Recent Posts
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The Piazzas of Florence, Part 1 of 2
To give a sense of what the city of Florence looks like, we have gathered here a selection of snapshots of the many piazzas of the city. Florence has a compact city center (centro storico) of medieval origin made up of a network of piazza (plazas or squares) which are connected by via (streets). Almost…
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Maestri di Fabbrica, Florence
While the main streets and piazzas of Florence are lined with shops by big international brands, it was refreshing and rewarding to explore the narrow streets and lanes of which Florence has plenty. If you like to join us on this epic road trip from the beginning in Switzerland, click here for the first post…
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Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, Florence
While exploring the area around Florence’s train station, we wandered into this shop on Via della Scala without knowing what it is initially. There was a small group of tourists milling around an entrance underneath a huge bouquet of dried flowers. Click ▶ to play The outside of the building was unremarkable but as soon…
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Random Moment #19 – Chasing Sheep
4 modern piano pieces that sound energetic and urgent, like rock. Two were written for Peter Greenaways’ movies – “The Draughtsman’s Contract” and “The Belly Of An Architect”, in the early 1980’s. 1 – Modern Love Waltz – Philip Glass, played by Jenny Lin2 – Chasing Sheep Is Best Left To The Shepherd – Michael…
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Sandro Botticelli at The Uffizi Gallery, Florence
On this visit to Florence, we met Michelangelo’s David – widely considered to have the most beautiful male body, and we also saw arguably the ideal beautiful woman in The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. This painting is in the Uffizi Gallery (Galleria degli Uffizi) which is one of the largest and most visited…
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A Food Court in the Middle of Florence
About 5 minutes walk from our hotel (Hotel Spadi) is Florence’s central market (Mercato Centrale Firenze). There, we found a gourmet market and food court. A single web site il Mercato Centrale hosts the pages of the central food markets of Florence, Rome, Turin and Milan. The site carries news about the businesses and list…
