Rome the first

So, reasons I didn't want to go out:

My room is great and the bathroom is adorable. Rainbow adorable.

Welcoming fruit platter. Although I have to concede that welcoming half-pineapple is a tad awkward.

Welcoming cappuccino with wee chocolate, that I ate before realising the photo was blurry. Sorry.

Reasons I'm glad I went out:

See that?

See that?

See that? There's a street in Rome that commemorates my birth! Eat it, everyone else except Justin. Especially Dean.

Whoa mama. If Rome ever gets tired of being The Eternal City (and wouldn't that be ironic) it could easily be "The City With More Everything Than Anywhere". This is Il Vittoriano, the monument to Vittore Emanuele II, the first king of the unified Italy.

Heh. It's like they took their spelling of Rabbitohs from listening to Russell Crowe slur drunkenly.

When in doubt, head to the water. Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, bridge of overblown magnificence.

I had a moment of face-slappingness when I realised that the Tiber and the Tevere are the same river - the former is just the anglicised name. We shall never refer to those many minutes I spent poring over the map and wondering where the hell the Tiber had got to.

Time for the cross solo!

Tiny tree-horses.

Some nice Gothicism across the river in the form of Chiesa del Sacro Cuore del Suffragio. Sounds cheerful!

A new building in Rome? That dog won't hunt, monseigneur. It is sheltering something rather ancient-looking though.

There was some little Spanish Steps. Also, I struck crowds in a big way. Boo!

Mary howling at the moon.

I think this is Castor and Pollux, being mighty posers. Also I was staring into the sun at the time and didn't realise I snipped off the top of the obelisk. Bung.

Fountains? One! Two! Three! Four! Each on a corner of the same intersection.

Florence the fifteenth

I was out before 7 o'clock this morning, and achieved my objective.

That was, to photograph Ghiberti's golden baptistery gates without some goon posed in front of them as if they were the one who made them. Of course, they're not as entrancing here as in person, and the top layer of fence isn't there during business hours so they're a little more obscured than they'd otherwise have been, but still. 100% moron free!

The original gates are actually tucked in a museum somewhere and these are copies, but that doesn't make them any less amazing - it's all about context.

And some bonus sunrise action from the Ponte Vecchio.

And now I'm in Rome and ensconced in a hotel room that I don't want to leave, for reasons that I shall elaborate on later.

Florence the fourteenth

I gave in to fatheadedness and decided to walk to San Miniato al Monte (al Monte being 'the mountain') on a day forecast to be 28 degrees.

Son of a... Look it's even killing that woman, and she lives on this street. The route I took led me uphill, then to my extreme shock and disgust downhill, negating all prior effort and leading to even more intense uphill.

At least I got to see Galileo's house on the way up. "Spare him his life from this monstrosity" was evidently a reference to this hill.

Porta San Giorgio, oldest in the city and gateway to scenic bins.

A fleeting glimpse of my destination. And miles to go before I pee. It actually wasn't that long a walk, I just like to whinge.

Finally. Arrival and resultant panorama. Mmm, panoramy.

Part of the cemetery that surrounds the cathedral. The whole place, inside and out, was giving me Sound of Music vibes. However, still no word on how to solve a problem like Maria.

The cathedral itself. San Miniato, after whom it is named, was beheaded in Florence, then picked up his own head and walked up the hill with it. So I guess I shouldn't complain.

Inside the cathedral. I liked it. It was relatively rustic, with exposed beams (albeit lavishly decorated ones), exposed stone walls in places, and even a couple of saints shown as preliminary sketches that the artist had never got around to painting. Not shown: ahhhhh coolness. Although to be honest I doubt it got up to 28 degrees. I don't know. As an Aucklander I find it hard to judge humidity-free heat.

The Fakelangelo in Piazzale Michelangelo, famous viewing point, carpark and location of many souvenir stands run by people who assume a poor-quality print of an ugly Che Guevara poster is exactly what I came to Florence to buy.

This! I was so stunned and excited that my oesophagus exploded.

Now I'm all homesick, but for 1997.

