Soggiorno a Firenze

More Country Roads

2017-01-09T17:29:00.000+01:00

As you may have heard in the news, the weather has been very cold in much of Europe. They had snow in Naples, much more south than Florence, and some people have even died.

Here it has been and still is sunny, but today, as in the previous days, the maximum is around +2 and it gets colder in the night as open water is frozen when you get up in the morning and stays frozen most of the day.

Florentine ice!

We have had a few more walks in the country. Most of the views are of stone walls.

You wonder walking on these roads how many Italians have spent their lives building stones walls over the centuries, because there must be thousand of kilometers of these roads.

Some of these roads are slippery, and I bet you would never guess why. It is not because of ice, but because olive trees hang over them. The olives fall, the cars crush them, and the edge of the road ends up being covered with olive oil (100% pure virgin oil)!

Some houses have warning signs for guard dogs or even guard cats.

There are even more original signs.

Beware of dogs, beware of fighting roosters and beware of fighting ganders!

Look at the tire marks on the road above. They give you a very good idea of the amount of space you have to get out of the way when you meet with a car on one of these roads. Actually the cars are not bad, but a regular-sized bus makes you feel pretty small.

Incognito Vegetables

2016-12-29T14:08:00.000+01:00

Whenever I travel, I try to bring back some flower and vegetable seeds, to try out in the garden when I get home. (You can take seeds across borders as long as they are commercially packaged).

I tend to look for unusual seeds, ones that I am unlikely to find at home. They do not have to be rare.

This year, for instance, I bought among other things, seeds for a winter squash called Marina di Chioggia.

Two of the other seeds I bought turned out to be quite different from what I expected. They are plants I have long known, but never suspected they might be edible.

The first is a root vegetable called "Rapunzel" (Raperonzolo). You cook the tubers with or without the leaves. Here is the package.

When I got the flat I had time to read the small print. It turns out that Rapunzel is rampion (Campanula rapunculus), a close relation of Campanula rapunctoides - one of the most difficult weeds to get rid of! It is known under many names, I call it Grandma's bells - a name I picked up from my good friend Gwyn.

Of course what I bought is a special hybrid that has been selected to produce larger roots. I would have bought it even had I known it was a kind of Grandma's bells. However, having identified it, I know not to spread the seeds indiscriminately.

The second surprise is called Stridoli erba.

It is described as a green you cook before eating. You can add it to stir fries, risotto or pasta. That sounds quite interesting.

The English name is "sculpit". What is the Latin name? Silene inflata, also know as Silene vulgaris, the common bladder campion, a weed even the non-gardener will recognize in the picture below.

Bladder Campion

I look forward to trying it. It is described (by those who sell it) as having a flavor a bit like a combination of arugula, tarragon, chicory & other herbs (A good example of how to make a description meaningless by adding too many elements).

We bought all these at a co-op stores. Prices were very reasonable. A box of half a kilo of spinach seeds was 3 euros! I did not get any, but I got 50 grams of kale seeds (which in Italy is known as black cabbage).

50 grams of kale seeds should last me a few years!

Remembering Things Passed

2016-12-24T20:36:00.000+01:00

The other day we went to Fiesole to look at the Roman amphitheater. It was in part an excuse for a long walk as it was a warm and sunny day.

The amphitheater in Fiesole

Fiesole is high above Florence, and so we took the bus to get there and walked back to the city through a maze of small country roads, stopping on the way to eat our packed lunch.

The ruins are supposed to have been restored a good deal in the 19th century but are still very interesting. Beside the amphitheater there are Roman baths and the ruins of an Etruscan temple.

The two arched doors lead to the Roman bath

The arches below had collapsed but were put back together when the ruins were restored.

The most interesting thing for us was that the very first time we went to Italy with Lorne's mother and his aunt in 1987, we did visit these ruins, and Lorne found two pictures of us with his aunt Muriel.

Lorne, Muriel and Alain

The ruins have not changed, I wish I could say the same thing about us!

Muriel, sitting next to me, was then the age I am now. She passed away two years ago.

Here is a last one, obviously taken from quite a distance. Lorne is sitting in the amphitheater and, above, Muriel is taking my picture.

It is interesting to compare what one remembers.

Lorne remembers the ruins well, but I don't.

However I have a vivid memory that when we first visited these ruins, the ground was covered with thousands of very small cyclamens. They must still be there but, not being in bloom at this time of the year, I did not spot any.

