More Travels with Liz and Jeremy

After Rome and Venice, we made day trips to Florence, Pisa, and Lucca with Liz and Jeremy (whew!!).  In Florence, we wanted to climb to the top of the Duomo, but the line was wrapped around the cathedral!  It is definitely tourist season.  We opted instead to climb to the top of the Campanile, the Duomo's bell tower.  The view of the city was spectacular up there.  We could look across at the people who had made it to the top of the Duomo.  

After the Campanile, we went into the Duomo and Carmen got a shot of the dome from the inside (upper right).

I insisted that Carmen photograph this clock on the inside of the Duomo's entrance.  As with many early clocks it only has an hour hand, and displays 24 hours, not twelve.  This one struck me in particular because the hand moves...er...counterclockwise.

Il Porcellino (the little pig) is a bronze statue of a cinghiale (wild boar) in the Mercato Nuovo.  The original (now in a museum) was cast in 1634, and by the mid-eighteenth century a tradition among travelers was in place that rubbing the snout would guarantee a return to Florence.  Apparently Jeremy and Liz plan to come back...

Next up was the Palazzo Vecchio, in which it seems every square centimeter (metric units, remember?) is decorated, as the column below left.  The late afternoon sun added a dramatic enhancement to the focal point of this frescoe (below right) in the Sala dell'Udienza.

Another day, another two towns.  The kids wanted to see the Leaning Tower and the Mediterranean, so we headed for Pisa.  We did NOT copy the countless number of tourists taking pictures with their arms up, posed to look like giants holding up the Tower.  We then went out to the Marina di Pisa where Liz checked off the box for dipping her feet in the Mediterranean.

Lucca is just a hop, skip, and jump from Pisa, so we went over there in the afternoon and the kids shopped for souvenirs for relatives and friends.  While we were there, a parade started, consisting of six marching bands with flag twirlers, all decked out in Renaissance-style uniforms.  As we have noted before, flag twirling, which also involves throwing the flags high in the air while marching, is a big deal in Italy.  

This still does not cover all of Liz & Jeremy's visit!  Stay tuned for the next post, when my brother Alan and his wife Sharon rejoin us and the six of us go to a cooking class at a Chianti winery, and then pay a visit to Assisi.