Italy 2014 Day Eleven

Our last day in Florence, in Italy. Coughing, tired, determined...

First stop the Duomo. Enormous and phenomenal.
The dome built in by Brunelleschi in 1463 is 296 feet tall, the tallest building in Florence.
It looms from every view.
We climbed up the 463 claustrophobic steps to the dome...

The 360 degree views outside.

The campanile or bell tower was built in 1359 nearly 100 years before the dome. It is impossible for me to understand how they were able to do this work, then. we tend to think we are at the top of technology, but then you see what was done nearly 800 years ago, all for the love of God...

The baptistery is one of the oldest buildings in the city.
Originally built as a pagan temple it was remodeled in the 13th century.
The ceiling mosaics tell the story of the bible with the risen Christ at its focus.

San Lorenzo, another Brunelleschi work from 1425 commissioned by the Medici family,
the power and political base of 13th century Florence.

The cloister garden.

The bibliotheca, stairway is a Michelangelo design.

Desks...

The collection on view was called Animalia with parchment texts.

The sacristy, in the church itself, was done by Brunelleschi and decorated by Donatello.

Happened upon Orsanmichele with its ornate Virgin and Child Alter from 1338.

The paper shop Giannini.

Purchases were made.

Palazzo Pitti was closed. It was built by Luca Pitti in an effort to keep up with the Medici family who then bought it from bankrupt relatives after Pitti's death making it their residence. Take that Pitti! Damn power hungry Medici family. Their influence is admirable and disgusting in a way to me.

 

We found Il Torchio, a must stop in Florence.

Nina is a Canadian-cum-Florencian who builds books here.

We kinda died...

but bought stuff just before.

Back across Arno,

stopping to watch the moon rise.

My Alisa...

a final dinner and ciao to Italy...

Italy 2014 Day Eight

 

Oh Day 8, the last one in Orvieto. Sunny. Bird calls echoing past the ancient stones worked into building blocks, through open windows and shutters. Real shutters. Working shutters. Not like here...

 

The beauty, the great beauty of being from Oklahoma is that we are one of the last settled places with moderate temperature on the earth. Certainly one of the last in America. Statehood established in 1907, we really have few buildings older than 125 years. No mountains. No ocean view.

People are our landscape and we have honed a lovely smiling populace.

But...when you travel, everything has texture and age. It is a most fortunate perspective...

Last day in the studio, we took it outside to the convent garden for sketching.

I tried. Of course I took on way too much. 

Next time I will just focus on a single urn.

Its just fine, photography is my sketchbook...

 

Alisa and I were determined to take in the last quarter of Orvieto.

We walked again to the east end near the train station and veered north.

 

At the Fortezza Albornoz, looking northward. Pozza Di San Patrizio is a well dug as part of the rebuild of the fortress in 1527. Oh how I wish we had attempted to go in to see the spiral staircase that descends its 173 foot depth. This is one of the things you want to 'go back' for. But I know how rarely I travel, 23 years since I had been to Europe, so will I pass this way again?

One must assume not.

One must get all you can while you are there.

I wish I had gone in a few more buildings...

Walking back toward city center we passed this lovely church, Chiesa Di S. Domenico, a 13th century church built by Dominican friars, later made into a female academy by Mussolini.

Italy makes historical dead guys come alive...

Just another lovely residence in Orvieto...

A pastry shop. Meringues.  Meringues....

And then, then we decided we had to watch the last Orvietan sunset from a terrace at the convent.

We sneak our bottle of wine from the refrigerator

narrowly escaping the sensible shoe steps of Sister Giovanna.

A destroyed cork does still access wine...

We take chairs from my room up the hallway and staircase,

though a door and find ourselves on the terrace. 

 

The sunset,

the Grek wine,

the smell of burning olive branches remaining from harvest.

Divinity...

Photo courtesy of Kristi and Beel Steiner...

 

Then we are caught, that terrace was on full display of the hallway.

 

A best moment, stolen, giggling, wobbly wine and dusk...

 

to be continued...