Steven walking across the piazza in front of Santa Maria Novella
The view of the Duomo from our desk, I can't crop or
adjust it -- sorry.
My friend, the beautiful artist Tamara van der Berg
pencil sketch
Barbara Muir Florence 2009
the bells start right outside our window at about 8:30 and seem
to ring every 15 minutes. The sound is just magical. But at
night after we eat supper at some cozy little Trattoria we are
greatly tempted to walk around. The place is beautiful, and
decorated more and more each day for Christmas -- not in some
gaudy way, but extremely tastefully, and then of course the
place is mostly elegant and tasteful.
The fashion this year would surprise my friends in Toronto.
The must-have coat is very, very shiny, plastic coated nylon,
poufy down, quilted. Knee length for women, and waist length
for men. Even little children wear this. The slightly more
elegant people wear the same outfit in either white not shiny,
or brown or dark beige not shiny. So down is very in. On a
cold, rainy day you completely understand the whole thing.
Tell my friend Marcia that the hot water, very modern
radiators in our apartment make it quite warm, and we
heat our towels and even our clothes up on those. It's
lovely. Sensibly, just like in Toronto we turn the heat up
when we're home, and way down when we're out.
Now it's time to head down to the end of our street to y
a delicious cheese and prosciutto panini (caldo)
heated up, and catch a little bus to the Santa Maria Novella
cathedral to see the Masaccios, then head to the Fortezza
da Basso to sit the show and be entertained by my very
funny friends. Miss you all.
Have an enjoying-the-best-of-where-you-are day.
