Italy

I hadn't really realised how tiring constant travel can be until I arrived at Bologna. I found myself searching through tripadvisor looking for places to go and things to see, and apart from a few churches and half empty museums there was nothing. My host Matteo who took off to see his girlfriend in Switzerland the day after I arrived told me that I had to walk into the centre of Bologna from the apartment, because it wasn't far. So I did. By the time I had walked around the centre it was a six or seven km walk, and I had seen pretty much everything that Bologna had to offer. It is not a pretty place. The old town is quite dark and medieval and looking in need of a bit of renovation. I think they do one every couple of hundred years, so it is due. It's main claim to fame, apart from the sausage, is that the first University was established here in 1080 AD. There is a museum in the square where you can go in and look at the lecture room where for hundreds of years they did the dissections of dead bodies on a table in the centre of the room , so that potential doctors could see what was going on inside a person. It is also a fact that Mozart, at the age of 14, spent a few months here and gained his masters degree in Music. The University is still going strong. Another claim to fame is that the whole city is connected by about 40km of portico'd walkways. A law was passed in 1280 that new buildings had to include a portico, and that it had to be tall enough so that a person riding a horse could easily pass under it. I suppose that the areas between the walkways in those days were possibly open sewers. Anyway it makes getting around the city easy, and I have enjoyed their shelter during a couple of heavy thunderstorms. The other main attraction is two brick towers, built in the 1300's. The tallest one is 100mtr high and has another one of those 500 step internal staircases to climb up and take photos from a platform at the top. The one next to it had to be shortened a fair bit soon after it was built, because it developed a serious lean to one side. It has more of an angle than the Tower of Pisa, but is still standing. In the 1400's it is estimated that Bologna was a medieval New York, with up to 180 brick skyscrapers, and there are still a couple of dozen left scattered around town. I did find a special little church on my travels, one that was founded in 1280 to offer shelter and a hospital to pilgrims, It is on one of the busiest streets of central Bologna, and as you walk through the doors it offers a beautiful little sanctuary from the hustle and bustle outside. What really makes the church special though is that around a corner from the altar is a group of figures which have been called one of the masterpieces of Italian sculpture. The figures that make up the group known as the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, are life size figures that were cast in clay (terracotta) by Niccolo del'Arca in the second half of the 15th century. They are absolutely stunning in their portrayal of raw emotion, and seeing them was the highlight of my visit to Bologna. Tonight will be my fifth night in Bologna and tomorrow is going to be one of those days where I am up at 5.15am to catch a bus, then two trains, then a plane, then another train, then a 1km walk to get to my next place in Athens. For at least half my time in Bologna I have had nothing to do but catch up on my washing, make cups of tea or coffee, and pop across the road to buy lunch or dinner at a couple of really good food shops. I'm talking takeaway cooked chicken, fish, or mince lasagne with good helpings of vegetables in sauce for an average of 6 to 8 euros a meal. My other staple is very drinkable Carrafour red wine in a ltr box for 1.37 euro. I needed time to catch my breath and boring old Bologna has given me that...

from where I'm staying 2km of portico into town

never need an umbrella

part of 40km of porticos in Bologna

porticos in town

That's a tall one from the 1400's

some upkeep needed in places

medieval streets

more

more

more

Medieval building by square

medieval still works

Entry to Piazza Maggiore

basilica of St. Peter

free concerts in front of Basilica steps

Free concerts and movies in the piazza

Town Hall

Dean of Bologna University 1763

Hanging around Neptune's fountain

four nymphs at the base of fountain

Neptune at his best

Bologna's two towers

base of taller Asinelli tower

built in the 13th century

A couple of hundred stalls

something for everyone, but me.

make up a decent market

lots of women buying

very crowded in places

I nearly bought a hat, but I got two already.

My front door

my big bed

my bedroom

my room in Bologna

line on balcony outside kitchen

It's a long way to drop a sock

Second load almost dry

kitchen

Now this is a special bookshop

About five windows to peek through

entrance to the bookshop

It is a University town

the arcade is just full of bookshop

Sanctuary of Santa Maria della vita

I wonder how much they pay them to stand all day.

