1) To return to this home page from anywhere, click above on the box containing the words, “Two Weeks In Tuscany”

2) The posts are in Chronological Order, the way a journey runs, from the start to the end, instead of reverse-chronological order, the method common to blogs that put the [...]]]> FIRST – TWO THINGS TO KNOW

1) To return to this home page from anywhere, click above on the box containing the words, “Two Weeks In Tuscany”

2) The posts are in Chronological Order, the way a journey runs, from the start to the end, instead of reverse-chronological order, the method common to blogs that put the newest post first.

Tuscany. The the most sensuous region in all of Italy. No, the most sensuous in all of Europe . . . OK, the truth? It’s the most sensuous region in the whole world.

You and I are going there right now, for two weeks. You with your little computer mouse and me with my laptop in my lap and my credit card in my hand. Together we will see wonderful things, eat excellent food and drink superb wine.

OK, I will do those things, and you can read about them. But if you wish, you can do them too. (using your own laptop – and of course, your own credit card.)

These photos were taken during the light rain that preceded our arrival by bus in Siena. They are here just to give you a foretaste. Click on the small photos  to enlarge them. Oh, and there’s more text below this batch.

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It is not only is achingly beautiful and awesomely executed, it is totally organic, growing directly out [...]]]> The Basilica San Lorenzo (also known as The Dom or the cathedral), at the heart of Florence – no it is not at the heart, I’d say it is the heart – is an astounding piece of art.

It is not only is achingly beautiful and awesomely executed, it is totally organic, growing directly out of its time and place. The moment in time in which it was created, the ideas, the hopes, the fears, the social and religious attitudes – all are right there.

But there still are questions whose answers I haven’t yet found in any books.

In the plaza, at the side of the main building, directly in front of the front door, is the Medici’s private chapel. Why is it separate and not within the Dom itself? What’s inside it? I’ll come back to that further down below a few pix inside the Dom itself.

After passing around and through city streets, stopping next to shuttered churches and in empty city squares, the bus cut across the river and up a winding road that climbs a high [...]]]> We took a tour after dinner on one of those double-deck buses. Two hours, I recall. Maybe 8pm when we started. Dark out.

After passing around and through city streets, stopping next to shuttered churches and in empty city squares, the bus cut across the river and up a winding road that climbs a high hill. As we neared the top, the private homes and hotels became luxurious and sprawling.

At the top was a broad, flat parking area and a look-out with a walled promenade overlooking nighttime Florence. A bronze copy of Michelangelo’s David dominated the view.

It was a warm evening. A group of Chilean musicians, probably all cousins to the ones performing at this same time on Lower Broadway, just off Houston, were gathered under a lamp.

Off to the side, a male fortune teller was explaining their future to an eager young couple.

The recorded guide was unintelligible. The sound was not much more than “blurg garble blah schmoob, waz facicrank.” So I took the annoying things out of my ears. My companion, in an attitude I’d become to realize as too controlling, tried to “help” me by forcing her own earplug set on my head. It took some serious and forceful repetition of “no” before she stopped.

Things are getting tense. We leave for Rome (at her persistence insistence) tomorrow.