Rainy pretty much all day Tuesday so it was a good day for us to stay in and work on projects. Sue is working on a new teddy bear design using fur cut into strips like a candy cane and promises to be really cute. In the meantime I’m working on my before and after photos for Aimone at the Cantina in Piazza as well as trying continuing the steep climb up the Final Cut Express learning curve. (FCE is a digital video editing software program from Apple.)
We had a break from rain on Monday and thought it was a good time to head back to Florence to pick up the additional documentation necessary for Sue’s visa application. Shortly after we returned from the US last week we contacted the school and explained our recent ordeal with the clerk at the Italian consulate in Boston. The response and probably an accurate one was “he doesn’t sound like he was a very happy man.” Yep just what we needed: An unhappy bureaucrat holding our lives in his clammy, cold, dirty little hands (sorry for the slip into Dickens but it just seemed so relevant here).
Anyway we took the bus to Florence, arriving a little after 10 and then went to school to meet with Valentina who provided Sue with the necessary (!) documentation for our December appointment at the consulate in Boston.
Since it was such a nice day we strolled around the city’s historical center. One of the places we wanted to visit was the Central Market (“Mercato centrale”) located not far from our apartment and we were pleasantly surprised by what we found. It will definitely be the place where we will buy our fresh foods: meats, grains, spices, vegetables and fruits from all over the world. The first floor is mainly fresh meat and fish and lots of fried fruits with the fresh produce on the second floor.
We then strolled over to the Arno and couldn’t help but notice all the holiday lights strung across the streets. In fact all along the Via dei Calzauoli between the Duomo and the Piazza Signoria the lights are hung rather like draperies. Beautiful – and they were all on too even though it was daylight. And down the side streets lights were hung like falling waters twinkling. Pretty cool. (By the way Siena too has recently strung lights through much of the historic center but they have as yet to be turned on at night.)
We started to cross the Arno on the Ponte Vecchio but about midway across the bridge we came upon the statue of Cellini. The small wrought iron fence surround the statue was covered in locks with names and dates on them. This seemed to be a favorite spot with the tourists and many were having their photos taken with the statue and locks around it. I thought maybe it had something to do with political prisoners somewhere. Sue seemed to think it looked a bit too much like the notes and gum all over the doors at “Juliet’s house” in Verona.
Sure enough we found out later that lovers are leaving these locks as tokens of their “eternal love” but the city of Florence has a somewhat different view of what exactly constitutes eternity and frequently orders the locks cut off. But they keep reappearing and so now the city is reportedly considering putting signs up (as many as 4 mind you) prohibiting the placing of locks. That should really deter love I’m sure.
What would Dante think?
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