No, just very lifelike 16th century statues

Inside church

Interior decoration

Emotionally eloquent statue grouping

Saint John and two Marys

Jesus taken down from the cross

Mary Magdelene, and Mary Cleopas

meanwhile just outside door of Church

are ten little pidgeons sitting on a wire..

After my morning trip to Burano I decided to find my way back to St. Mark's Square ( the centre of Venice for a thousand years ) and try and get some decent photos ( the last time I was there it rained heavily). Well guess what, it does that a lot around here. I only just got there and the heavens opened up, which meant that the hundreds of people that are normally on the square, were all squeezed in under the portico's of the buildings surrounding the square. After a beautiful sunny morning this time of year they have afternoon and evening thunderstorms, which can take five minutes or two hours to pass over. The street vendors love it, cos they have boxes of plastic raincoats and umbrellas ready to pull out as soon as the rain starts. There are some stunning buildings on St. Mark's square. The flashiest is the Basilica which was built to house the bones of St Mark, which the Venetians stole from Alexandria in 828 AD. The outside is amazing and the inside is covered from floor to high ceiling in gold paint and mosaic pictures. It is very dark in there and absolutely no photos allowed, but I wasn't as impressed with the inside as I was with the outside. The other stunning building is the Doge's palace, built in the 14th and 15th centuries. These two building plus the belltower with 500 wooden steps you can climb up inside ( If you feel like giving yourself a hernia) to take photos from the top, are the most impressive and iconic sights of Venice and have been so for hundreds of years. The famous Cafe Florian is a crazy place which has a cheesy jazz band playing on the forecourt every evening. Everyone in the square can see and hear them, but if you sit down at a table in front of the cafe and pay ridiculous inflated prices for a drink or a snack you also get charged a fee for the music added to your bill. However there is only one Cafe Florian which has been in St Mark's square for 300 years, and some people have too much money to spend on indulgences.. Since it was my last afternoon in Venice I also decided to head up the Grand Canal on a vaporetto (water bus) and take what photos I could.... So this is really my goodbye Venice blog... Next stop Bologna.

rain cleared the square

it began as a shower

started to get a bit windy and wet

schoolkids were staunch about getting wet

running from the other side to join their friends

once you're wet you're wet

the rain is really heavy

at the height of the thunder & lightening

The bell tower from the Doge's palace

front of basilica

1000 year old bronze horses

front of basilica again

top of basilica

above Basilica

more detail around basilica doors

entry to Doge's palace

doge's palace square view

doge's palace canal view

from the belltower as the sky cleared

the bridge of sighs from palace to prison

Cafe Florian opened 1720

$25 each for cup of tea + $10 each music charge

1497 clock tells time, moon, zodiac...

