Unplanned spontaneity 3/14/18

Using our time until check out to the fullest, this morning we visit the St. Ilario complex. It is not far from the Arch of Trajan and is a very ancient, small building dating from the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 7th century. It was used as a church and later a farmhouse and thus has not been much changed through the centuries due to continual use. Inside there is a multi-media presentation which explains all the bas-relief carvings on the arch of Trajan. He was a much beloved leader who secured the Roman Empire borders, was emperor and yet still was humble and like a common man or soldier.

St. Illaire with the Arch of Trajan in the background
Many buildings have re-used pieces of Roman buildings after the fall of the Empire. This piece looks like it was some sort of serpent.

Our ride to Canosa di Puglia should take about an hour and a half and we arrive around 1 PM. First we look for somewhere to eat. We can find nothing. All there seems to be are grungy, graffiti filled streets. We decide to head to our hotel to see if we can check in. The hotel is situated among the grunge and everything is behind locked barriers. We go to our not very pleasant rooms and wonder what to do next. The proprietor says there is a restaurant next door so we go to there to find some lunch. The restaurant is also behind a steel grill. John presses the intercom but no one answers.

We decide we do not want to stay in Canosa di Puglia even if there is a penalty for it. John tells the guy behind the desk and they argue but we are not staying. That’s it. Sorry but this is our vacation and we are not staying somewhere like this for three days. We leave. I do not know what will happen next but I will keep an eye on our credit card account.

We head to Bari with much lighter spirits. We stop at an Autogrill and have another okay lunch. There are some weird choices that you can make, though.

Odd sandwich-y thing with French fries
Sarah and I have pizza with peppers
John has lasagna

We have been talking to John about ditching the Alfa at the Bari airport and getting a car that is a bit more driveable in Italy and Sicily. He asks for a picture of him with the Alfa.

John and the Alfa Romeo

We decide that instead of one night in Bari we will make it three and add one additional night onto Lecce to make up for the three days we were supposed to stay in Canosa di Puglia.

After much struggle due to a bad accident right in front of our hotel, we settle into our new digs. Our room looks over the Adriatic Sea. We are so glad to be here.

Our room with balcony overlooking the Adriatic Sea

Tonight our happy hour is happy indeed. We have a glass of wine and order the salami plate which ends up being enormous and more than enough to do for dinner.

Ginormous salami plate

August 21, 2017 – Eclipse

When I was planning this vacation I went day by day figuring out what we would be doing and where we would stay. I got to the next to last day and decided that somewhere mid-Oregon along I-5 would be best. Only when I could not find a single hotel that had vacancy did I wonder why Oregon was all booked up. John and I pondered about this. Was there some big event happening? Were all the colleges going back to school on the same day? Finally John had an aha moment, the eclipse!

So I had planned the perfect vacation with its climax at the moment of total eclipse somewhere near Salem, Oregon. We were offered eclipse glasses early on at the Museum of Eastern Idaho so we were prepared.

We leave our hotel in Chehalis, Washington early hoping to avoid the Portland, Oregon rush hour travel. Strangely there is no traffic at all around 8 AM. Maybe all the Intel people have the day off to watch the eclipse. About twenty miles north of Salem we start running into some traffic and decide to take some back roads and camp out on the side of a country road to watch the eclipse. Our plan is working perfectly. The eclipse starts and I am ready with my iPhone to snap some pictures but the sun is too bright. So I take to putting my eclipse glasses over the lens. Here are the results –

About 1/4 eclipsed (the little mark to the left is just a reflection)
1/2 eclipsed
Nearly fully eclipsed
Total eclipse

So obviously I am not very successful with the picture taking. I guess you would need a much more sophisticated camera than an iPhone. Shucks. Here is a picture from NASA showing what it actually looks like from Madras, Oregon.

NASA photo of the total eclipse as seen from Oregon.

We do take some pictures of John and I looking comical in our cool eclipse glasses called “The Eclipsers.”

Here I am staring at the sun
Here’s John staring at the sun

Here are some of my impressions about seeing a total solar eclipse. First, it happens really slowly. It tkes a long time for the moon to move into position. As it approaches, the sky begins to get a twilight kind of appearance. Then you notice the wind pick up a little and it starts to feel cooler. Finally when the sun it is totally eclipsed, it is dark but not totally pitch dark. There is still enough light coming from the edge bits to make things seeable. It only last for a minute or two before the moon and sun begin to part and the light comes back really quickly.