On the way back to Florence.

Olive trees, pines and cypress - the ever present trees of Tuscany

All in a Day's Work of Tourism

2016-12-21T13:14:00.000+01:00

For the first time yesterday we had someone try to short change us - at a national monument besides.

The price was 10 euros per person. The cashier asked if we were entitled to the reduced price for people 65 or over.

We said yes, we showed our dates of birth on our driving licenses. He said that was fine, put the 20 euros I had given him in the cash register, closed the cash register and gave us a big smile.

I said "How much is the ticket?" "Ten euro each", he said. "How much is the ridotto (reduced price)?" He answered "Six euros, and I owe you eight". He reopened the cash register and gave us the 8 euros change again with a big smile.

Just as we walked in, I had noticed that he was taking money from the cash register and putting it in his coat pocket. No doubt someone ahead of us had not realized they were entitled to some change.

You might think you have to be stupid to fall for it. However, it can be very confusing when you do not speak the language fluently, and you are not familiar with the money. It is easy to conclude you misunderstood.

In the evening, we were stopped by a woman who asked us in Italian what was the room we had just come out of at the library.

I started explaining in my belabored Italian that it was the reading room where they had newspapers and magazines in various languages.

She stopped me and said "Ce serait plus simple de me l'expliquer en français".

She was a French woman who for many years has lived in Italy. I had never thought about the type of accent I might have in Italian. Naturally it turns out to be an obvious French accent!

Somehow having lived in English for over 30 years I wondered if I might not have an English accent.

A Sunday Aternoon Walk

2016-12-19T13:22:00.001+01:00

Here are a few pictures we took on a walk on December 18th.

On the way to the country.

In the shade, in a vineyard, there was a bit of frost.

But it was warm in the sun.

On the way back to the city.

Grocery

2016-12-16T19:15:00.000+01:00

For this post I simply took pictures of some items in a promotional brochure(advertiser) for Conad, the most important food chain in the city. This will give you an idea of how much groceries costs in Italy.

At the time of writing, the euro is worth 1.45 Canadian dollars. Here is the brochure:

.

Let us start with cheese. Very few non-Italian cheeses (or other non-Italian products) are available in the stores. Italians mostly consume locally. Two year old parmesan is just under 12 euros a kilo.

Pecorino is a kind of ewe(sheep) cheese.

Now drinks, from Coca-Cola to whisky.

Some proseccos (Italian champagne)

UHT milk

UHT cream

Whisky

Montepulciano d<Ab

Then various other things.

Strangely, a few things like artichoke hearts in a vinaigrette is much more expensive than in Canada (unfortunately I do not have a picture).

Sliced bread, but made of spelt.

Tea bags

French fries

And to end with, pasta. I could have put many other things but this gives you an idea of how prices compare. On the whole groceries seem as expensive or perhaps more expensive, but restaurant meals are cheaper in Canada..

Fashion

2016-12-12T16:24:00.002+01:00

We are not interested in fashion, but I know some of you are. Here are a few pictures of what is in the shop windows on via Tornabuoni. To start with, here is a night view of via Tornabuoni itself.

The next three are in the display window of a fabric store.

Note the two cat above. For each piece of clothing the price is indicated on a small card in the window. The dress below is 1500 euros (about $2000 in Canadian dollars) and the handbag is 3500 euros.

In a previous post I was wondering why there is such an emphasis on security in Florence. I suppose witnessing so much conspicuous consumption is bound to create troubles.

I leave you with this little red bag (in croccodrillo) priced at 9500 euros (about $14,250 in Canadian dollars).

Walking Along the Arno

2016-12-08T13:23:00.000+01:00

The previous post was on the apartment, but this one has no particular theme. The last two days have been very sunny which means hot in the sunshine, but cold in the shade. On Tuesday we took a walk along the river and on Wednesday we walked outside the city centre.

Along the Arno

Being sunny, it was a good day to do the laundry. Unfortunately, our own apartment does not have a clothes line, as they do in the building below. We have to make do with a drying rack indoors.

Along the shore of the Arno you see quite a few birds, including magpies, kingfishers, coots, cormorants, egrets and herons.

Egret and heron

Though the most unexpected thing we saw was what we think is a South-American capybara. At first we thought it was a beaver, but then we realized it was not. A few of these must have escaped in nature from somewhere and the winters are not cold enough to kill them.