I bought a magnet this afternoon, so officially I'm done with Florence. Although I do want to head out early-early tomorrow to get a certain photo hopefully free from flocks of morons.

Florence the thirteenth - Arezzo

For some reason I thought Arezzo would be kind of a big deal, but the parts I nosed around in were very low-key and peaceful. Up in the historic centre I only saw one tour group and very few other people. Maybe tourists are put off by warnings like the one in my guidebook that alerts people to the steepness of the streets (although it also mentions the need for sturdy shoes, leading me to believe all its advice is aimed at elderly Britons), and residents prefer to stay on the lower slopes where the bulk of the shops are. Or maybe I just came on a slow morning. Whatever, it was still very much worth the visit.

Something makes me think I'm in Arezzo. This is in stark contrast to Lucca, where there were no signs on the platform at all and I just had to hope really hard that I was getting off at the right place.

Arezzo's town square, Piazza Grande, is my favourite so far. That's probably due in large part to the lack of people, but it's large and clean and because of the slope it doesn't feel like buildings are bearing down on you from all sides.

Other side of the piazza. That roundy building is actually the back of Santa Maria della Pieve, but it's so much nicer like this than if the church had fronted the square.

Fountain next to the church.

Arezzo is pretty steep, but small enough that you get to the top before the climbing gets annoying. And if you do get tired you can stop to take a breather under the guise of pretending to check your text messages, a trick that's been used by locals for centuries.

Cute little mosaic over the doorway of Sant'Agnese.

Little gated garden memorial thingy.

Apparently no Samoans live on this street.

At the top of the hill is a large shady park, and in the park is a Medici fortress. It's all closed up, but it looks like inside you're only allowed to wear oven mitts and line dance and...barbecue tongs?

View from the top near the fortress. Spot the enemies.

The back of Arezzo Cathedral. The whole facade is pretty austere compared to most other cathedrals I've seen. Apparently it was never really finished and they were still slapping parts on as late as 1914.

That lion looks quite pleased with himself - I think he just had a breakfast of delicious hand.

Most people go cow-tipping. Angels are more hardcore - they go knight-tipping. And just so they have a place to sit.

And I'll leave you with this guy, who is enjoying his mortal peril a little too much.

Florence the twelfth

It was map-in-hand day today, making me one of the footpath-clogging jerks I despise, but I was on the lookout for hidden gems and things I wanted to see again.

Palazzo Vecchio. It's Florence's town hall. It differs from Auckland's town hall in that Marilyn Manson has never performed there.

Neptune, mightiest of fountains, outside the Palazzo Vecchio in Piazza della Signoria.

Then, turn around, and I'm apparently back in the eighties, when expos were all the rage. I was particularly on the lookout for a fibreglass kiwifruit train, but alas.

Apparently it's just the Festival of Europe. You must obey the flags! Yay Europe. Boo everywhere else. It's an exciting time where they do thrilling things like block off most of Piazza della Signoria and put up a big screen showing replays of European Council meetings.

This couple was having some kind of passive-agressive argument (as are at least half of the vacationing couples who have crossed my path thus far). I was all "Dude, you're in God's front yard." This is Orsanmichele, or as I like to call it, Awesomemichele.

All the way around Awesomemichele are niches filled with saints that represent the different Florentine guilds that commissioned them. This one is the guild of apothecaries, which seems a poor choice - shouldn't drugs not be within reach of small children? 

There's actually an artwork in here, a big pre-Renaissance altarpiece or something. You can see the halos at the top. Heh, Mary is built like a house.

Piazza della Repubblica. I was reading that they built this when Florence became the capital, and planned to follow it with many more instances of busting stuff down and making Florence a city of wide boulevards and triumphal arches (like Paris, I suppose), but the busybody English expats busied their bodies usefully and ran a successful campaign to drop that nonsense. Then the capital moved to Rome. So the moral of the story is "well, crap".

Hey, a cinema! I should go and see Thor, because honestly, my enjoyment of that movie is not going to be based on being able to understand it.