitting in Florence where he wrote most of it... made the reading all the easier....i enjoyed his prose and his metaphor.... the view of the afterlife from the point of view of the medieval world as developed by the western church is a complex and horrific view of the fate of most of humanity.. if your a catholic save up your copper coins... if not go ahead and write your own poem where you make a list of all the people you don't like and how and where they are going to suffer in hell..... go ahead and send me just one more application to join a chain letter group... i'll be sure to check that list twice....

carvers

The carved relief at the top is actually all the address that is shown above the door of this shop...down one of the small Florence alleys... foolishly they left the door slightly open... so we wandered in... even though the proof is all around me ... i still find it amazing that you can carve stone to make such amazing things.... we take most of our life to just learn how to die... let alone all the other things that we would love to master..... the artists never fail to amaze me..

for david

Aja wanted me to take this picture of the old ambulances used in Florence for David... Brittany's fiance... he would get pretty buff pulling people around in these day after day.... who knows after that they might even use him as a model for a statue.. (this would be funnier if you were reading them from the oldest to the newest... so after you read a couple more come back and re-read this one)

Games

We never tire of watching the North African, Middle Eastern and Asian peddlers scoop up their wares and flee whenever police officers walk up the street... only to return like crows to set back up two or three minutes later... this could easily replace football (soccer) as the viewer sport of choice in Florence.. police 0 illegals 25... as we were keeping score...

Clothing

Aja said “I always thought Hercules wore clothing when he faced Medusa, defeat the hydra etc...

In response to the quote that ”the clothing DOESN’T make the man"... Mark Twain said “Clothing DOES make the man... naked people have had little or no influence on society”....

After seeing the most famous statue in Italy, David who slayed Goliath and the scores of other statues of naked Biblical, Roman and Greek hero’s... for the first time i have to disagree with Mark Twain... because apparently clothing doesn’t make the man (a good club or sword not included)... as naked people seem to have inspired the great minds of the Renaissance...

Leaves something to the imagination

May be after five days of looking at various statues you start to understand how truly great and natural the human spirit is and it don't matter about the statues being all out there in the buff.... because once you see other statues where someone had added leaves and stuff it just looks stupid.... viva la naked people...

remember you can click on the picture to see it larger....

Bridge over troubled waters

A second post on this bridge...

The Ponte Vecchio’s fame saved it in 1944 from the nazis, who had orders to blow up all the bridges before retreating out of Florence. They couldn’t bring themselves to reduce this span to rubble - so they blew up the ancient buildings on either end of the bridge to block it off instead...

Golden Gate Bridge the 1st

The Ponte vecchio (old bridge ) was built in 1345. It is the oldest and most famous bridge across the Arno. in the 16th century it was home to butchers until Cosimo 1st moved into the Palazzo Pitti across the river. He couldn’t stand the stench so he evicted the meat cutters and moved in gold and silversmiths, tradesmen who occupy the bridge to this day...

The mighty Arno River

Aja and I often walked out of the old city, across the Arno river and up into the green hills around Florence. About the Arno river Mark Twain said...
“It is popular to admire the Arno. It is a great historical creek, with four feet in the channel and some scows floating about. It would be a very plausible river if they would pump some water into it. They call it a river and they honestly think it is a river.... They even help out the delusion by building bridges over it... I do not see why they think they are too good to wade.”

We never got tired of referring to the Arno as the creek, the ditch, or the stream... of course only when we were out of earshot of any of the locals who appear to be of the same temperament as the swashbuckling Benvenuto Cellini who’s statue is in the center of the bridge when they think someone might insult their great city... and since Benvenuto wears clothing, unlike most of the other statues, I am guessing he never waded across the brook either....

One of these days Mark Twain is going to get me into trouble....

