tuscany # 45 ~ a picture window

Window in the summer villa of Pope Pius II ~ Pienza, Tuscany • click to embiggen

tuscany # 44 ~ in the Tuscan hills

A view of Arezzo from the road just below our cottage ~ Tuscany • click to embiggenThe wife takes a stroll while I take some pictures.

(firenze) tuscany # 43 ~ WARNING

Window shopping ~ Firenze, Tuscany • click to embiggenAs the Curtis Mayfield gospel song, People Get Ready, goes:

People get ready
There's a train a comin'
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board ...

...There ain't no room for the hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all mankind just to save his own
Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner
For there's no hiding place against the Kingdom's throne

It's a song about the chance for redemption and I bring it up as introduction to what will mostly be an edict from the Kingdom's throne that touches upon an issue that is near and dear to my Landscapist heart. From a NY Times article:

Concerned that girls and women feel excessive pressure to live up to the digitally Botoxed and liposuctioned images of human perfection they see in glossy magazines, lawmakers in Britain and France are trying to push advertisers to get real.

Under their proposals, ads containing altered photos of models would be required to carry disclaimers.

In France last week, Valerie Boyer, a lawmaker from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party, introduced a similar bill in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament.

She argued that altered images were undermining young women’s ability to control their own destinies. “These photos can lead people to believe in realities that, very often, do not exist”...

In her quest to rid the media of misleading images, Ms. Boyer wants to go even further than the Liberal Democrats in Britain. Her bill would require warning labels on retouched photos published for editorial purposes as well as those in print ads. Violators could face fines of 37,500 euros, or almost $55,000, or up to 50 percent of the cost of an advertisement.

Well scratch my back with a hacksaw - I never thought that I would live to see the day when this would happen. Of course, I probably won't live to see that day in my part of the planet. As one photographer who did not think that the curbs would have the desired effect said, "Unfortunately, we are living in a retouched world."

If anyone is living in a "retouched world", the citizens of the good 'ole United Corporation of America are way out ahead of the field on this one.

Consequently, I will not be holding my breath waiting for warning labels to appear on most of the "nature" pictures that the camera club crowd - the hopeless sinners - so loves to make. A label that might read something like:

WARNING: Viewing Eco Porn has been determined to lead people to believe in realities that, very often, do not exist. Repeated exposure to these materials causes mental and emotional damage which may cause irreparable harm to the planet.

A warning label that should be on every Sierra Club calendar ever printed. And, yes, also every Adirondack Life calendar ever printed as well.

tuscany # 42 ~ small is beautiful

Street light ~ Firenze, Tuscany • click to embiggenUnlike (once again) the good 'ole US of America, one of things that we took away from our time in Italy was the fact that so much of that place is on a human/people scale.

To wit: small shops / stores / businesses and narrow streets and alleys, many of which are shared with motorized vehicles but are also made for walking - on all but the major thoroughfares it seems that people, not cars, rule. While I'm certain that they must exist, our travels seemed totally free from the ubiquitous corporate presence as we know it here in the United Corporations of America.

And the other thing that was noticeable by its absence in the small/medium sized cities, towns, and villages were the pockets of abandoned wastelands - derelict houses, buildings, factories, and weed infested / overgrown lots littered with trash / junk - that are the visual hallmark of virtually every American city, town, and village. Once again, they undoubtedly must exist but in no way near to the extent that they do in the good 'ole US of A.

I'm certain that Italy will not be confused with Nirvana any time soon, but it does seem that they do a whole lot more right than we do.

tuscany # 41 ~ choo, choo not vroom, vroooom

Train depot ~ Arezzo, Tuscany • click to embiggenUnlike the good 'ole US of America, it is ridiculously easy to get around Italy by train.

Our day in Firenze (Florence) began and ended with train ride. No fuss. No muss. Just get a ticket and get onboard. Much more relaxing than a high-speed trek on the A1.

tuscany # 37-40 ~ del gallo nero

On the grounds of the Poggio Cascianto estate, San Polo, Tuscany • click to embiggen
A winery tour ~ Ruffino Winery - San Polo, Tuscany • click to embiggenThe number of opportunities for taking a a winery tour in Tuscany is similar to the number of grains of sand on a beach. A slight exaggeration, maybe, but not that much of one.

So it was that we found ourselves at Poggio Casciano, an ancient estate occupied since Roman times which is graced with a classic Renaissance villa - one that serves as the home of one of the two brothers who own Ruffino. The villa is surrounded by 60 hectors of vineyards and has a rather modest wine making facility.

We did not land here by accident - my brother delivers mail to one of the two brothers who own the largest wine company and the largest importer of wine - to include Ruffino - in the US of A. By coincidence, at one time in my photographic past, I used to do the photography for their annual report and wide variety of advertising / marketing photography for many of their products. That said, by pre-arrangement we were able to have a small private tour of the place.

As expected, we learned about / sampled some nice wines, toured the wine making facility and the wine cellars, and played a little bocce but what really struck my fancy was learning about del gallo nero - the black rooster. From an Italian translation:

The origins of this symbol can be found in a telling about the rivalry between Florence and Siena, due to the disputing for the possession of the Chiantishire lands, in the medieval period. To put down this interminable and bloody war, the two communes decide to entrust the definition of its own borders to a trial between two knights, one with the colour of Florence and the other with the colour of Siena. The place where the two knights met, leaving their respective cities to dawn, when the cock crows, there would have been the boundary. The Sienesi grew up and stuffed with food their white cock, convinced that this would sing stronger, while the Florentines choose a black cock and left it on an empty stomach. The fatal day, the black Florentine cock was very hungry and so began to crow before the sunrise, while the white Sienese cock was full of food yet.