500 year old bell struck every hour by two figures

leaving St Mark's square

heading up the grand canal

on the grand canal in a gondola

gondolas queueing to enter side canal

heading further up the canal

pulling in to water bus stop

beautiful grand canal hotels

and more

and more

and more

and private residences

originally all palaces

rounding a bend

some showing signs of wear and tear

It's a busy highway

rare to see greenery

on such expensive land

only wooden bridge crossing grand canal

restored palaces used as museums

or hotels

or private homes to the very wealthy

canal lined with homes hundreds of years old

restaurants tend to maintain buildings

come in all shapes and sizes

and colours

like these

and these

up by the Rialto bridge markets

coming up to Rialto bridge

heading under Rialto bridge built 1591

view from wooden bridge on another day

heading down the canal from bridge

view of gondola from bridge

At 9 am on a beautiful morning in Venice I decided to jump on a boat and head out to see the island of Burano. The first stop for the boat was Murano, where the famous Venice glass is made and hordes of tourists go there to watch glass being blown and buy little glass souvenirs from the factory shops. I've seen glass being blown a few times, and I equate it with watching grass grow or paint dry. You only need to see it once in your lifetime, I reckon. The ladies on the island of Burano back in the 1500's started to make lace as a way of earning extra income to supplement the fishing that the men did. There are it seems seven different stitches in lace making and so each woman learned how to do one sort of stitch perfectly and they got together and passed the lace around to make the patterns using the different stitches. It can and used to take weeks of work to make a small intricate piece of lace so it was always sold to the wealthy, or passed down from generation to generation as a family treasure. Nowadays most lace making is done in factories by machine, but Burano uses it's history of making lace to focus on that as a tourist attraction. After ten minutes of walking about the island I was absolutely blown away at how beautiful the streets looked, and round each corner was another one, and another. It is an amazing place and I think it is one of the best sights I have seen on my travels so far. It far surpasses any Disneyland, it is a real place, and people live here and work here and raise kids here. I take my hat off to the person who first thought of the idea to paint each house a different colour. It was pure genius. They have however been dead for several hundred years, and many of the houses have been painted the same colour for centuries ( they are not allowed to paint them in a different colour) It is a small island of about 3000 people which has been inhabited since 600 AD and it only takes an hour or so to walk around and explore it. Forty minutes later and I was back on the mainland having a cuppa and some lunch before heading out to have a look at St Marks square, and ride up the grand canal. I'll save that till tomorrow.

setting off for Burano island

can get a bit crowded out on the water

half way there, lighthouse on Murano

first sighting of land at Burano

a taste of things to come

and more

off the boat to go exploring

fishing and lace making the islands mainstay

one of dozens of small shops

cheapest factory made lace items

lace and more lace

some shops have collections of old lace

starting to get colourful

everywhere you look

the islanders love colour

in the little touches

and the big

with scenes like that

and that

and that

and that

and that

and this

and this

and this too

it's a colourful

extravaganza

which goes

on

and on

and on

and on

and it's almost like being in a dream

nature struggles to compete

but wins a round occasionally

do many people buy takeaway devils?..

one statue is nice but

two statues give double the blessing

little bits of glassware from Murano

I was tempted to buy in this shop

Al gatto nero (the black cat) restaurant

Jamie Oliver's favourite seafood restaurant

Just a short one this time. Arrived in Venice on a hot summers afternoon after a tiring trip from Florence, and fought my way through hordes of day trippers to get on a vaporetta boat to take me to the boat stop that was closest to my accommodation. I'm paying $57 a night, and I am 50 yards from two bed and breakfast places that are charging $179 and $229 for smaller rooms. I am very happy with my room which is really comfortable and spacious, and the kitchen and bathroom are spotless too. Last night after checking out the local small supermarket for bits and pieces I just crashed. Racing around for a couple of weeks took their toll. Woke up this morning to crashing thunder with heavy rain, which lasted for at least three hours. About lunchtime, when the rain stopped, I headed out to find my bearings. I saw a really good pasta shop on Tripadvisor and wrote down the directions to get to it from here. I did the same for a couple more places that I wanted to see, using google maps for directions and in the following three hours I found out why Venice is so easy to get lost in. Firstly the names for the streets on google maps are often different from the names of the streets on the street, so it becomes a guessing game ( is this street really called that, and if I take it will it lead to the place I want ). It makes getting around interesting, especially when some streets have had their name plates torn off. The pasta shop was a no go ( It was closed on Sundays anyway I found out later). The reason I couldn't find it was that one of the streets I needed to go down to get to it was an alleyway with a locked gate at the end of it (obviously only for residents) so google really fucked that one up (sorry mum). Anyway you can see what I passed on the way. Tomorrow I'm off on a three hour walking tour, that is providing I can find the meeting place, but that's ok I've got it sorted on my google maps lol..... PS There's been another three hours of thunderstorms and heavy rain this evening...

3pm Saturday dropped off at my stop in Venice

down this alley, L turn, R turn, about ten times..

crossed a couple of canals too

just dropped the suitcase and put the jug on

my bedroom windows top right.