Rub for Luck/Strength

In Milan you spin on the Bull for luck; in Florence you rub the copper images on this door and say a quick prayer for strength. From the highly pollished imagess you can see that three favorite on this door seem to be the hand of Christ blessing Mary Magdalene, the leg of Christ as He is being whipped on His way to be crucified, and the leg of the guy whipping Jesus.... I can understand a prayer for strength from Mary Magdalene whose love strengthened the disciples when their faith was failing, or for the strength of the Lord jesus as He shows firmness against the harsh unbelief of the world, but what is the story about rubbing the leg of they guy beating him? It almost made me want to pay to take a tour just to hear the answer.

Leaning Tower

Try as we could we could not straighten out the tower... When i build anything it always comes out slightly leaning as well... i wonder if i am secretly a genius builder??? they say that Galileo dropped two cannon balls of different masses from the tower to demonstrate that their speed of descent was independent of their mass... they stuck a plaque up to commemorate him doing it ... a guard wouldn't even let me drop two small rocks off....

Check out the picts at flicker http://www.flickr.com/photos/26080359@N08/sets/

Pizza Pisa

We stopped for lunch near the leaning tower of Pisa and aja finally found a place that served hawaiian pizza... i guess if you want western pizza you just have to go to pisa

Grand Piazza del Duomo

Just when you think you have seen the most amazing churchs you could possibly see in england and france you come to Milan and see the Duomo sitting on the grand Piazza del Duomo... It is one of the biggest and impressive churches in the world... it has beautiful massive paintings which hang seemingly in mid-air all over, between the various aisles. The Duomo is supposed to be in possession of one of the nails from the Crucifixion, which it keeps in the dome just beyond the spot over the altar and only lowers down into plain view once a year ... not the day we were there ...which is good because although the church is free to enter there can be lineups ... given a chance to see a nail from the cross would bring the masses... besides if i wanted i could purchase a sliver of wood from the original cross from an exclusive unofficial catholic shop near the cathedral for around 100 dollars... brother thom says this is gothic not gregorian ... he is right as always...

A saint to remember

Normally i don't take pictures in churches ... but in this amazing Duomo on the grand Piazza del Duomo there is a mind blowing statue that i had to capture... most people are snapping pictures right and left with their flashes but using museum mode on the camera, without the flash, i tried at least to be un-obvious ... and i was rewarded as the effect was perfect... a statue toward the back on the right-hand side of the Duomo, depicts Saint Bartholomew. He was skinned alive, so is shown here and in other religious artwork holding his own skin. In this case, he stands with his skin draped around him. The Flayed San Bartolomeo by artist Marco d’Agrate dates from 1562.... maybe because of the harsh treatment of the early Bahai's in Iran i felt such a strong kinship to him..

Designer Shops

The gorgeous Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II which has to be one of the world’s prettiest malls ... we did feel a little out of place walking around the fashion boutiques in our travel duds but we love the energy of the people and were totally entertained watching the beautiful people parade up and down the shops carrying their purchases in lovely bags overflowing with tissue paper with names like Prada, Armani, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Ferragamo, Valentino and Mcdonalds.... yes Mcdonalds.... I guess they figure once you visit one of the other shops you probably can’t afford anything but a McHappy meal ... and McDonalds give you a pretty bag as well...

Shopping Spirit

Being in Milan you just can’t help getting into the shopping spirit... even I couldn’t stand the idea of visiting Milan and coming home empty-handed... so decided, since aja has only one pair of matching socks left... apparently single socks disappearing is a global phenomenon.... so instead of just checking out the elaborate window displays we ventured into a boutique... as you can see from aja’s facial expression she found shopping here as exciting as shopping in the Malls back home... ahhh maybe in a couple of years she might be more into Valentino and who knows, may be by then she won’t eat with her fingers instead of a fork either...

Feed the Birds ... Tuppence

In London we missed out on the Mary Poppins experience of feeding the birds for a tuppence...so here in Milan instead of paying an old woman a tuppence, we paid a north african 2 euros for bird seed and the privilege of feeding the birds here in the square of the Duomo, it was the most entertaining 2 euros we have spent in Europe so far....

Real Itallian Food

Looking at this menu Aja said ‘how come you can get Italian food everywhere but in Italy’ .... around the corner we found an Italian wood fire pizza shop...at last real italian food here in Italy ... even though they did not have our favorite Italian pizza on the menu...the hawaiian pizza.