We saw an electric car being recharged. It is the second one we have seen. The previous one looked more standard. This one must be a bit small on the highway, but it would be cheap to run and convenient to park for one person in the city.

Walking in the country just around the city, there is always a stone wall on each side of the road like on the left-hand picture below. But then, now and again, there is an unexpected opening in the wall that allows you to see what is on the other side.

I end up with what we call the "troubadours". There are three guys who go by panhandling at least three or four times a day. The pictures were taken from our window. They are panhandling, but at least they play music. One plays the trumpet and the other two play the accordion. We have also met them in downtown.

The picture below suggests they can be rather insistent. When they noticed me taking pictures from above, they shouted something like "throw down the money"!

L'appartamento

2016-12-06T11:10:00.000+01:00

Those who were reading our blog last year will remember that the apartment where we were staying was accessed through 5 doors that could be locked. There are only three locking doors here. First you have the main entrance on the street.

This takes you up the stairs to the 2nd locked door (seen from the outside on the left, and from the inside on the right). This is the most secured door.

I do not know if the incidence of breaking and entering is greater in Italy than in Canada, but security is taken very seriously here. This 2nd door takes you to an anteroom or vestibule where the 3rd locked door (seen below) opens to our apartment. In the same vestibule is another door to the landlady's own apartment. Her name is Federica, and she seems quite accommodating.

The vestibule with, on the left, the door to our apartment

Inside the apartment is a corridor,

with three small rooms on the left - the bathroom (with a bathtub and shower, instead of just a shower).

A utility room where you find the "lavatrice". We have already done a laundry. The laundry soap comes in a small plastic pouches. You throw one in with the clothes, without breaking it. I suppose the pouch breaks down in the water as you do not find any trace of it in the clothes.

The last small room is the kitchen.

It is followed by the main room which is a combination dining-room and living room.

It is actually quite a large room which faces east.

There are also two bedrooms. One large and one extra large (18x22 feet?).

Both bedrooms have mosquito nets. There are mosquitoes in Florence and not only in summer as we have already seen one.

The smaller bedroom has a clothes closet fitted in the wall (on the left - with painted doors). But the large bedroom has a huge wardrobe (with Lorne demonstrating how high are the coat hangers).

Most of the flooring is traditional red Tuscan tiles.

However the dining- living room floor is covered with terrazzo.

From the bedroom windows, you see across the road (which is very narrow) the windows of one of the Caponi palaces (you cannot see it in the picture but "LUDOVICUS CAPONIUS" is engraved below the pediment of each window).

That is it for the apartment. If you have any questions, let me know!

Arrival - 2016

2016-12-05T09:16:00.000+01:00

We left Pearson's airport on Thursday December 1st, around 6:30 P.M. and were in Paris before 8 A.M. the next day. Although a connection to Florence was available an hour after our arrival, we had opted for the next connecting flight at 11:30 A.M. to make sure we had enough time to go through custom and find the right terminal. It turned out to have been a good idea as going through customs seemed to take for ever. There were only 2 customs officers. The majority of travelers were through custom in a few minutes, but three or four people, immigrants (?), took 30 to 45 minutes each to go through, keeping the line at a standstill for long periods. Many people, afraid to miss their connections, were grumbling, especially a guy with a South of France accent standing just behind us who was really fuming. There were lots of "Ah bonne mère!!!" the South of France equivalent of "Mama mia!" (and some much cruder expletives).

At the Florence airport, both the waiting lines for taxis and shuttle bus were very long (at least 50 people in each line). We joined the shuttle bus line. Being midway through it, we were hoping there might be a slight chance of making it on the first bus to arrive. We should have remembered that in Italy they are not too fussy about how many people board a buss. They squeeze in passengers until there is no possibility of adding one more. We made it on the first bss without problem.

Our Shuttle Bus at the station

From the station, we walked to the apartment which took only 15 to 20 minutes.
Our street is more or less a pedestrian street. Here are views of both ends of it.

The houses seen at the end of the last picture face on Santo Spirito square (see below). The church is hidden by the trees. The piazza has a fountain in the middle and a daily morning market held under the awnings on the right.

Piazza Santo Spirito

The next post will be on the apartment.

Odds & Ends #4

2016-01-30T20:55:00.000+01:00

We went to a restaurant where you find a seat, look at the menu and decide what you want. Then you go to the counter, order it and pay for it, and you are then given this round disk. When your food is ready the disk starts flashing and pulsing. You go get your food at the counter.

