Europe June 2011 -- Getting Started on the Alps Drive

On June 15th it was time to leave Florence to start on our Alps driving adventure.  I wasn't feeling very well that morning, so I called our apartment owner and asked if it was okay for us to take a couple of extra hours before we left the apartment.  She said that was fine, so we did.

The only little hitch was that I also called for a taxi to take us to the airport, and they said to call about 5 minutes before we wanted to leave.  So I tried that, but the phone had been turned off.  That was a problem because the taxi service recognized the phone number and knew exactly where we were when we called before.  So I tried calling from my cell phone, but failed to communicate. 

Our solution was to prevail upon the good will of the bar owner next door to call for us.  That worked.  We had plenty of time to get there, but I was getting a little antsy.

When we checked in for our flight, the person who helped us was an American ex-pat who had lived in Italy for 20 years but still held her US passport.  She had been in Florence for about 7 years.  That was a surprise, but it was fun to talk to her.

Although many said we wouldn't need them, Trout and I got International Driver Licenses from AAA before we left.  As our friend John Larrivee said, Trout has perfected this look and wears it in many pictures, both casual and not.  Because of all the white, I call this his "Polar Bear in a Snow Storm" picture.

They caught me talking, naturally.

These were our ticket stubs from Florence to Stuttgart where we got our rental car for the drive.

And this was the kind of plane we flew on.  The wheels folded up inside the pods on the side.  We flew over the Alps.  We were very close to them.  I was too fascinated with looking down to dig out the camera.  I had the window seat and offered to trade with Trout for part of the flight, but he opted out.

The flight was pretty good until we got close to Stuttgart where it was raining.  Then we had some "ride 'em cowboy" moments, but we landed just fine.

We got a taxi to the pick-up point for our car, got the car (an Opel, of course) and found our way to the Autobahn.  I did an okay job of navigating and Trout did a fine job of driving and we arrived for our first night in Germany at our hotel in Fussen.

The hotel had free parking and was off a little pedestrian only zone, but we couldn't quite figure out how to get there, so Trout parked and I walked to it.  While parked, he noticed this car.

Then as we drove around seeking the best way to get to the parking area, he saw this car's tail lights and wanted me to take a picture.

After another zip around the city, we got to our hotel.  We had a decent dinner and spend a quiet night in the room.

The next day we had the typical German breakfast provided by the hotel, went next door and bought a map of Germany that covered where we were going, went down the street to a surprisingly large drug store to get bath gel and shampoo in quantities that would last us the rest of the trip, and got on our way along the Deutsche Alpenstrasse. 

We started at #8 on the linked map and finished at the end (#25) in Berchtesgaden.  We didn't follow it completely, because we didn't have enough time, but we did hit most of the highlights.  The worst part was trying to get through Garmisch-Partenkirchen.  It was congested and too crowded with tourists -- even on a Thursday.

I had to take my usual "from the car" pictures along the way.  We saw some lakes.

And Trout saw another car photo opportunity.

And there were some mountains, but they weren't quite as high or as dramatic as those we would see later.

Although the scenery was lovely and I could have taken lots of pictures of cows and green fields and mountains, somehow I wasn't inspired.  I took lots more pictures in Berchtesgaden and they are in the next posting.

Europe June 2011 -- Florence Walkabout

As Trout and I walked around Florence, I could have taken a picture every step, but I didn't.  It was an easy walk from our apartment almost anywhere, but we tended to list toward the River Arno.

One of our first stops was the Uffizi Gallery.  I didn't take pictures inside, but the link will give you an idea of what we saw.  My favorites include Leonardo Da Vinci's Annunciation,   Botticelli's Primavera and Uccello's Battle of San Romano, especially the center panel.  Unfortunately, the Uccello was out for restoration, but we did get to see lots of other magnificent paintings.

The building is a U shape with a courtyard in the center.  There are lots of activities there, including artists that set up to sell their works as well as living statues and street performers at the far end where you see the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio.  But more about that later.

The bottom of the U is on the street adjacent to the Arno.  There is a tradition of lovers placing locks on some of the chained barracades there.  It's illegal, but hard to enforce.

We didn't have a lock, but we did have our ubiquitous tie wraps.

This is the river from the Uffizi side.  The bridge is the famous Ponte Vecchio.

Trout is walking through the arcade along the river near the bridge.  Artists set up here, too.

 This is a closer look at the east side of the Ponte Vecchio.

There is a break in the shops on both sides of the bridge in the middle.  People gather here to look up and down the river.

Did we tell you that the primary form of transportation (besides human feet) is the motor scooter?

Of course we ate our last evening meal at the Open Bar again.  This is what was going on along the Arno.  Yes, a lot of English is used...

Part of the entertainment for the event was the rowing.  Here's the Ponte Vecchio in the background.

They seemed to only go between the bridges.  This is the Ponte alle Grazie, the one we walked on to get home, only a few blocks away.

Our timing for walking home that night was perfect.  These are the sunset pics I got as we crossed the bridge.