Luck?

In the center of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II Mall is a tiled image of a prancing bull with a hole worn in the floor in the area of his private parts. The people in Milan believe that spinning on the bull’s privates give the spinner good luck. Every country we have been in so far has their own unique luck traditions, but this by far is the strangest. It is not just a tourist thing, as many passers by do a twirl on the poor bull while in mid conversation, then just keep walking and talking to their companions.... I tried to start a new tradition of doing a double twist on his tail instead ...and moon-walking past his hooves....I was pretty smooth so next time your in Milan check to see if anyone has picked up on it....

Travel Education

Milan is not known for being a tourist center but when we arrived we were amazed at the totally stunning grand train station...one of the largest and most imposing public buildings we have been in so far... we even met a couple of canadian youth from victoria... it was great to speak Canadian and pass on and get a few travel tips ... it is wonderful to see youth from Canada traveling the world... such a great education

holiday inn?

If you doubt what a great area of France this is...or that this part of France is anything but a world class resort area ... check out the sign on the prison... today in Annecy even a night in a cell at the local police station is as good as night at a hotel.... In the old days the prison was not as nice... as you can see from the pictures of the old prison, the cells were so low that if the levels of the lake rose during a heavy rain, the cells would often fill with water. Some people master horseshoes but could they make the best of this and become master of treading water? I bet they would.

Pierre's mom... and ours too

It is always the people that are more interesting than things or places... and to find strangers that become Family is the greatest blessing of all... we love Noelle and our time with her... she used fresh herbs she grew to feed us...she took us for walks where her relatives have walked for hundreds of years... she was wonderful to Aja and spoiled her... we met many of her children and grandchildren and they also accepted us because she accepted us...we did not speak much of each others language ... we mostly communicated using small French English dictionaries... but as they say heart to heart is the best of communication and does not need words.... Nous vous manquerons Noelle. ... et Zohra merci pour aider de Noelle et Aja et j'apprends non seulement comment savoir que ce que chaque autre pensait mais comment aimer aussi... vous aime aussi...

Cabin in the French Alps

The meeting of strangers who become friends is a great blessing. Aja and I met Daniel, Edith and their two great children Jeremy & Sarah... and as Daniel said...' it is hard for teens to make friends on the road' so it was great that Aja and Sarah and Jeremy matched so well and became friends within minutes! They are international thinkers and world travelers so we were kindred spirits. Daniel and his children guided us in how to play ‘go’ and with the insights i got from watching Edith, Daniel and his children play and interact gave me a deep insight on how to present the game if there should ever be a book called... ‘learn how to play Go by reading the comic book’... thanks for the Go board and the stones we will not be bored on our journeys but most of all thanks for the time at your chalet high in the French Alps without electricity eating fondu and telling stories.

Town Market

in
In this part of France sunday often brings people out to local markets.. half the locals show up to sell things and the other half show up to search for bargins and treasures... i liked watching the people the best... besides we still have only one suitcase each and the bear in the picture would not have fit in... i was glad to see the bear here as most everyone in France thinks bears wander around freely in most places in canada ... i told them that is why we always walk with friends who can't run as fast as we can... meet you at starbucks uncle ray when we get back...

Stalking Mick

Mic Jagger has a little get away chalet in this part of France just down the road from us... we knocked but he did not let us in... we did say hi to the woman that walks his dog shown in the pict... ahh brushes with modern royalty...

local Food

Each region of France has its own traditional foods...all made from different combinations of ham, cheese and potatoes (and wine) and t-fel has a ready made kitchen appliance to go with it... piere's sister Christine and husband jean claude prepared for us raclatte... home grown potatoes, home cured ham and a local made cheese... it was delicious even without the wine

More from Mt Blanc

This visit deserves two blog entries... from near the top of Mt Blanc we could see switzerland and Italy... we were on the top of the world... and had a brilliant day with pierre's son Valentine and his girlfriend Cloe... beauty is best shared and to be with Valentine and cloe completed this total high... (it was -2 degrees on the top... can you spot the canadians)