This is an awesome experience and the perfect end to our vacation. And because it is so worthwhile and special I am not going to complain about the monumental traffic where it takes us 4 hours to go 60 miles!

August 9, 2017 – Seein’ the sights in Lethbridge, Alberta

We have a lazy morning not getting up until 7:00AM. After a leisurely breakfast we watch the Federer. V. Polanski match at Montreal. Very contrasting styles. Federer won easily, Yay!

Then we left for Fort Whoop-up which started life as a trading post. (Actually this is just a reproduction of the real fort/trading post which was a ways away and got washed away in a flood.) After an informational movie we walk around the site seeing the various artifacts and reading the placards. The main trading went this way – you give me a bison pelt and I will give you some flour and sugar, you give me two bison pelts and I will give you a gun. And of course they also traded whiskey which was lethal to the Native Americans. Finally the Canadian government sent out the Northwest Mounted Police to stop the illegal trade and lawlessness. But a lot of damage had been done to the First Nation (the term they prefer to use in Canada.)

John whooping it up
John feeding a miniature donkey
John, a member of the original 12 tribes of Israel, beside a tribal abode
Interior of the trading room
Whoop-up kitchen
A Boston Baked Beans recipe from 1847
Whiskey smuggler!

Next we stop in at the Helen Schuyler Nature Centre (Canadian spelling) and look around briefly. This is mostly a place for children to come and learn about nature. They have a cool display that plays different bird songs.

Helen Schuler Nature Centre

It’s 2 PM so we had better grab a quick lunch. We stop at a nearby Wendy’s and have a pretty meh lunch. Then we proceed to the Galt Museum. The Galts were the bigwigs in these parts and made a fortune from discovering high grade coal and “persuading” the Canadian Railway to establish a nearby line so they could ship their coal out. It’s why the High Level Bridge was built. Interestingly the High Level Bridge is the highest and longest bridge of its type in the world.

The Galt Museum and Archives
Contemporary railroad art installation at the Galt Museum (High Level Bridge in background)

Time to hurry back to thre hotel and watch some more tennis. Nadal is playing and as usual we are hoping he loses. (He doesn’t)

For dinner we go to Moxie’s which bills itself as a classic restaurant and lounge. By classic I think they mean 1950’s but at least they have updated the menu if not the decor. We have a few small plates to share and a salad. It turns out it is half price wine Wednesday. So we buy a bottle.

Our server is a very chipper young person from Calgary who is studying math to become a teacher in Lethbridge. She gives us some pointers about Calgary and we talk some politics. The Canadians are not liking Trump at all.

She also insists that we must try poutine, the national dish of Canada. We have assiduously avoided ever eating this because it sounds horrific. It is French fries and cheese curds covered in brown gravy. Why bother making crispy French fries if you are just going to drown them in gravy. Perhaps it accounts for all the soggy fries we have come across and not eaten in Canada.

Cauliflower with spicy Korean sauce – so bad we sent it back, mush
Calamari and shrimp, much better than the cauliflower and the dipping spices were good
Sushi rolls. Not exactly sushi since the shrimp was tempura style but the best thing of the evening

Tomorrow we will be stampeding to Calgary.

June 24, 2017 – Bergen, Norway

After a night of off and on sleep we arise and go down to breakfast. Apparently the Radisson Blu is a destination for tour groups so they have to accommodate a great number of people for breakfast.  The breakfast room is less than charming but the food is fine.

Breakfast served in a large event room at the Radisson Blu, Bergen, Norway
At breakfast the baked tomatoes and bread were especially good. John enjoyed creamed herring.

Our goal today is to see the Hanseatic Museum with its accompanying Assembly Halls and Fishery Museum. The sun is in and out early but as we start our walk towards the museum the rain comes and we are pretty much soaked by the time we get there. This is a scenario which plays out many times today. Sun then rain and over and over.

Misty morning with a hint of sun as we walk past the Hanseatic buildings
Mary in front of the reconstructed Hanseatic buildings that Radisson built to use as a hotel in the historic district
Selfie with the harbor behind

We buy the three part ticket which also gains us access to a bus that drives us to the Fish Museum which is our first stop. Inside we learn soooo much about fish and the Norway fishing industry. (See pictures for explanations) At the end we have a good discussion by the guy running the place about fishing but also about basketball. He was a great Celtic fan and as a youth mostly saw tapes from the 80’s about the team.