Part of the fun of being in a foreign country is that there are things that baffle you. For instance, what is the meaning of this street sign? Area where you cannot light a lighter?

This lifting device is to allow people to work on the roof. However this is also how you move in Florence. We have seen twice movers take stuff out of houses through a window down on an equivalent lifting device.

To end with, we are on our way back to Canada in a hotel room in Milan. It is a modern hotel, but there is no electricity in the room unless you plug the room key in a special slot. It is, no doubt, to make sure no one leaves lights on when they are not in the room.

Odds & Ends #3

2016-01-22T20:08:00.000+01:00

In Florence, garbage is not picked up on the street. You take it to a kind of container. There are several of these containers and you are expected to do a first sorting (there is one for glass, one for material that can be composted, etc...).

I was rather puzzled by these as they are so small. I thought they must fill up very fast. I only understood how they worked when I saw them being emptied.

There is a large container under the top part which is emptied in the truck.

In the downtown the streets are narrow, but farther from the center, there are bicycle lanes separated from the road proper by a curb. Below, the pedestrian sidewalk is on the left, the bicycle lane on the right and the road behind the parked cars.

Several of the old palaces which have/had a large garden (never visible from the street) have a bell to ring the gardener. I expect that in the past you could ask him (paying a tip) to show you the garden, when the owners were not using it. Anyhow I have been tempted to ring one of these to see what would happen.

To end with, this is how the mail is delivered.

If you wonder why there are no more descriptions of gardens, these now reside in my regular blog:
http://rochefleuriegarden.blogspot.com

Odds and ends #2

2016-01-18T12:48:00.001+01:00

January 17th is the feast day of Sant'Antonio Abade, who among other things is the protector of domestic animals. This improvised chapel is for the blessing of pets. We saw a blessed dog come out with its owner, and the lady in the picture tried to convince a man who was walking his dog to go in and have him blessed, but without success.

Below is the church of SS Annunziata which we pass every day as our apartment is in the street under the arch on the right. You might or might not know that the Pope has declared a jubilee year. The church door on the right (la Porta santa della misericordia) is never opened, unless it is a jubilee year and going through that door, you get a plenary indulgence! (there are a few other requirements).

Although the majority of people in Florence are not rich, it is nonetheless a very rich city. So far, we have seen four cars driven by chauffeurs. Here is an example of something you would be hard pressed to find in North America, except perhaps in New York City: a store that specializes in domestic staff uniforms.

Bookstores

2016-01-14T20:20:00.000+01:00

In previous winters, when we spent time in Victoria B.C. I went on about how numerous the bookstores were in Victoria. Well, I had not seen Florence yet. Florence has not only numerous bookstores but particularly good ones as well as specialized stores. The most prominent is Feltrinelli, which is also a publisher. At its main location are three floors of very diverse, interesting and beautiful books. There are two other large locations (one in the train station).

Seeber is also a multi-floor book store. Like Feltrinelli it has an English language section as well as a small section of second-hand books.

A third large bookstore we have not visited is Libraria Gioberti (it has five of these bays, using most of the ground floor of the building.

Here is a fourth large book store on the other side of the river (this is near the Pitti Palace and the foot traffic is always very heavy, so heavy that on weekends cars cannot use this street!)

As I said there are specialized bookstores. One that sells only English books and another that sells only French books. Both have an excellent selections.

There are dealers in rare books (I only include two Gozinni and below Connelli, but there are several others).

There are many good smaller new book stores, here are four examples.

Of course there are many stores selling used and antiquarian books. Again, here is only a sampling.
The first one is in a former butcher shop.

I end not with a bookstore, but with a beautiful 18th century public library on via Cavour with a close-up of some books. A antique sign in the reading room says "Please refrain from spitting on the floor".

As you can see, Florentines read!

A Visit to Fiesole

2016-01-10T13:49:00.000+01:00

The other day we walked to Fiesole. This is a town outside Florence. It has a long history as it is older than Florence. The Etruscans and the Romans had settlements in Fiesole, before there was any settlement in Florence.

Fiesole through the trees

Since it is built on a hill, the various roads are all rather steep. We chose the fastest and most picturesque way, but it was also the steepest.