Conflans

We had a blast at the mideveal village of Conflans. A beautiful day in a delightful historic village still with signs of the sarrisins and the middle ages... prices seem to be in the middle ages as well lunch for 4 only cost 15.00 canadian... Sarrasins not only ancient muslim warriors but now the latest fragrance to join the exclusive (i.e., not exported) collection at Serge Lutens.

die to live here

Nana would love to be buried in france.. where some of her ancestors are from ... here the graveyards are not controlled by the fact that you can't have a monument because the lawn mozer would have to go around it... in fact there is a large industry for small plaques and add ons for living relatives wanting to show that they loved you more than the rest... the only thing i forgot to do in paris is visit the grave of jim morrison... something to do next time ... and i will bring my own tea to drink

Pari Pari Pari

Paris is wonderful and unique from the culture shown even in the pink toilet paper. Before we left Paris we had to have lunch at one of the famous Paris street cafe's...

ham & cheese omlet 8.5 Euro 13.00 canadian dollars

cheese burger 13 Euro 20.00 canadian dollars

coke 4.25 Euro 6.50 canadian dollars

tea 5.50 Euro 8.50 canadian dollars

total for eating lunch and looking totally cool in one of the greatest cities in the world.. 48.23 dollars... if only i had bought a barrett I would have completed the picture... tea was as much as the wine... ahh only in France

TGV

We blasted between Paris and Annecy in the east of france in three hours at speeds of up to 320 kilometres per hour (199 mph) on the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, 'high-speed train'). we bought our tickets online in french so ended up in first class, ooh la la... what a way to see the beautiful French country side blast by...

la coulture

Un sentir agréable le nouvel et cher ami a dit que j'écris en français s'ici dans français d'école primaire... Paris est une ville totalement merveilleuse et internationale... Pari une belle ville avec le style et concevoir et avec les belles femmes condamne à une amende de la nourriture et beaucoup de yaourt (la culture) ha ha ha (oops dans français ho ho ho)

see photos at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26080359@N08/sets/

mountaineer-tourists

The view from the top of the eiffle tower is seen as amazing, however, it is nothing like the view we had on a beautiful clear day the day we ascended to the point of mount blanc shown in the picture...the highest mountain in the alps and in europe which rises to 4,810 m ... the cable car took us up to that point about 3800 m and while we were still 1000 m from the top it was truly amazing.. manmade has nothing on mother nature....at the top of the world i decided i did not have the mountain climbers spirit as i felt no desire to climb higher ... even though about 20 000 a year climb to the summit... it looked so hard, however, the people who do climb it are seen more as mountaineer-tourists than serious climbers as apparently it is easy... People screamed when the cable car lurched... so i am not sure what the serious climbers would think of us valley dwellers...

My favourite roman

Wandering amongst the vast number of statues in various museums so far has been great but i was most delighted to find and spend time with my favorite Roman, Marcus Aurelius, stoic, philosopher and roman emperor from 121 to 180... his book 'meditations' on service and duty is one of the books i hid so as not to be sold at garage sale after aja and i left....

Napolean III

A part of the louvre is dedicated to the vast luxury of the life of napolean III the last monarch of France... it is said by historians that he gave great attention to the fate of working class and poor people.... but from the way he is shown to have lived i am not so sure... but the fact that the kings are no longer around shows perhapse he should have listened to the lowest and the oppressed

artists at the louvre

My favorite thing to see at the louvre was the many artists painting copies of the masterpieces...they are so good at making reproductions i think they secretly are plotting to steal the originals ... although one artist did not seem to think my suggestion to help him do it as funny as i thought he would

mona lisa

the Louvre Museum or Great Louvre, or simply the Louvre is the largest national museum of France and as world famous as paris itself ... and the most guarded thing in the louvre is the mona lisa perhaps the most famous painting in the world.... it is described as enigmatic ..... enigmatic meaning puzzling... but it is puzzling to me why in a building with vast treasures why it gets special protection and distinction kept under strict, climate controlled conditions in its bullet-proof glass case. ... a guide at the louvre said it is because many Italian patriots believe da Vinci's painting should be returned to Italy for display in an Italian museum.... but then what of all the other roman statues and itallian history here...but we too joined the line (cue) with the rest of the tourists to get our 15 seconds viewing the Mona Lisa

The Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower built for the International Exhibition of Paris of 1889 commemorating the centenary of the French Revolution ... was well worth the visit... it was way more impressive than i had expected ...i am sure it was not the 15,000 iron pieces, or the 2.5 million rivets, or the 40 tons of paint, or the 1652 steps to the top but rather i have seen it in movies, paintings, read about it in books and poems, and it is featured and seems so connected to paris that it would not have seemed like we were ever in paris without a visit here...

Arc de Triomphe

Our visit to the Arc de Triomphe at Place de l’Étoile at the top of the Champs-Élysées.... gave us a link to both the old and new Paris ... it is definately one of the lasting symbols associated with the french nation and its former and current glory... surrounded by busy streets, like the rest of paris, it seems to relax and stand proud despite the unstopping flow of traffic ...

euro disney

a day at euro disney took us back to california... as it was a photo copy of the american park except in french with no splash mountain... here we did look like tourists with all the rest of the tourists... we did love the haloween theme which adorned the park... A kid day for sure and aja really enjoyed it... may be even more than the museums and cultural spots...

paris underground

After the london underground we were pro's at the underground travel even doing it in French ... it was complex but fast and efficient... it was a fun adventure all in itself... the fact we were enjoying it set us aside from the locals... but we thought we were pro's

Family

After walking around some of the 160 graveyards and fields in the town of Ieper, the town closest to Flanders field, I realized that i was fortunate not to have anyone in my known family killed in the first or second world war. Aja’s Papa, however, lost a brother at the battle of Normandy... so we got a small wooden cross with a poppy on it and wrote Roderick’s name on it to honour his life and the sacrifice of his family...

The Greatest Monument

After reflecting on our visit to the town of Ieper the last town from which all the allied troops went to defend the front. A town that the Military decided was to be defended at all costs...roughly a million allied and german troops.... from the old photo you can see how much of the town remained after the war... the town did not fall to the germans but was basically pounded to bits (it has the distinction of being the first place on earth completely leveled by artillery shelling alone)... it was rebuilt as it had been before the war... The rebuilding of the town in the image of the pre-war town is to me the greatest monument of all.... because it says love is stronger than hate... war may destroy everything but when the war is over it will be rebuilt again...

Canadians are welcome

It is with great respect that the local people treated us Canadians here in the area of Flanders Field...not just because of the troops that we sent, not just because of the men that died... not because of the monuments built by Canadians, not just because of the poem of John McCrae, or the fact that many Canadians were doctors and nurses and worked hard in non combative roles to support the living and the dying at the front... although that alone gave me great pleasure... but because not a single tree was left after the war... they had all been blown to pieces... and Canadians came and planted maple trees after the war.... so although we did not see any poppies blowing between the crosses row on row... being the beginning of fall it was welcoming to see the maple trees turning red and the leaves blowing between the gravestones....

Distinction

Canadians have the distinction of being the first people in history to suffer from a massive chemical warfare attack... At Boezing, a rock throw from flanders field, the first gas attack in the history of war was released against the canadians... 2000 died and many more were blinded for when they went to wash their eyes with water the chemical reaction of the water and the chlorine became an acid ...in memory of that event this monument was erected at vancouver corner.... is my favourite monument because it is simple... and because it is simple it is profound and deeply moving... i don’t think such an inhumane event could be marked in any other way but with unpretentious dignity and utter sadness..

The Trenches

When i taught grade 7 i would sometimes say... “man that was a hard day working in the trenches”... meaning how hard it is to teach some days.... but i doubt i will use that line again.... there can be nothing possible like the hell that it must have been to spend even one hour of the war living and fighting in the trenches ...it is beyond my comprehension....


ok it might be a little like teaching grade 8...