Cap’n John in front of the Fish Museum
A magnified krill
So many things we did not know about fish! Ear stones are like tree rings for fish!
Looking out a window of the museum
This diagram struck us funny. The names look like IKEA product labels.
Tree roots used to hold the beams up
Explanation of bulwarks in building
Outside bulwarks used to hold up the buildings in the water
Lastly the fish signs for the restrooms

Then we hop back on the bus and go to the Schotstuene or assembly rooms and kitchen. Any place where there were open fires such as a cooking area or a place to stay warm were separated from living quarters for fear of fire. As is, Bergen burned down at least four or five times. The last big fire was in 1955. Most of the stuff that we are seeing are newer constructions from after the great fire of 1702.

Mary outside the Shotstuene
In the assembly room is a pointer used to point at a misbehaving Hanseatic member (probably one of the apprentices). Offenses were written down on the chalk board on the left and punishments or fines were levied later.
These assembly rooms were the only rooms heated since they were separate from the sleeping areas.
This cooking area was so used for an apprentice hazing game known as the smoke game. The apprentices were hung upside down over smelly, smoldering leather.

We wander by an older church and think about going in but there seems to be some sort of ceremony going on so we have to take a pass and decide to have lunch instead. Our lunch is at Bryggeloftet & Stuene which is supposed to have authentic Norwegian food. We order fish soup and beer. It is good and satisfying on this cold-ish rainy day. Highs are only in the low 50s!

John enjoying a lunchtime beer
Delicious fish soup

After lunch we finish up at the Hanseatic Museum where we learn all about trade in Northern Europe starting in the 1300s and lasting until the 1700s. It was exclusively a German affair. The Hanseatic area was an enclave within Bergen where only German men could live and they had to stay separate from the Norwegians. They controlled the trade of cod and cod by-products which were shipped in from the far North and then sorted and graded in Bergen. We see a reproduction of their living quarters and there is a lot of info about cod or “stockfish” and cod liver’s oil, a valuable commondity for lighting lamps. In some areas of the Hanseatic museum, as was true in the Fish museum, there is a lingering odor of fish.

Interior of the Hanseatic living quarters
Hanseatic office

Now it is almost 3PM and I am really tired. We go back to the room where I am pretty much zonked out until 6PM. Then we watch a little television and catch up on the news before  heading down to the bar for a drink and a little light dinner. Here we meet fellow cruising people. They talk to us some. They seem nice, probably a lot nicer than we seem. Anyway we split a hamburger and exit dinner around 9:45PM. It has been a really full day!

John and I split a Norwegian burger and fries

 

Town Hall Meeting – 4/22/17

Today Sarah and I attend our Congressperson’s Town Hall. Eric Swalwell is our representative. There is a large crowd at Dublin High School. Most of the people there are Democrats, I think.

Rep. Swalwell starts out by relating his experiences growing up and how his parents sacrificed to make sure that he had a good education and could have a better life than they had. Then through a random draw he takes questions from the audience. He tries to insure that what he answers has policy content rather than political content. People ask a wide variety of questions from taxes to immigration to their frustration with government. At one point Rep. Swalwell takes a question from a Boy Scout who is trying to earn his Citizen Badge to become an Eagle Scout.

Rep. Eric Swalwell answers a Boy Scout’s question

It is reassuring to go to this meeting. After all the political posturing and anti-everything policies of the current administration, it is refreshing to hear from people who want to do positive things for the state and country. The crowd is mostly patient and respectful and there is very little yelling out of turn.

Rep. Eric Swallwell

Nathan’s band concert – 4/20/17

John, Sarah, and I drive over to Palo Alto to see and hear Nathan’s band concert. He’s been hard at work this year learning to play the clarinet. We really don’t know what to expect. Early learners of musical instruments are often hard on the ear. However, we are quite impressed by how focused and musical the students are. We see that Nathan is carefully watching the music and looking up to get cues from the conductor.

Nathan playing clarinet

Jonathan tells us that Nathan has been intent on his practicing. The kids are even able to play harmonies and count the rests to come in at the right place. We tell Nathan how much we enjoy the concert and congratulate him mightily. The students are very celebratory at the end of their concert. Probably a little more than I hope for given that they are holding instruments.

Clarinet players show off their instruments

Venice Hurts – 3/25/17 Part Two

Continuation of blog entry for 3/25/17  The internet is working somewhat better today.

