Spring has got to be the best time to visit Italy.
The sky is so blue, the countryside is so green, and the produce is so fresh -- it's hard to imagine that Italy could be any better than that.
Walking through the market in Rialto, Cory and I lamented to each other that we didn't have a kitchen. Spring's bounty was just too beautiful to a couple of foodies without a means to cook it all! It's a very strong possibility that a kitchen will be a requirement wherever we stay on our next Italian adventure. I was especially woeful that I wouldn't be able to read any of the cookbooks that could tell us how to take advantage of the harvest -- what a great reason to learn a language!
The markets that Cory and I went to in Florence and Venice really showed me that not only is an appreciation of food totally lost on Americans, we are also woefully lacking an understanding of how that food fits into our culture and the rhythm of our lives. I learned a new word when I was there: gastronomy. This is simply the study of a culture and its food. What have the Italians figured out that we're lacking? It's things like going to the market every day to get the freshest ingredients, it's using foods that are locally available and in season, and it's sitting down to eat a meal in courses, rather than wolfing it down all at once, and really tasting what you're eating. I can understand why Americans don't concentrate on our food -- frankly our food sucks because we haven't figured out what the Italians have and we don't have pictures like the one I'm showing today as everyday experiences in our lives.
I don't think that there is much that our feet didn't walk over on our first day in Florence. After taking in the Cathedral, the markets, trying to get in to see David, eating the best pizza of my life, and taking in a food market that puts every single farmer's market I've ever been in to shame, we decided to go take in the Boboli Gardens in the southern part of the city. It was a scorcher (to this Alaskan, at least!) of a day, so we got off of the unshaded main paths as quickly as possible and tried to get lost in the wooded back paths. Considering we had never been there we found it pretty hard to actually get lost, but we did manage to find ponds with statues of Neptune rising out of them, terraces that offered stunning views of Florence, and a flat flower garden that looked over Tuscany. We rested there for a few minutes, taking in the scene, before heading back to the lawns surrounding Neptune's pond to take a nap under a tree.
It was a good day.
(Check out that bling bling he's got going on! Shiny!!!)
This photo is from our honeymoon. If you'd like large resolution, enlargement-quality copies of any of the files you see from our adventures in Italy, please leave a comment and let me know.
I made a new discovery in Italy: I named my dog after an Italian town and didn't even know it. Name notwithstanding, I fell in love with Siena, a charming Tuscan hill town.
When we heard about it, we decided to take a day trip there from Florence. The bus ride to and fro was breathtaking and incited large amounts of jealousy of the people who actually get to live there. Just picture Cory or I going "Ooh! Ooh! Let's live there!" every time we passed a rustic villa.
Siena, like Florence, is a town where the art is everywhere, but is perhaps hardest to miss in its cathedral. Walking inside make me feel like I was transported to the middle of an Escher picture (you know that one with the birds in the four corners and the night sky? Another World? Yeah, that one). The interior was dark and incredibly gothic, but felt like it was on such a massive scale that it was easy to miss the huge array of works by the greats because your head was at a permanent 60 degree angle.
I was fascinated by the pillars used in the construction. In this day, the striped marble just seemed so frivolous for a religion as severe as medieval Catholicism. Incongruous? Certainly. Photogenic? Absolutely!
This photo is from our honeymoon. If you'd like large resolution, enlargement-quality copies of any of the files you see from our adventures in Italy, please leave a comment and let me know.
I may have admitted earlier to having a slight gondolier obsession. I may have also owned up to standing in one place and shooting hundreds of pictures of them at a time. But never let them say that it was not a fruitful indulgence!
At one point I switched from wide-angle to high-power telephoto so I could snap close-up pictures of the things that were passing under us. I got lucky enough to catch the photo of possibly the most intense-looking Italian I saw in my time there. I think that the reason that I like this photo so much is because not only is he a gondolier, but he also reminds me so much of Cory -- if you see him sticking his tongue out like that, you know he's concentrating on something. And for someone who likes gondoliers as much as I do, what could be better than one who reminds you of your husband?
This photo is from our honeymoon. If you'd like large resolution, enlargement-quality copies of any of the files you see from our adventures in Italy, please leave a comment and let me know.
Disappointed because we missed the fish market on the day that we arrived in Venice, Cory and I returned to Fishmonger Central early the next morning. First I was struck by the sheer amount of superfresh seafood and produce available, but as we began to wander deeper into the market I realized that these guys were really in competition with each other -- the presentation of their wares was amazing, and they got even more competitive (and the displays even more impressive) the further we went.
