Trips

    Marge and I left the tour guide at the Uffizi Museum and walked up to the Duomo Museum.  It had been closed for restoration when we were in Florence last year.  The museum houses many of the statues, carvings, and reliefs from the façade of the cathedral and bell tower.  I especially liked the Life works from the bell tower (Pisano, mostly), the Baptistery doors (Ghiberti), and the Cantoria reliefs of Luca della Robbia and Donatello.

	Ghiberti - Gates of Paradise - East doors of the Baptistry
Ghiberti - North doors of the Baptistry	Donatello - Saint Mary Magdalene as penitent (wood carving)
Donatello - Saint Mary Magdalene as penitent	Michelangelo's - Deposition - sometimes referred to as The Most Personal Pieta
Life works (copies) on the bell tower
Luca della Robbia - Cantoria	Luca della Robbia - Cantoria
Luca della Robbia - Cantoria	Donatello - Cantoria
	Eventually, we made our way outside on the upper level of the Museum from where we were able to get a close-up view of the Duomo's dome and were able to see the crack in the supporting wall.
Crack in the wall of the dome	Crack in the wall of the dome
The Bell Tower	Interior of the Baptistry
After our Duomo Museum tour, we were hungry so we found a place to buy a slice of pizza and a beer on our way to meet our group in the square in front of Santa Croce Church.  We got there in time to eat a gelato.       We finally arrived at our Chianti countryside hotel, the Villa Sabolini where the doorway was "guarded" by Nando, a very large, lazy St. Bernard. Dinner was provided at our hotel - it was another two-hour affair.
Nando	Nando

 

Tues., 10/4/16 – Chianti Countryside

            This morning we drove through the countryside on winding roads over hill and dale.  The grapes have been harvested and the vines are left to wither, the fields have been plowed in deep furrows, but the patchwork of the landscape and the towns built on the tops of the hills make for interesting scenery.
            We stopped to visit the chapel of Montesiepi in San Galgano.  St. Galgano was a knight who had a vision of the Archangel Gabriel in 1180 and gave up war for the peace of the religious.  He supposedly thrust his sword into a rock and the hilt now symbolizes a cross.  The “sword in the stone” lies under glass in the center of the round chapel.  In a side chapel is a relic of the hands of the man who supposedly removed the sword to steal it.  He was “put upon” by wolves that ate all of him but his hands, so don’t try to remove the sword!

Spider webs - the field was full of them	Montesiepi Chapel
Montesiepi Chapel - Sword in the stone	Montesiepi Chapel
We walked down the hill to the remaining walls of a 1200’s abbey – San Galgano Abbe, established by a group of Cistercian (French) Benedictine monks. The abbey was only used for 100 years because the Black Plague wiped out the community.  The ruins are impressive and very picturesque against the day’s bright blue sky.             In the original scriptorium of the monetary was an exhibit of interesting chicken wire sculptures.  They were very cleverly done.	San Galgano Abbey
San Galgano Abbey	San Galgano Abbey - Art Show
San Galgano Abbey	Clever alteration
San Galgano Abbey	We had lunch in a small cafe in Chiusdino after walking up the stone horse ramps to the Church of San Michele Archangelo.  The lunch included about the first salad we have been served, then wonderful fried vegetables (lighter than tempura – potato, onion, eggplant, and zucchini), spinach and ricotta balls (called malfacto, or “poorly made,” like the insides of ravioli), with custard like mascarpone for dessert.
Chiusdino - Street scene	Church of San Michele Arcangelo
Street scene	Church of San Michele Arcangelo
Street scene	Malfacto cooking
Gas station	The bus drove us most of the way back to our villa but we got off and walked about two-miles on the Via Francigena, the pilgrimage route from France to Rome.  The path is gravel and wide enough for a cart or small car and there are ruins of chapels along the way.
Walking a small section of the Via Francigena	Walking a small section of the Via Francigena - trail marker
Walking a small section of the Via Francigena - the trail	Town of Villa Sabolini
Villa Sabolini	We were back at the hotel by 4:30.  Dinner was at our villa.  Both lunch and dinner were vegetarian today – unusual for OAT, although Tommaso is a vegetarian and he may have selected the menus.

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