We stop for lunch at Ristobar San Polo right across the piazza from San Polo, our next church to visit. Again the bathroom is unusable for the ladies. This one worse than the last. It is a good thing that women have incredible control. The ristobar is a modest eatery and John and Sarah go with the daily special which is bigoli with anchovies. I pass that up for my old standby, spaghetti con vongole. Lunch is okay.

John and Sarah choose bigoli with anchovies
Spaghetti con vongole

We head into the Church of San Polo where the big attraction is Tintoretto’s Last Supper. It’s a busy scene with the table set at an angle, a hallmark of Tintoretto’s Last Suppers.

Tintoretto’s Last Supper at San Polo

I am aching and dragging at this point and basically sit quietly and contemplate the beautiful Madonna and Child at the next church, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari.

Giovanni Bellini’s Madonna and Child with Saints, 1488

I hand off the camera to John who takes the rest of the pictures in the Frari.

Madonna with Christ child, St. Frances and St. Elizabeth also the Doge and Dogess as donors 1339
Madonna Enthroned with Child, Bartolommeo Vivarini, 1482
The Assumption by Titian, 1518
St. Mark and Saints by Bartolomeo Vivarini, 1474

This is all the sightseeing I can do today. So John and I head back to the apartment getting lost along the way. Venice is such a warren of little streets some of which go somewhere and some of which end in dead ends.

We spend the rest of the afternoon doing laundry and resting. We opt for a simple dinner of takeout slices of pizza.

Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo, and Santa Maria Novella – 3/22/17

This morning we are up and out early. Once again being the early birds we manage to miss large crowds. Our purpose this morning is to go to the Medici Chapel, the monument the Medici built as a tomb for themselves, and visit San Lorenzo, the church that the chapel is adjoined to.  It’s a little cooler out this morning and there is a threat of rain in the air.  On our last trip here the day we visited San Lorenzo was the only time it rained and it looks as though we may have a repeat this trip.  (As it turns out the rain holds off until after dinner when we are caught without our umbrellas at, thank goodness, a nearby restaurant.

We rent the audio tour at the Medici Chapel mostly for its humorous aspects. The architectural jargon in it is so obscure that half the time we have no idea what they are talking about. We tried to bone up on our terms last night and learned about architraves and pendentives but nonetheless when they start in on “lizines” we are lost.

We enter first the Chapel of the Princes where the Medicis are entombed. It is a grandiose octagonal space that is lavishly decorated with precious marbles, statues and even was suppose to contain the Holy Sepulchre from Jersusalem which the Medicis tried to buy and then steal to no avail.

Medici tomb
Ornate floor

The chapel itself has several statues carved by Michelangelo. There are stylized figures of Lorenzo Duke of Urbino and his brother, Giuliano Duke of Nemours. Beneath the statue of Lorenzo are figures of Dawn and Dusk and beneath Giuliano are Day and Night, all carved by Michelangelo. Both male figures are done, according to the audio guide, in the unfinished manner, or better known as just never completed.

Dawn
Dusk
Day
Night

After a cup of cappuccino to waste time until the church opens, we head to the church of San Lorenzo. The church, originally consecrated in the 300’s and reconscecrated in 1059 and then redesigned in the 15th century, is mostly whitewashed now with a few existing earlier pieces.

View of interior of San Lorenzo (with Sarah in lower left)

One of the paintings is a 1450 Annunciation by Fillipo Lippi. We learned from the audio guide at the Uffizi that Lippi was a priest who had a scandalous liaison with a nun and their  offspring was named Fillippino Lippi who became another famous painter. The beautiful face of the Madonna is a representation of the nun and the cherubic angels are his son.

Annunciation by Fillipo Lippi, 1450

This painting by Raphael has three saints with their identifying attributes. On the left is St. Stephen who was martyred by stoning. He has a rock on top of his head. In the center St. Lawrence, the patron of saint of San Lorenzo, is shown with the grill on which he was roasted. On the right St. Leonard is shown holding fetters or irons.  He is the patron saint of prisoners. During his life prisoners would invoke his name and be freed.

Saint Lawrence between Saint Stephen and St. Leonard by Raphael

We have enjoyed our morning at the San Lorenzo complex and now decide to go back toward the apartment and eat lunch at the downstairs trattoria Marone and then have a little rest before heading out to Santa Maria Novella, church and museum.

Around 3 PM we are off to Santa Maria Novella, the last stop on our Florence tour. The church, the adjoining cloister, and the museum is full of art treasures and funerary monuments. Especially famous are frescoes by masters of Gothic and early Renaissance.

