Pistoia and Prato

This might be the shortest and least informative posting ever. Sarah and I took the regional train one Sunday to Pistoia and then came back towards Florence, stopping in Prato along the way.


This picture has nothing to do with that trip. I think this was the night before. We went out to dinner for our friend Paola's birthday. Here is a picture of the four roommates, or coinquiline, as the Italians say. That's Kellin sitting on me (as is her wont -- just kidding, I assure you that this is not a common occurrence), Mr. Christopher Edward Tangeman, Sarah, and Sarah.


This is Pistoia. Or at least its cathedral and bell tower. Pistoia is a town about 20 miles northwest of Florence. It is most famous to me as the home of Scott Palmer (serials librarian at I Tatti), his wife Monica Steletti (fellow library assistant at I Tatti), and their kids Isabella and Samuele.


Pistoia's Duomo, the Cathedral of San Zeno, features some of the work of one of those darn della Robbia brothers.


We explored the Palazzo del comune, which has a small art collection.


Unrelated. I just like the tower.


A fly painted on the 8 lb. 4 oz. Baby Jesus.


This is part of the exterior of the Ospedale del Ceppo, a medieval hospital.


A street. I love medieval streets.


This is the Chiesa di San Bartolomeo in Pantano. I have no memory of this place.


Our last stop in Pistoia was the Pieve di Sant'Andrea with the Pulpit of St. Andrew by Giovanni Pisano. He also created amazing pulpits in Pisa and Siena.

We then took the train back towards Florence, stopping in Prato. Prato is right in between Pistoia and Florence and is the second largest city in Tuscany with around 187,000 people. Also, since the late 1980's it has had a large Chinese immigrant population. This is the second largest Chinese population in Italy. Legally there are over 9,000 Chinese citizens but it is estimated that there are almost 45,000 Chinese immigrants in Prato. That neighborhood is where we headed in search of a more authentic Chinese meal than is available in Florence. What we had was good, but I think it was similar to most restaurants in the States. For some reason I have no pictures from our exploits in Prato. I think we went to a church.

There you have it. We then hopped back on the regional train to Florence. I think it was a very laid back trip and a lot of things were closed because it was a Sunday. The end.

Lucca - part 3

The last thing Sarah and I did in Lucca was make our way over to the Torre Guinigi. This was such a beautiful town and such a beautiful day that there were bound to be some fantastic views.


Just like Florence, Bologna, San Gimignano, and about every other Italian city I've been to, Lucca used to have quite a few towers similar to this one. Not many survived the middle ages and the Renaissance, but there are still a few great ones out there. This one even had trees growing at the top!


You always have to pay a price to get to the spectacular views. Both money and a long climb. I don't think this one was too expensive.


However, as this sign shows, the way was fraught with danger.


But Sarah was there to lead the way.


We made it safely. And with smiles on.


We joined the trees and a few Italian teenagers at the top and took in the lovely views. I don't have much to say about them. Well, nothing really. So I'll let the pictures do the talking.




















The end.

Lucca - part 2

Lucca was originally another Etruscan town, but unlike most others that I have visited, it was not built on a hill-top. Supposedly there is evidence somewhere that an earlier people, the Ligures, also had a settlement here. They were the people who gave their name to the Ligurian Sea and the Region of Liguria (of which Genoa is the capital). Anyway, it was eventually taken by the Romans.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Lucca was a fairly important town, being attacked by Odoacer (the first Germanic king of Italy in 476) and later by the Eastern Roman Empire. The Lombards made it the seat of one of their dukes, and by the 11th century it had become the feudal capital of the margravate of Tuscany. Lucca eventually became an independent commune, having acquired a charter in 1160, and were an independent republic for almost 500 years. In fact, when the Medici family became the Grand Dukes of Tuscany in the 16th century, Lucca was the only independent part of Tuscany.
Well, there's a lot more but I'm tired of writing about it. Lucca was eventually taken by Napoleon, the Bourbon family, Tuscany again, then finally became part of the new Italian State in 1847.


The Duomo di San Martino, aka the Cathedral of St. Martin, which was begun in 1063.


Hmmm. I forget what this church is.


Here is the Church of San Michele in Foro. It was built over the forum of the old Roman town. The facade was built in the 13th century.


San Michele in Foro was rebuilt in 1070 by Pope Alexander II, but there was much older church on this site. All of the columns are different.


The Basilica of San Frediano is named for Fredianus, an Irish Bishop of Lucca from the 6th century. The mosaic of The Ascension of Christ the Saviour is from the 13th century.