The Rialto bridge/ having a renovation

a dream gondola $150 an hour

the dream- on the grand canal in a gondola.

the reality

the reality

the reality

someone lives there

sheltering from the showers

another shower

the most beautiful bookshop in the world... not

books and other stuff filling a gondola

outside books as steps

gondola of books

a bit of a shambles

view from top of book steps

all that's missing is Mr. Bean

probably full of treasures for a discerning eye

a sleeping unicorn in Venice

Heads hanging in shops like the french revolution.

dozens of specialist mask shops

a really good one

with some expensive masks

and lovely ornaments

drag queen masks?

Before I show you the results of my addiction, I have a few landscape shots I took from a hill on the other side of the river. It was only a twenty minute bus ride up the hill to the Michaelangelo Piazza where a few hundred tourists were gathered to take photos of Florence's cityscape from on high.

I have in the last two days joined two queues expecting a one or two hour wait. The infamous Ufizi art gallery queue only took me 15 minutes until I was inside ( this was about midday when a lot of tourists were scoffing a pizza or pasta or panini). It was a lovely museum and the main attraction had to be the Botticelli The birth of Venus, painted for the Medici family in the 1480's. It was slightly faded but still stunning as were many other maybe not so famous pieces I saw and took photos of. The two naked females are the same sisters that I saw in a similar painting in the Louvre Paris, and are of Gabrielle d'Estrees and her sister. Gabrielle was the mistress of Henry iv of France, and bore four children to him. When his wife eventually died he promised to marry Gabrielle and gave her his coronation ring as a token engagement ring. A few weeks later before her dreams of marrying Henry became a reality, she died giving birth to a stillborn son. The painting alludes to her being given the engagement ring. I also found a few photos I took in the Museum of modern art in Rome, so I threw them into the pot. The second queue I joined was the one to have a look around the inside of the Duomo Cathedral, and that took me all of ten minutes before I got inside. I knew what to expect so it wasn't too much of a surprise to see such an empty space, especially after seeing the excesses of the interiors of Roman churches. The dome was the main focus of artwork, but you weren't able to get too close, that was reserved for those who paid to climb the hundreds of steps to the top. The Italiaan clock above the entry is the only one in the world still running. It has only one hand and shows a 24 hour liturgical period of time from sunrise to sunset. It was a timetable used until the 18th century. Standing in the empty space, a space that has seen the great men and women and events of European history take place in and around it for the last six hundred years, is a humbling experience. You only have to realise that the building of the cathedral was halted for a couple of years while the Black Death swept through and killed up to 200 million people in the known world in about 1350 to know how old this building is....

Florence from a distant hill

Florence river and bridges from distant hill

The city at your feet

What do you put in Piazza Michaelangelo

Another bloody David statue

Inside the Cathedral looks empty and bare

the apse area under the dome

a glimpse of the dome

a closer look

looking back to the entry

and the 1443 clock that runs on Italian time

the main colour is seen in the mosaic floors

and their intricate patterns

Hercules and the centaur

Rape of the Sabine women

Perseus with blood spurting from medusa's neck..

about six long galleries with rooms off

so young to be a saint

beautiful composition

Botticelli

birth of Venus...behind perspex

clearer and more beautiful

One for the girls

One for the lads

more for the lads

small but perfectly painting

There is a story behind this one.

Michaelangelo's genius

Michaelangelo again

"God I wish they would all go away"

Sweet angel kiss

everybody should go aaaaaahh.

bacchus looks like he's had a few

scary reflected Medusa in Perseus's shield

A hippy christ carrying the cross

as evocative as the Mona Lisa

From the crowd she must be famous

Timeless early roman art

timeless roman bust

he's got a timeless expression

view from top floor of Ufizi

Duomo from top of Ufezi deck

Medici Palace from top of Ufizi deck

Rome modern art Museum

Rome

stunning Rome

another angle Rome

Rome

Rome

Rome

Rome