These little guys caught my eye because it's so rare to see shrimp sold whole in the States. Then again, when you order a frutti de mare pizza in the States (ha!) the shrimp will at least be de-headed and de-exoskeletoned. I never did figure out the right way to eat that, short of peeling the shrimp off the pizza, rendering them edible, and popping them in my mouth. I think I would have preferred if the pizza chef had skipped the shrimp and replaced them with an equal part of those delicious silver dollar-sized octopi that were scattered about its surface. Even so, the sad thing is that the weird-shrimp-pizza was miles better than any pizza I have ever had in the States -- and yes, that includes Moose's Tooth.
But I digress. Here are the promised shrimp!
This photo is from our honeymoon. If you'd like large resolution, enlargement-quality copies of any of the files you see from our adventures in Italy, please leave a comment and let me know.
The day that Cory and I arrived in Venice we made our way to Rialto and the Grand Canal. We were saddened to find the fish market closed (stay tuned for that spectacle!) and the would-be picturesque views destroyed by the angle of the sun. We vowed to come back the next morning.
Come back we did! I played European, completely disregarding anyone else's idea of a personal bubble, and shot off about, oh, two or three hundred shots of the Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge. After I tired of that scene, we went to side of the bridge that faced the other side of the Canal and watched gondolas and water ambulances glide and blaze by (respectively, of course) and while we were taking in the scenery I noticed that there had been some beautiful fiddle music being played all the while.
Not knowing when to leave well enough alone -- and having learned already that day that Venetians are outwardly very tolerant, if not supportive of tourists -- I snapped a couple of pictures and tossed a few Euros in his case. I had initially thought the light and the overal subject were what made the composition interesting, but looking at this photo, I realize that it is his contentment, his happiness in just being where is is, doing what he's doing. I think we all seek that measure of happiness that this man has nailed down on a bridge in Venice.
This photo is from our honeymoon. If you'd like large resolution, enlargement-quality copies of any of the files you see from our adventures in Italy, please leave a comment and let me know.
Don't believe what they tell you about Paris. It's Florence that is the most romantic city ever. Cory keeps trying to tell me that it's just because we spent our honeymoon there, but really, it is wonderful and charming and cozy and intimate and perfect for young'ns in love.
Upon rising on our first day in the city, we had breakfast in our hotel which consisted of cappuccinos and homemade yeast rolls (light and perfect and melt-in-your-mouth delicious), local sourdough rolls, and multigrain rolls - a light yet amazingly satisfying breakfast.
After our meal we set out for the nearby cathedral. When we left our hotel I asked Cory where it was and he simply pointed to the right and there it was - glimpsed from between the charming buildings lining the street, the dome of San Giovanni dominated the sky.
We struck out to go see it. We found out we could climb to the top of the rotunda, which seemed like a good idea to the newlyweds who had oh-so-recently consumed what was perhaps too much wine, lamb, and wedding cake. The climb to the top was a good one, but it's a good thing Cory is more graceful than me - he could have given himself a concussion on those low ceilings. Call it the old-world charm. Adding to that charm were the windows cut into the stone. You could look out of them and get amazing views of the city and the surrounding countryside.
So, naturally, I pulled out my camera, poked it out a particularly appetizing window, and shot off a few. Naturally.
You see those villas in the countryside? I want one!
This photo is from our honeymoon. If you'd like large resolution, enlargement-quality copies of any of the files you see from our adventures in Italy, please leave a comment and let me know.
I'll admit: I'm fascinated by gondoliers. Especially when they wear boating hats with a ribbon tied around them that matches the stripes on their shirts. Of all the pictures I took in Italy, gondoliers are probably the subject of an embarrassingly high percentage of them.
They weren't easy to get good shots of though. The water traffic is so heavy that timing is essential: hesitate half a second and the lazy whimsical shot you were trying to get will get ruined by a water taxi, or perhaps even a water ambulance. After many, many attempts, I finally achieved this shot: two gondolas, traveling in opposite directions in the Grand Canal, crossing under the Rialto bridge. I love the symmetry and the shadows in this picture, and hey, the gondoliers aren't too shabby either!
This shot is also proof positive that I married well: without seeing the entirety of the images of the memory cards I took to Italy this may not be apparent, but if you were to see the whole collection you'd realize that Cory has infinite patience with letting me stand in once place for what must seem like an interminably long time, all the while shooting enough photos to convince him that he must have married Japanese.
This photo is from our honeymoon. If you'd like large resolution, enlargement-quality copies of any of the files you see from our adventures in Italy, please leave a comment and let me know.
Venice is an exceptionally charming city, especially when you get away from the Grand Canal get lost in the quieter parts of the city. Gondolas manage to find their way back there too, and even though Cory and I didn't get to do a gondola ride on this trip (just one of many reasons to go back!) this is the way we'd like to do it someday.
This photo is from our honeymoon. If you'd like large resolution, enlargement-quality copies of any of the files you see from our adventures in Italy, please leave a comment and let me know.
View the remainder of "Gondola riding a sunbeam"