We visited the cathedral (there is a bishop in Fiesole, even if it is only a few miles from Florence). I have not mentioned the very numerous churches we visited during our stay here, as you can see most of them on the Internet. What I liked most about the Fiesole cathedral is that, contrarily to most of the Florentine churches, it has remained medieval in character. Many of the Florentine churches were changed in the 17th and 18th centuries to be made Baroque. The walls of the Fiesole cathedral are in unadorned stones, and the paintings in it are more primitive.

Still slightly higher than the town is a small Franciscan monastery which is beautiful in its simplicity.

It has the most attractive cloister we have seen so far.

Being higher even than Fiesole, the convent has a spectacular view of the adjoining countryside.

We took a longer road to go back but it was downhill all the way, and we could admire the views and olive trees.

The Cavalcade of the Magi (Wise Men)

2016-01-07T15:51:00.000+01:00

Epiphany, when the three wise men arrived at the manger, is celebrated in Florence with a procession of people dressed up in mostly Renaissance costumes. This parade which was started in 1417, stopped in1494 and was resurrected in1997. Unfortunately, the photos are very poor as we were standing behind a crowd and did not see much of the action. Below are the three wise men on their horses.

Most of the procession was made up of lords and ladies in flamboyant costumes.

There were also young men waving flags, mostly Florence flags, but Sienna was represented as well and various other groups, including the local Sri Lankan, Filipino and Peruvian communities.

At some points those who carried flags would throw them high in the air and catch them as they came down.

Some of the riders had birds of prey, including several big owls.

They all ended up in front of the Duomo where there was a reading from the Scriptures and a few speeches. The public was cordoned off at a distance.

Two big bunches of balloons were released and gifts handed out to children.

Two horses waiting by the Baptistery for the ceremony to end.

Florence Tabernacles

2016-01-04T19:11:00.000+01:00

What are called "tabernacles" are devotional paintings or sculptures which you find at street corners in Florence. Some are very old, others are more recent. In fact the very old ones have usually been put in museums and replaced by copies.

As you can see they have a roof and very often a sheet of glass over them to protect them. The sheet of glass is a problem, when you want to take a picture. Not only does the glass reflect the light, but it can be very grimy, and you don't see much. Most represent the Madonna and Child, but not all. Here is a Saint Sebastian.

Here are more of them.

Three more taken in the country, where they tend to be larger than the city ones at street corners.

Cimitero delle Porte Sante

2016-01-01T09:54:00.002+01:00

Yes, an other graveyard, but one you will never have seen the like of. It has a great many personal monuments and it is quite extensive. A fascinating place.

There are many attractive monuments that are not meant to be representative of the dead person, as you see in most graveyards, such as this one.

However here are also many monuments that are personal. They are sculptures or even bronze casts of the dead person. There are several military men. The first one on the left was a general.

There are ladies and gentlemen who died many years ago.

The Cimitero delle Porte Sante was opened in the mid 1800's so most of the monuments are for people who died in the 20th century. You can date many of them by their dress and their appearances, in stone or in bronze.

There are whole roads of family chapels.

Many of the graves have fresh flowers, more so understandably for people who died more recently or for people who died young, sometimes a lot of flowers. However all the graves are very well maintained.

There are couples, full length bronze casts, mother and children.

It is a vast graveyard, there are whole sections we did not even get to.

I end with what seemed to us the most unusual monument. It is for a couple. If I remember well the man, who is shown in uniform, was a pilot in the Italian air force and died in the last war.

Single Shot

2015-12-30T08:31:00.000+01:00

Next door to us is Piazza Santissima Annuziata.That piazza is the turf of older gypsy women. There are no gypsy men, no gypsy younger woman, just mature women. They are easy to recognize by the ankle-long velvet skirts they always wear.They spend most of the day begging, especially at the church door. Every night, they sleep on the loggia of the Innocenti on the same piazza, where they are protected from the rain. One thing we wonder about is their bedding. They have a lot of it, and what can they do with it in the daytime? Probably a charity lets them store it close by.

So far, I have not taken pictures of them. However this morning I could not resist snapping this one who was begging at the church door while chatting with a friend on her cellphone. A professional through and through.

Knobs

2015-12-29T17:13:00.000+01:00

The last post was on doors, this one is on knobs to open these doors. You would not believe the diversity of door knobs there are in Florence. We walked for 2 hours one morning, and in these two hours I took pictures of 120 different styles of door knobs/handles including this majestic lion.

I have tried to group them by theme. Here are a few more lions.

The simple ring is perhaps the most popular design.

Two vaguely Art Deco ones

Just a few of the numerous handles.

