Ellen's Visit

Ellen

This is going to be a short post, because we had so much fun during our visit from Ellen Bonnell that Carmen did not take many pictures.  Ellen is an Action Ski Club member and the alpha female in Carmen's and her book club.  A business analytics professional, she was also instrumental in getting me my teaching gig at UCSD Extension after I "retired".  Ellen is currently working on a Master's degree in supply chain management in Dublin, Ireland, and she decided to pop over here for a quick weekend visit.

We took the train into Florence on Saturday morning to hook up with her, and then found a wonderful Trattoria on a small side street to have lunch.  We brought her back to our place, spent a relaxing evening with great wine and even greater conversation, and made plans to see the Picasso exhibit on Sunday.  We know Ellen relaxed because she slept in until ten the next morning;-)

We made up for our slightly late start by driving into Florence without getting lost--the first time we have accomplished that!  The Picasso exhibit was great, the girls did some shopping, and then we said "arrivederci" at the train station.  Here are a few pictures from walking around Florence: 

Entrance to the Old City Center

Duomo and Bell Tower

A closer look at features of the Duomo and Tower

Finally, to keep you up-to-date on our activities, we are going on a cruise from Venice to Greece on Monday (that's Nov. 24), returning the following Monday.  We will not be answering our land line (obviously), but the boat has wi-fi (I expect it to have better bandwidth than our place here), so look for our next post from the Aegean Sea!

Stella's visit

We were graced by a visit from Stella Fronius, daughter of friends Floyd and Marcia, earlier this week.  We watched Stella grow up over the past 16 years, and now she is a junior at UC Santa Cruz, doing a quarter abroad at NUI Galway in Ireland.  

Stella and Carmen

The occasion was a good excuse for a day trip to Siena, our first time there since our Italian vacation eight years ago.  Monday was rainy, but we set out anyway by the back roads of Tuscany.  Stella wanted to take pictures, but her phone was not cooperating, so Carmen offered her Nikon and turned her loose.  Most of these are Stella's pictures (with a little help on settings from the fotografa di famiglia).

Scenes from our drive through the Chianti Hills on a rainy day.  The vinyards are turning their fall colors.

It is nice to have someone to take pictures of both of us!

...and here are scenes from Siena:

Narrow streets; tie up your horse here

Statue of Romulus, Remus, and mother wolf

One of many entrances to the Piazza del Campo

Siena is famous for the Piazza del Campo and the Palio, a 700-year old bareback horse race they hold here twice every summer.  I have a hard time imagining horses and jockeys careening around this cobblestone piazza, and I doubt if I will ever get to see it since one would have to camp out days in advance just to be in the piazza for the race.  And even if you were there, you may not see the race for the crush of the crowd.  The piazza was much more mellow when we were there.

No need for a minute hand

Which hand's got the chocolate?

At the end of the day, it is time to relax by the warm fire with a glass of wine. 

Autumnia Figline

On Saturday Gary and I traveled to Figline (pronounced Fe le ne) for  the Festa Autumnia or Autumn festival.  Figline is a town about 18 kilometers from our home, and we go there each Monday to do our major grocery shopping.  We generally do not go into the town proper, where the piazza is and the evening strolls occur.

Figline has an original castle in good condition

Autumnia is what I would call a thanksgiving for the summer’s bounty.  It is a street fair with dozens of booths showing and selling their summer’s harvest, from salami to cheese, from honey to vegetables, from home made chocolates to mouth watering pastries, to first prize for the biggest pumpkin (367 kilos or nearly 800 pounds of pumpkin!)

Bread; wine and olive oil

Meat and sausage; cheese

Cookies; cakes

Sweets; glass fairies

During our wanderings to the various booths we were just in time for the parade!

The members of the parade were dressed in Renaissance clothing with drummers, court jesters and flag thrower/twirlers.  

Flag twirling seems to be a big deal in Italy.  On numerous occasions we have seen squads, mostly teenagers, out practicing.  The Flag twirler/throwers in the parade were seasoned adults, and they were spectacular! I was able to get only one really good picture of the flag toss (I need more photo lessons on that one).  

Of course there were town officials getting up to speak, but for only 10 minutes or so, and then the best flag twirler strutted his stuff to the Ohs and Ahs of the crowd.  During all of the Festa you get the same feel of family, unity and community.  It is another opportunity to get in an extra “stroll”.  The Italians have got it right!

Finally, we get a chuckle when we occasionally see a trendy shop that chooses a name in English that comes out a little bit wrong:

la nostra cantina locale

First, cantina is the Italian word for winery, which requires a mental adjustment for those of us used to seeing and hearing Spanish.  Torre a Cona is a winery that we can see from the road to our home, and we decided last Sunday to support local viticulture by going over for a tasting.

One of the Torre a Cona vinyards

"Torre" is Italian for "tower," and the tower here is all that remains from a twelfth century castle.  The rest of the castle, like many others in the area including the grounds of our place, was leveled in one of the many wars between Italian city-states in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.  A huge villa was erected around the tower in the late eighteenth century by a nobleman who must have been blind to the architectural clash he created.

...and an olive grove, of course

(left) Facade of 18th century villa.  (right) The old entrance from when transportation was by horse

(left) Wine shop above, cellar below.  (right) Everyone here has a persimmon tree.

Our discerning palates;-) proclaimed the wine to be quite good, and we purchased two bottles.

Pisa

Last Monday, Carmen said to me, "I need to see the ocean."  This struck me as a little strange since I am the one who actually goes IN the ocean back in Encinitas and I hadn't felt the need.  Continuing her thought, she said, "Let's drive over to Pisa tomorrow."  And so we did.

where the Arno joins the Mediterranean

When I say "Pisa," I know what you are thinking, so here it is:

Lean?  What lean?

I had thought that the tower was a medieval office building, but in fact it is the bell tower for the Duomo Santa Maria Assunta, to which it stands near but separate.  Construction on the tower started about a century after the duomo, and clearly the later generation had lost the knack for putting something up straight.  The names of the original architect and builder are not known, presumably because they did not want to be remembered for their monumental screw-up.  I imagine they had a hard time finding work after doing the tower. 

Bapistry (Battistero di San Giovanni)

The tower, duomo, and bapistry are set in the huge Piazza dei Miracoli.  One of the miracles is that nobody has been killed by the tower falling over.  Most of the piazza is a giant, well-kept lawn.  On the sunny fall day we were there, many families with young kids were lounging on the lawn, blithely ignoring the "keep off the grass" signs in true Italian fashion.

Details from bapistry exterior

Pulpit by Nicola Pisano

The bapistry is a treat for the eyes, inside and out.  The pulpit was sculpted by Nicola Pisano over a five year period; its completion in 1260 is marked by some as the start of the Italian Renaissance.  Carmen really got the lighting right in her photo of it here:

Some other shots inside the bapistry:

Pisa is also famous as Galileo's home town.  You know the story: he demonstrated that objects fall at the same rate, independent of their weight, by dropping cannonballs of different sizes from the top of the tower.  The story is doubted by scholars, who argue that nobody, much less Galileo, could hire an Italian who would be willing to haul cannonballs up the 294 steps.  The Inquisition liked the story, however, and suggested to Galileo that they would be interested in an experiment to see if he fell as fast as his cannonballs.  Now Galileo is famous as the founder of the scientific method and the Pisa airport is named in his honor.  Payback for bad dogma is a bitch.  How wonderful it is that the same institution that ran the Inquisition for more than 500 years should now find itself a leader who speaks clearly for the highest human values.  

To wrap up this post, here are a few of Carmen's photos from inside the duomo: