Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Florence - people

We were walking on a crowded street towards Palazzo Pitti when we held a faint voice singing. We looked around and, at first, couldn’t see who it was. Turing around a corner, we realized it was a young woman singing in front of the palace, some 50 meters away. It was an open square, and she was not evening facing us. An amazingly powerful voice. We figured she could have been a student at some music school.


These people were making a copy of Caravaggio’s “Doubting Thomas” (or Saint Thomas Putting his finger on Christ’s Wound), using colored chalk, on the street near Palazzo Vecchio. The the colors were vivid and the contrast strong. The faces, in particular, were animated and seems to jump out of the picture. These guys are good. Perhaps they are dreaming that one day they can also create something as good as a Caravaggio? I hope they do.


We saw a few Chinese selling grasshoppers made with blades of grass. Those were really well-made; but there did not seem to be a lot of buyers. The Chinese, of course, are everywhere. Operating Chinese restaurants, pizza shops, ... It cannot be a good living making and selling grass grasshoppers. So why are they here, thousands of miles from home, half way around the globe in a foreign land, selling grasshoppers on the street? Probably this is not what they came here for. I hope one day they do find what it is that they are looking for.


This horse was having a snack from a sack. The gadget was quite clever, and tidy. Don’t know whether the horse actually likes it or not. But the setting sun did cast nice shadows.


This is part of the more shady side of Florence. They were, of course, not really nuns. But beggars. They were not too pushy, perhaps because of the heavy presence of the police. But it was still annoying. And a bit sacrilegious.


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