duffys in Italy: Mar 28, 2011

C’è primavera! So I will have to post a few pics of the very beginning of spring here. Sometimes on the weekends, I take long walks east along the Arno River past the end of the paths. The snow melt from the Apennines is occurring and the river is swollen and muddy now. The weekend before last, I noticed a number of fishermen wearing red shirts and spaced evenly apart fishing along the river. I should have gone down and asked if they were a club. There were several people out sculling. At least once every century, there is a massive flood…the last being in 1966 where the water level rose 16 feet over the banks of the Arno and really wiped the city out. It’s very interesting that the two most prominent floods both occurred on Nov. 4^th in the double digit years 1333 and 1966. I finally found the plaque on the corner of via San Remigio and Via de’ Neri that commemorates both floods…it was too high above my head to take a picture.
There’s also a lot more activity on Piazza Santa Croce with marionette shows, fiddlers and drummers on the weekends. Also, posting some more pics from the trip to Venice this past weekend!

Italian flags and laundry!

Band on Piazza Santa Croce

Love this door, even has the lily symbol of Florence

Arno River

Fishermen club on the Arno!

Pazzaglia Sculpture Garden with Italian cypresses

Florence is full of towers but most of them have been
incorporated into buildings. This one is part of a hotel in Oltrarno
(which means "other side of the Arno"). Tower houses "grew up" in Florence
in 1200s and served the dual purpose of home and fortification as there were
frequent rivalries between families ...when necessary the families would close themselves
inside their tower houses which had very tiny entrance doors up high accessible
by ladders they would pull up. Later in the 1400s the towers signified "prestige" so
wealthy families would just build them on alongside their palazzos. When a family fell into
disgrace, the top of the tower would be "lopped off," a sort-of tower castration!
By decree, they could not be higher than the Bargello (current day national sculpture museum
that used to be the police headquarters and prison)