Panto

So it appears I am not very good at updating.
We went to the Red Riding Hood pantomime with Brenda and Bill (after dinner at Nicolini's - better than the food in Italy!). It was the same gang who did Aladdin and Jack & the Beanstalk which we also saw.
Oh and I went to Auckland and hung out with Ant for a night, hopefully this will become a regular event.
I've done all my Christmas shopping, looking forward to spending lots of time with family.

Random alleyways

All of the places we saw were a lot dirtier than New Zealand but then they have odd things like this which I can only describe as a shrine halfway up a wall in an alleyway.









And this pieta in an even smaller alley in Florence (I did see another pieta in the Santa Maria Novella).

Medusa's looking badarse because that's what Medusa's do

In Piazza della Signoria the defeated Medusa.
Outside Pompeii (in a shop) warrior Medusa.

This is the Santa Croce Basilica in Florence in front of a huge square surrounded by shops.



This is a busker on the steps. Check out her tights, aren't they awesome?

Dayglow Christ

from the markets at Pompeii, balances out the more erotic images I hope.

Random graffiti

Accademia Gallery in Florence

The main attraction was the actual David - a lot bigger than you would expect. Leading up to it is the gallery of Michaelangelo's Prisoners, unfinished sculptures that seem to be emerging from the stone. There was also a whole room full of plaster casts and another room with a lot of Medieval images from churches like this one:
These images are very stylised, overdecorated and often contain gold leaf (like in the halo here).

They were sadly all lumped together squashed into two small rooms on the way out as everyone wanted to really see the Renaissance images that followed this stage of art. There is a certain beauty in them however and an amusement value, faking dripping blood just looks funny.

The David is the real attraction here but there are also two copies of it in outdoor locations in Florence, both of which we visited, one is marble and one is bronze.