Observations on the absurdities encountered under the Tuscan sun.
Among my friends and family, they know how much I hate Italian Post Offices. Some have described it as a phobia: ufficiopostalefobia (postophobia (var. Italian)). Actually, it is not the post office building that I object to. There are many incredibly beautiful post offices in Italy. It’s the people who work there. Actually, before the […]
Firenze Card vs. Amici degli Uffizi Pass Revisited Attention: Effective as of June 15, 2015, the Regional Secretary of the former Superintendency of the State Museums of Florence stipulated that Amici deli Uffizi members, holding valid membership and ID cards, are eligible for the free entrance and the priority pass to the Uffizi Gallery only.
Florence is a living museum, a museum that reminds us that not everything changes even in this age of Google and smart phones. The early Renaissance orphanage Ospedale degli Innocenti in Piazza SS. Annunziata had a foundling wheel known as culla per la vita (life cradle) where unwanted newborns could be left anonymously to save
I don’t know why, but when I truly get burnt to a crisp by the often not-so-sunny life in Tuscany, I think of taxi cabs. I’ve done it before and I will do it again. Maybe it helps me realize this too will pass. Right now, we are waiting for the P.M. to ride off
The taxi drivers of London are the best in the world. New York and San Francisco have excellent cabbies. Even Washington, DC, where they rarely know how to find an address, the taxi cab drivers are polite and want to give good service. But in Italy, cab drivers are a protected class who seem to
The mayor says he’s going to fix it, but he doesn’t seem to have time while he’s throwing White Night festivities and Blue Night parties and stopping the bus system in its track by creating the fabulous pedestrian zone around the Duomo. He’s having equal trouble with potholes. But potholes and graffiti aren’t sexy and
In these hard economic times, the best business to have is the guy selling padlocks at the little cart on the Ponte Vecchio. It’s a return business that beats all others in Florence. Locks of love, or lucchetti dell’amore, are the padlocks fixed by loving couples on to part of the Ponte Vecchio, usually to
The tourists and the Florentines always hope that the New Year will come in with a bang. For 2010 it came in with a wet whimper. The 2010 fireworks were rained out. To celebrate the end of 2009, the new mayor, who made a splash with the grand pedestrian zone around the Duomo (wrecking havoc
SUNDAY (October 25, 2009) Dante was worn out after all of the “A Passo Duomo” celebration around the cathedral. The new mayor of Florence had decreed that the entire piazza surrounding the Duomo would become a pedestrian mall instead of a busy thoroughfare where over 500 buses and thousands of taxis round the Duomo every
Often Florence can bring on an epic case of claustrophobia. When the Renaissance bankers built their McMansions, they did not widen the medieval streets. Although not many buildings in the historic center are much over ninety feet high (note: come visit soon – the Prime Minister is inviting everyone to add a floor or two to