It couldn't have been a more spectacular finish to our week in Florence.

But now about one of our 1st experiences.  There is, as it turns out, a very popular mime named gReY who works the tight passage called the Offici square.  It's between the Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi and the Loggia dei Lanzi.  He got me.  He threw his arms around me from the back, I hugged him back and he said, "finally a nice one." 

Then he proceeded to act like he was making love to me.  He told me to close my mouth (I was laughing), and acted like he was kissing me.  We ended up on the ground.  Then he tried to get me up, but I probably outweigh him by 50 pounds, so that was very funny for everyone.  He did get me vertical, after a couple of tries.  Like in many of the videos, he got white grease paint all over my face.  I used the glass of some of the doors to the Uffizi offices to see to wipe it off.

Trout said it was hilarious.  He stood by and laughed and wished he had the camera instead of me.  When I started preparing the posting, I tried to find the mime who got me, and discovered his name and that there are a number of videos of his performances.  There are many pictures and clips with him doing something similar to other women.  This clip is more of an interview with him.  It's long, but very interesting and well worthwhile watching to the end.

Europe June 2011 -- Florence: Churches

At least a week could be spent exploring churches in Florence.  I suppose everyone has their favorite.  Santa Croce is mine.  In fact it's in my top 5 for all of Europe.

There is something intimate and atmospheric about this sacred place.  It captivated me when I was in Florence in 1977 and it has never let me go.  I don't think it was a coincidence that the apartment we rented was across the street from it.  We walked past it daily while we were in Florence.

It was on Ramona's must-see list and we all visited it together.  I got these pictures at around sunset on a different day.  The taped off area you see in front was for a special event to be held in the piazza a few days after we left.

Dante's presence is both outside and inside.

The tombs and memorials for famous people certainly are impressive.  This is Galileo's.  Because of his scientific "heresy," when he died in 1642 he was buried in a relatively obscure part of the church.  His body was moved to this tomb in 1737.  

Michelangelo's tomb is a popular photo op.  The story goes that he chose this location in Santa Croce himself so that when the front doors of the basilica are opened, he can see the Duomo.

Of course, Dante is memorialized here, although the tomb is empty.  He is actually buried in Ravenna at the Church of San Pier Maggiore.

And what's a great church without a great historian, philosopher, writer and a main founder of modern political science buried there?  This is the tomb of Machiavelli.

There are many other famous people buried here, but it's not really these tombs that get me.

The church architecture is of the simple, even austere type I like.  It is the largest Franciscan church in the world.  It replaced an older building and construction was started in 1294.  It was consecrated in 1442.

I love the space, but that's only part of  Santa Croce's hold on me.

I'm a big fan of Cimabue and Giotto and the frescoes are astonishing.  I just wasn't able to get any good pictures.  You can see Cimabue's cross here with some of Giotto's frescoes.

This is Giotto's Resurrection of Drusiana.

As much as I love Giotto, it's not just his frescoes that keep bringing me back.

The courtyard area and the grill work are impressive, but it's not those either.

It's the tombs like this that I always want to see again and again.  Now they are roped off, but when I first saw them, they weren't.  You can see how worn the reliefs are from hundreds of years of people walking over them.  There are over 250 tombs in the floor.  Not all of them are as fancy as these, but they all are part of what makes Santa Croce unique. 

The Duomo is the best known church in Florence.  It is the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore.  It was begun in 1296 in Gothic style and finished in 1436 with the Brunelleschi dome.  The links have much more information on the church with more pictures.

We did not go inside.  That was partly because we got there after closing, and that was somewhat intentional to avoid the crowds.   In fact, Trout just sat on a bench and watched the world go by while I walked around and took pictures. 

As is so often the case, work was being done on the outside, mostly cleaning of this marble skin that was put there in the 19th century.  This part had not been cleaned yet.

Giotto's bell tower isn't leaning, I was.  This is on the side where Trout was sitting.

Here you can see some of the scaffolding for the work being done, along with an angle on the dome.

This is pretty impressive for a side entrance.

This is the main facade.

And these are the front doors.

This is the scene above the main doors.

And here is Mary and the baby Jesus in one of the niches.

This is another view of the bell tower.

These are the famous Ghiberti doors on the Baptistry, or at least reproductions of them.  The original ones are in the museum for the Duomo.  They were replaced to preserve them.  I got there just as they were closing and rolling the security gate up.

Even after closing, the Duomo is a popular site.

I liked going around this back side.    You can see the buttresses for the dome well here.  More scaffolding, eh?

I loved this view -- including the clock.

So I worked my way back around to Trout.

The Piazza del Duomo is busy on all sides.

Trout didn't read his book or gawk at Italian girls the whole time he waited for me.  He did read about this guy as best he could.  This is a sculpture of Brunelleschi consulting his drawings as he looks at his dome.

That was the extent of our church going in Florence.  There are lots of advantages to visiting this city:  there is so much to see, it is within decent walking distance of the major areas to stay in and it is almost all flat.