Part I: The Campanile of Florence Cathedral
By Geoffrey Dean
[Sequel to "Part I: Leaning Tower of Pisa"]
One of my first tasks in Florence was to climb the campanile (bell tower) of the Florence Cathedral (Il Duomo, or Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore) on the morning of Sunday, January 6 (Epiphany, or La Befana, with the old lady chasing the three wise men on her broom), which in Italy is the climax of their Christmas celebrations. We knew there would be a parade, so we got out into the street around 9 a.m. expecting the festivities to already be in full swing. As it turned out, the street cleaning that we had witnessed the night before was still going on, like this recyclables-collecting truck near Il Duomo,
Part I: Leaning Tower of Pisa
By Geoffrey Dean
[Sequel to "Montepescali, Ardenza"]
Saturday, Jan. 5. After a night spent at La Coccinella Affittacamere, (The Ladybug House), a cozy and very reasonably priced guesthouse run by a young couple with wonderful enthusiasm and attention to detail, we made the short walk to the Piazza dei Miracoli. I felt inexplicably drawn to the piazza’s most famous “miracle,” the leaning tower of Pisa, and gladly parted with 18 Euros to be able to get the inside view. I took these (and many more!) photos to help tell the story of a structure whose beauty and magnetic power lies for me in its very “imperfection.”
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Montepescali, Ardenza
By Geoffrey Dean
[Sequel to "Continuing 2013 Italian style"]
Following our early morning seaside walk in Civitavecchia and a generous breakfast in the Roman catacombs-style basement breakfast area in the Roses hotel, we dutifully loaded our GPS info into the device, but secretly vowed not to listen to it because 1) it seemed to choose circuitous routes and 2) the female British-English speaker had horrible Italian pronunciation. We had heard her say “Strada provinciale” like “STRAY-dog prov-in-SEE-ayl” way too many times the previous day.
Starting 2013 Italian style
By Geoffrey Dean
Having decided to spend the first week of 2013 in Italy, we left for Rome on an almost-empty late-afternoon flight from Sofia on December 31st. A bus from Fiumicino Airport and the A subway from the Termini train station got us painlessly to Via Ottaviano,
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