The Florentine knight, woken up early by his cock, began to gallop covering much more street than his rival: almost the whole land of the Chianti was annexed to the lily Republic.

Ignoring the double entendre - re: woken up early by his cock (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) - you can probably get the drift of this story. What may be less than obvious in this translation is the fact that the knights set out from opposite ends of the same road - the road that traversed the region of Chianti - and where they meet on that road determined the location of the boundary in dispute.

In any event, the image of our hero (at least by Florentine accounting), del gallo nero, was adopted in 1716 by the Chianti Classico Consorzio del Gallo Nero as the symbol of high quality Chianti Classico wine.

Now, the next time you to go to the wine store, you can pick up a bottle of Chianti Classico (which will have the del Gallo Nero seal over the cork on the bottle neck). You can then entertain and amaze (and perhaps even annoy) anyone within earshot with the story of del Gallo Nero. The inclusion of the woken up early by his cock (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) bit is at your discretion.

And, btw, the next time you see me maybe I'll be wearing my del Gallo Nero insignia golf cap and/or my del Gallo Nero insignia polo shirt.

tuscany # 32-36 ~ vroom, vroooom

Cisitalia dashboard ~ Arezzo, Tuscany • click to embiggen
Italian cars ~ in and around Tuscany • click to embiggenDuring all my years with the wife, one word that I can't ever remember hearing was the word, "vroom", so it goes without saying that I never heard her utter the phrase, "vroom, vroooom". However, in Italy / France, if I heard "vroom, vroooom" once, I heard it 1,000 times.

Now, it must be stated that the wife was not given over to some sort of verbal tick because she only verbalized the phrase "vroom, vroooom" in response to my oft-heard directive of, "way cool man, check out that (insert auto name here)." - a declarative sentence that she must have heard at least 1,200 times (maybe more, but only 1/2 the number of times she watched me making pictures) during the course of our travels about the Italian countryside. And, FYI, the difference in number between my exclamations and her responses can be explained by the fact that on some occasions she would just simply roll her eyes and chuckle softly.

In my defense, it should be noted that my love of Italian cars goes all the way back to my very own 1969 Fiat 124 Sports Coupe. It was a killer car for that time - a sweet interior, a high-revving twin-cam motor, 4-wheel disc brakes, 5-speed gearbox, and a suspension set up that was made for the twisty bits (any research will show that those specs were very very rare at that time, especially so in a very affordable car).

I also loved that fact that the dash made no pretense of catering to the American market in as much as all the gauges were in Italian. So, I had to pay attention the acgua temperature and be sure that I did not run out of benzina. I loved it. And, it is worth mentioning the car did not live up to the F(ix)I(t)A(gain)T(ony) reputation - it was very dependable and unscheduled maintenance free.

Over the past decade or two, my interest in cars has been heavily slanted toward those vehicles that are very fuel efficient, compact, and fun to drive - not exactly qualities found in many of Detroit's offerings (massive understatement). In fact, the number of Detroit vehicles that match that description can be counted on the fingers growing out of the top of head (0). And, in the US of A, foreign makers have generally imported only "stripper" compact cars because they assume, and probably rightfully so, that Americans want only characterless and "cheap" when it comes to compact fuel efficient cars.

To be honest, this situation really pisses me off. There are so many unique, creative, and "upscale" (think cabin trim and overall design) compact fuel-efficient cars out there that it boggles the (American) mind. But, unfortunately, virtually none of them are available in the good 'ole gas-guzzling, monster-sized truck/SUV, land-yacht US of A.

Fortunately for me, that may be about to change with the recently-inked Chrysler/Fiat agreement. It has been rumored that the one and only Fiat that Chrysler will market under the Fiat badge (the rest will be be Chrysler badged variants) is the Fiat 500 - a vehicle that I have been lusting over since its introduction.

Luigi • click to embiggenThe new 500 (see the small red car above) is Fiat's update of the old venerable 500 (see the carmel-colored car above - the color of my Fiat 124 SC) and who could be so heartless and cold as to not love Luigi.

The model I am lusting for is the 500C. The wife has been summarily unimpressed with my 500-based desires, although ... on one of our rambles through the Tuscan countryside, I did stop - accompanied by much moaning & groaning from the passenger seat - at a Fiat dealership and managed to drag her inside to sit in one of the 500Cs. Her reaction was direct, terse, and to the point - "OK. Nice. If it makes it to the US, we'll get one."

Cue the location-appropriate chorus of Renaissance-era heavenly angels singing "Halleighlujah, Halleighlujah!!". Vroom, vroooom. Hope springs eternal.

FYI, I threw in the pictures of the Ferrari and the 1947-52 era Cisilatia just for kicks - what the hell, one can always dream, can't one?

Update on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 11:32AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Mauro Thon Giudici wrote: "Just for the record. The 124 coupè was the car that almost any smuggler in northern Italy had (or was dreaming about). Smuggling coffee and tobacco across the Swiss borders employed large numbers of People living in the Alps. By the way you forgot to mention the unforgettable roar.

my response: in the words of the wife - vroom, vroooom

tuscany # 31 ~ where there's smoke ....

Tuscan fire with train ~ Cortona, Tuscany • click to embiggenDon't have a clue about what might have been going on here. Whatever it is, the passengers on the train got a great view.

I spotted this fire as I was picturing on our descent from the old Village of Cortona. At first, it was just a bit of flame and some smoke but over about a 10 minute span it grew to what you see here.