Works from the interior of the church –

Annunciation, Nero di Bicci, 1455
Trinity by Masaccio, 1424
Crucifix by Giotto 1288-89
Decoration on the tomb of Strozzi, Pieta and Saints, Gaddi, 1375-95
Maggiore Chapel, frescoes of scenes from the life of the Virgin, Ghirlandaio and workshop, 1485-90

Work from the Spanish Chapel –

Christ’s descent into Limbo
Detail of devils looking on in Limbo
King David, Moses, John the Baptist and others in Limbo waiting for resurrection

From the museum –

Cloister frescoes now restored in the museum. Adam and Eve by Orcagna, mid 14th century

We have accomplished much of what we wanted to do while here. We head back to the apartment to pack and have one more slice of pizza in Florence.

On to Venice tomorrow! (And hopefully better internet!)

 

Battling crowds at the Uffizi – 3/21/17

Yesterday we saw a ticket office when we were at Orsanmichele where you could buy tickets for the Uffizi. You have to pay a 4€ service fee but it guarantees you a time slot and you do not have to wait in the gargantuan line to get in. Our tickets were for 9:30 AM. When we got there the regular line was so long that the crowd was cheering every time the guards let in a few people. This is March. I cannot even imagine what it will be like in the summer when there are a lot more people and it is hot!

The line extends back a long way

Anyway we get in right away but it is really crowded and hot Inside. First thing you have to do is climb a massive staircase which is the equivalent of more than 4 stories. Luckily we survive this. Then the battle begins to try and see the artworks. The biggest problem is the tour groups and the school groups. When twenty or so people set up camp in front of a painting there is no way to see around them. You must strategically wait for the split second when one group leaves and rush in to establish position before the next group sets up shop. The kids under 10 are not quite so bad because you can see over their heads and they are generally well behaved (remarkably) but the teens are busy slouching around and more coolly disinterested. The groups of adults are worse. They are busily taking pictures of one another smack in front of the paintings. Since in this situation I am not at my best I actually tell some guy that I got a nice shot of his wife in front of a Botticelli.

Well-behaved Italian kids learning about art (this does not seem like an American class trip)
Thanks lady for standing in front of Botticelli’s Primavera so we could all take your picture

Rant over. The art is wonderful and worth the waits and hassle. You truly get to see the development from the stiff Byzantine cartoon paintings of the early 13th century slowly move by the end of the century to more realistic body forms and perspective thanks to greats like Cimabue, Daddi, and Giotto. In the next 100 years art changes rapidly until you end up with real people in real landscapes.

Giotto’s Madonna and Child (around 1300)
Cimabue’s Madonna and Child (around 1300)

The paintings and frescoes are almost exclusively about religious subjects since that was really the only thing allowed. Occasionally you might see a mythical subject used in an allegorical way to underline a religious precept like a personification of a deadly sin and how you are going to hell.

The purpose of much of the religious art is to educate a populace who is largely illiterate. Going into a church is like stepping into an illustrated comic book of the Bible. Saints and their miracles are like modern day super heroes. Everyone has their favorite whom they are devoted to. Their saintly lives decorate the walls from their births to their often gruesome ends. The people of the times understand every gesture, position, and color. They know the significance of each animal, plant, and object. So what looks like the same old same old Madonna and Child, Crucifixion, or Last Supper is actually imbued with subtle meaning by a hand gesture or a peacock.

St. Cecilia went around baptizing people in the 2nd to 3rd century even after her husband and brother-in-law were executed for doing the same. She was tortured in baths of extreme temperatures by the local prefect but did not die. So an executioner tried three time to hack off her head but it refused to come off so they left her to bleed to death which took three days. In the meantime people came and collected her holy blood and were converted to Christianity.  (Master of St. Cecilia circa 1300)

 

St. Nicholas throws in three bags of gold to provide dowries for three young women who would become prostitutes if they had no dowries (Lorenzetti circa 1330)
St. Matthew exposes magicians accompanied by dragons (Orcagna 1370)

The crowds thin out the deeper we go into the museum. The tours and school groups only view the “greatest hits.” So there are a lot of people surrounding Giotto, the Botticellis, Michelangelo’s one painting, and da Vinci. The Perugino, Caravaggio, and even Raphael works are often bypassed. We enjoy our time at the Uffizi immensely.

Some beautiful works of art we saw –

Gentile da Fabriano “Adoration of the Magi” 1423

Fillipo Lippilippi “Madonna and Child with Angel” 1460?