There were a lot of people out on this Sunday. This is something that I've noticed a lot in Italian towns. People are outside a lot. Whether it's the evening passagiata (where people stroll aound the streets and piazzas to see others and be seen) or families out on a weekend afternoon, Italian people spend a lot of time outside. It's nice. Although the passagiata can be kind of annoying when you're trying to get somewhere quickly and there are thousands of people clogging the narrow streets and walking very slowly.


I thought that some of the first areas we walked through in Lucca were pretty plain and boring, but later we walked through some very pretty piazzas.


Sarah hangs out with her friend Giacomo Puccini.


The Piazza Anfiteatro was built around the old Roman amphitheater.

The last thing we did in town was climb up one of the Torre Guinigi. It is a medieval tower that survived the Renaissance and even has trees growing on the top of it. It gave us some spectacular views which will be in the final Lucca posting.

Lucca - part 1

Either the weekend before or the one after (being so far behind with these postings, I can't remember) we went to Fiesole, we headed west to the city of Lucca. I'll talk more about Lucca's history in the next post. Anyway, it's about 50 miles west of Florence, and is on the same train line we used to take to get to the beaches at Viareggio. It is also about 10 miles northeast of Pisa.


Lucca is also in the region of Tuscany, and is the capitol of the Province of Lucca. It is most famous these days for its very intact Renaissance-era city walls. Above you can see the section of the walls that we entered after arriving at the train station.


A view to the right of the massive moat. No attacking army would ever pass this mighty barrier. Actually, the moat is so small that I assume that it was only there to trip up any siege machines.


We were really fortunate in our timing. I think the city is pretty, but not spectacular (compared to some other towns we've seen in Italy). The walls, trees, and the surrounding scenery are what make Lucca so beautiful. But since we went in the Fall, the colors were fantastic. Above is one of the town's towers seen through the trees.


The defenders would have had plenty of open land in front of them when shooting at attacking forces. This shot from the wall shows some of the changing leaves and the mountains. In the third posting you will see better shots of the surrounding views.


More walls and tiny moats.


There were trees growing along the entire length of the walls.


The walls are really wide and there are quite a few parks on top of them at some of the larger areas, like the one above. In fact...


There is even a road that runs along the top of the entire ring of wall. There were so many people out playing in the parks, excercising, walking, and riding bikes-which is what we came to do. It's great. The former city defenses have become a huge city park. The police even drove their cars around up there. If you ever stop by Tuscany in the Fall, I highly recommend going and renting bikes for an hour or two.


Sarah tests some anti-siege weaponry atop the battlements.


Then flees the scene, expertly navigating back towards the path. I wonder what the Renaissance engineers would have thought about the current usage of their defenses. I love it. I think all cities should build huge defenses around them, wait 600 years, then turn them into parks. Brilliant!

Fiesole - part 2

After seeing some of the things that Fiesole had to offer we headed over to see the views towards the south.


This first picture is actually from the town's main piazza. You can see the Florence Cathedral between the trees.


To get to a spot with an even better view you have to climb up even higher. The road was quite steep.


Here is a view towards the southeast. In the foreground you can see some olive trees and some weird modern sculpture.


This is more to the south. You can see a lot of the hillside that leads down to Florence.


This view of the southwest includes the historic area of Florence, the Duomo, and the road that leads up to Fiesole.


I guess this shot is more towards west-southwest, out towards Sesto Fiorentino then Prato. But those are too far to see.


Here is a bit of a close-up on Florence.


And a bit closer of a close-up. Brunelleschi's dome on top of the cathedral is on the left. San Lorenzo is the other dome just to the right of it. You can also kind of see the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio to the left of it.


In the middle of this picture is the stadium of ACF Fiorentina, called the Stadio Artemio Franchi. Sarah and I went with Steph (and half of the Syracuse students) to watch Fiorentina beat Roma 4-1. Sorry Steph.


We photojournalists must occasionally take up precarious positions in the service of our craft.


If you blow up this picture, already zoomed in quite far and looking towards the east, you still can't see I Tatti. The villa is kind of tucked into a valley that keeps it just out of view from Florence and Fiesole. But I think that one of the construction cranes in the picture (possibly the one on the right) might be the one that hovers above me every day at work as it is being used to build a new building on site. Getting permission to build a new building in Florence is almost impossible.


That's us.


Then we had to start the descent, which was much nicer than the ascent.