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.”
“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....
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