Botticelli “Birth of Venus” 1485
Michelangelo “Holy Family” (Doni Tondo) 1507
Raphael “Madonna and Child with St. John” (Madonna of the Goldfinch) 1506
Leonardo da Vinci “Annunciation” 1474
Titian “Venus of Urbino” 1538
Caravaggio “Bacchus” 1596

Having been on our feet with a lot of people for over four hours leaves us pretty exhausted, thirsty and hungry. We decide that we will pick up some sandwiches on the way back to our apartments. This way we can put on some comfy clothes, take our shoes off our achy feet, and lounge around while eating lunch.

John and I tell Sarah we are opting out of any late afternoon’s activities and she can make plans on her own. She makes her way over to the Pitti Palace for some more art viewing and we do laundry, read books, do crosswords, and take naps. Hey, it’s a vacation not a total art marathon!

Later we go out to Bussola for pizza! Mmmmm, the crust is so delicious! Reminds me of the Jersey shore pizza of my youth. Here people eat entire pizzas themselves but John and I decide on a salad and to split one. We end with vin santo and cantuccini, small Florentine cookies.

The Accademia, more than just Michelangelo’s David – 3/19/17

Today was a rough day for everyone. Sarah woke up at 12:30 AM and could not go back to sleep and my back, knee, and feet were aching. It was a rough day for John because he had to put up with our grumpy selves.

We start early and arrive at the Accademia (art museum) shortly after they open. As the day advances they often have colossal lines and we want to avoid that. We walk in totally unimpeded by crowds. Although taking a look at the David is something one wants to save like dessert, we decide it is best to enjoy this fabulous piece of art before the hall gets too crowded.

The setting is quite impressive. You walk down a rather long room that has many of Michelangelo’s unfinished sculptures to a rotunda where the David stands bathed in light from above. Even though the David is plastered on everything here from aprons to beer steins, when you see the sculpture in person it takes your breath away.

Michelangelo’s David

Such a beautiful face!
I think my favorite part is his hand

Okay, so after we can tear ourselves away we head back down the hallway to see some of the unfinished sculptures. They appear to be struggling to free themselves from the their marble blocks. You can see the the bold chisel marks, the small gouges, and some polished parts as well.

I feel a visceral desire to throw of this stone entrapping the “Prisoner’s” head

The Accademia showcases works from the 13th century to Mannerism in the 16th century.  Michelangelo may be the star of this collection but there are lots of other great pieces. Here we find Job again but all dressed up and with a sign that says in Latin “He is my savior.” No doubt that God won and Satan lost when it came to testing Job’s faith.

Moses is often depicted with horns in Renaissance art. Is it because he was Jewish? Probably not because the translation about Moses from the Aramaic states that he had two rays (horns) of light emanating from his head, 15th century.

Moses with fire-y cornu or horns

Here’s a 15th century Annunciation. They were still working out proportions.  If Mary stood up she would hit her head on the ceiling!

If the BVM stands up she will hit her head

Ever wonder why people think that dinosaurs and people existed at the same time? This picture of St. Michael slaying the dragon supports the idea that dinosaur-like creatures and humans were wandering around during Biblical times.

St. Michael and a dragon

In the work below, Perugino of the expressionless faces has painted the bottom of the Deposition. His younger counterpart, Filipino Lippi has painted the top. Look at the gaily streaming sashes more representative of some happy event. This is the mullet of paintings – All party in the top and all business in the bottom.

Perugino/Lippi mullet painting

This painting of Santa Barbara (identifiable by the tower next to her) was X-rayed before restoration….

St. Barbara’s rediscovered 6th toe

….it was discovered she had a 6th toe!

Santa Barbara’s sixth toe

This little gallery of paintings from the 13th and `14th century illustrates how quickly art was changing.

Needless to say we were very thorough looking through the Accademia. And now we are very tired. It is well after lunch. We decide to go to the new Mercato Centrale . It looks like the beginnings of a wonderful food hall.  There all sorts of purveyors and we pick up some meat, salami, and bread. We also stop for some Malaga gelato!

Mercado Centrale
Gelato

I am dead on my feet. We decide to go back to the apartments for a little sit-down and end up falling asleep until supper! Tonight we dine at Buca Mario, a restaurant where John and I ate our first meal in Florence with his Oracle comrades. It is the fanciest place we have been to. After dinner it is no problem to fall asleep.