There are knobs proper

Then, there are all the "others":

Horses

Ancient Egyptian

The Lady and the Dragon?

The wooden putti

Bronze heads

I took these two days ago and had to stop myself from taking anymore pictures of door knobs as I could not help noticing new styles I had not included.

Portes cochères

2015-12-27T16:54:00.000+01:00

One of the things I like best about Florence are these big doors that open to let a car get into a courtyard or a garage. Sometimes one of these will be left open, and you can see part of the courtyard. These courtyards run the gamut from a simple parking area to a magnificent garden.

Very often, past the door there is a grill - it stops nosy people like me, but lets them see part way in. I suppose the reason these gates are enticing is that they only let you guess at what is beyond. In this case the entrance to what looks like an attractive garden,

here a less sophisticated area to park a car or to leave a bicycle.

Another example of a more utilitarian courtyard.

In the case below, it would appear you first park the scooters, then the cars and further in still is the garden.

Here, I took a picture of the grill past the double doors and, following it, is what I saw putting the camera through that grill.

Glimpse of yet another courtyard taken from "beyond the pale".

One more attractive garden.

I like everyone of these. To those who know us and know we built an 8 foot fence round the garden, it will not come as a surprise that we like enclosed areas!

Italian Odds & Ends

2015-12-25T19:04:00.000+01:00

This is a short series of photos that do not fit in any specific post, but which I thought you might enjoy.
The first one is of a delivery truck bringing in bottles of Chianti, and picking up the empties. They must have a way of washing this type of bottle without having to redo their straw "jacket".

I have never heard of guard cats, but they must exist. At least beware of this one, says the sign. In other words, even if this cat is a gatto (the Italian for cat), she is no piece of cake.

So far, this is the only skating rink we have seen. It is slightly larger than a living-room. There were two skaters, neither of whom was very solid on his pegs.

What looks like a large drainage ditch that crosses the city is actually a river, the Mugone.

A municipal park. Beautiful place, isn't it?

Below is a garden you will be spared. The views are of two sections of the wall that surrounds the largest private green space in a European city. It is the garden of the Marquis Vanni Torrigiani Malaspina, which is not open to the public (No, in this case we did not write to him to ask if he could make an exception).

Flowers on a window sill. There are hundreds of windows just like this one, many at this time of the year with cyclamens just like these.

There are also many of these public fountains, and the water is potable.

Many streets have original names. I think the street of the dissatisfied counts as one of them.

A human-sized nativity scene so realistic that for a moment I thought the shepherd and his green bagpipe was a real person working to make the nativity arrangement (church of San Domenico near Fiesole).

Another nativity scene but, as in a previous post, in the shop window of a bakery. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the box of chocolates, not particularly big, in such a window that was priced at 232 euros.

Two for the price of one

2015-12-24T22:06:00.000+01:00

Auguri a tutti

Those who are not interested in gardening might despair of yet another post on gardens. At least it covers two of them in one post.

The first is the garden of the Strozzi Villa. It might have had a garden at one point, but now it is mostly a steep hill covered with green vegetation and a couple of buildings at the top. The steps taking you up the top are impressive. What you see below is only a fraction of them.

More steps. The Strozzi were one of the most important families in Florence. Exhibitions are now held in their magnificent pallazo in the city.

By the time you are getting out of breath, you come to the Villa Strozzi.

You get nice views of the surrounding countryside with its olive trees and of the city suburbs.

The next garden is the Stibbert garden. This one is a garden, although it does not seem to have much of a maintenance budget. However the rundown look gives it a rather romantic appearance.

It is actually the most flowery garden we have seen so far,

With the best clumps of iris unguicularis we have ever seen. They most bloom better when they bake in the summer sun. We have seen them often in Victoria BC in December, but only a few blooms here and there (no baking sun). In the Stibbert garden, they are lush,

On the house facade are hung a large collection of coats of arms.

The garden has a Greek and and Egyptian temples. Both quite attractive and from the 19th century. You can imagine Cleopatra coming out of the Egyptian temple to step into a barge.

We end with a grand stair case from the garden up to the Stibbert Villa.

The English Cimetery

2015-12-23T20:29:00.000+01:00

This is the graveyard where foreigners have traditionally been buried in Florence. The diversity of monuments is amazing. The best is perhaps this one for the wife of the 19th century English poet, Walter Savage Landor, the one who wrote: "I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart."

We got a very funny explanation of this monument from the person in charge of opening the graveyard gate, a plump Anglican nun. I told her the woman looked very sad. "Well, not for her husband's death," she said. "She had thrown him out of the house and, as you will notice, she is buried at the opposite end of the graveyard from him and with her back turned to him."

There are some celebrities like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, another British 19th century poet.

There is a Prussian king ( Friedrich Wilhelm III) whose epitaph is in French. This is surprising as I see on Wikipedia that his army was destroyed by Napoleon at the battle of Jena.

You can see the whole monument below, at the end of the alley, between the cypresses.

I of course noticed the plants, including what seems to be a pomegranate (on the tomb of the English poet and friend of Matthew Arnold, Arthur Hugh Clough).

and something like golden marguerite (Cota tintora) which is obviously at its best at this time of the year. We also saw it in a private garden.

Rightly or wrongly, you get the impression you can imagine the story of some of the people buried there. This l9th century woman was born in Liverpool and married an Italian aristocrat, Count Mario Gigliucci. Did she bring in a substantial dowry to become a contessa?

Here are a couple more monuments.

Giardino della Gherardesca

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Covering 4,5 hectares, this garden is one of the largest private gardens of Florence. Being private, it is not open to the public. Actually it is part of of the Four Seasons, a five star hotel. Without telling me, Lorne wrote to the hotel explaining that we knew the garden was not open to the public but asked if they could make an exception for two Canadian tourists? Their answer was that he was right, it was not open to the public. However, if we could set a date, they would give us a time we would be welcome.

One reason why we got in might be that at this time of the year there was not a soul in that garden. Did the fact we were Canadian helped? I doubt it, although the Four Seasons is officially a Canadian company and flies a large Canadian flag over the front door. However I read in Wikipedia that it was bought from the Canadian founder in 2007 by Bill Gates and and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. (for 3.8 billion dollars). Anyhow, it was very kind of them to let us wander for an hour where ever we wanted through the place.

When we got there, one of the three doormen in uniform said "You are Signor Charest, no? - You are expected, signori," and he had us take a seat in the foyer. It was so luxurious we hardly dare sit down (below is a room other than the foyer where we waited, but this photo from the hotel website gives an idea of the opulence of the place).

Then Giorgia, who had made the arrangements with Lorne, greeted us and took us to the garden where she said we could wander (wonder?) as much as we wanted. I asked her if we had to leave through the same door we came in (thinking she would want to know when we left). But no, we could leave through any of the open gates, "our staff has been informed you are here". I then realized that, of course, our every step must be monitored on cameras. The reason she stepped outside with us for a minute must have been for the security personnel to identify the two guys allowed in the garden. Actually, by the service gate we left, was a building where we had a glimpse of a fellow watching the monitors.
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Lorne asked me afterwards what I thought was most impressive in that garden, and I came to the conclusion it was the maintenance. It is by far the very best maintained garden I have ever seen. All these gravel alleys are perfectly raked, lawns are magnificent and the shrubs are pruned to perfection.

This hedge actually hides the swimming pool

One particularly interesting feature of the garden is that they have copies of famous sculptures with, next to each one of them, a replica made of barbie dolls, cell phones and other discards made of plastic.

Here is a close-up.

There are some beautiful old trees, including this mature weeping beech as well as a century-old cedar of Lebanon.

Of course there were many terracotta pots, at this time of the year all filled out with cyclamens. You might wonder about my advice in a previous posts that terra cotta pots be emptied in winter to make sure they did not break? I think at the Four Seasons they don't do repair jobs as they do at the Giardino dei simplici. I would guess the Four Seasons has a pot budget bigger than that of the entire Giardino dei simplici.

There was one incongruous thing, a statue of the sacred heart under an arch but surrounded by at least 5 stark naked bronze beauties in lascivious poses.

There was also something close to a nativity scene. I suppose it is meant to be non denominational!

There was at least one temple and several fountains. A whole post could be given over to the very attractive modern sculptures in the garden and I am sparing you 50+ more pictures.

Here is something I believe you can only see in a place like Italy. These are stone steps made with recycled stones, nothing special there. What is special if that these stones must have been part of a monument as they still bear the writing that was engraved on them!

It is a strange feeling when the gates have closed behind you to find yourself back in the street again, with hundreds of honking cars, scooters and pedestrians, when just on the other side of that wall and gate, you have seen how, as Baudelaire puts it, "Là tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté, luxe, calme et volupté."