Train Travel

Lucas: In Umbria at Lee’s place, when we were watching movies on his roll down Cinema [I think he prefers the term “screening room”, honey] and in citta della pieve where there was the smallest street in the world and adults had go sideways when they were near the end, and Mum wasn’t very happy when she saw how narrow it was. Me and Theo pretended to hold the walls back from closing in. It was called the “street of kissing women” yuk!
Me: For me Citta della Pieve was memorable for its Duomo carvings, which were fluid and almost early 20th C in their pastoral curves and realism – very different from the French gothic of Notre Dame and Chartres that I’m used to. How to make stone look like water – that’s the thing. That and the cold, alleviated by spankin’ hot water bottles – nice touch.

Theo: on Monday morning we got up early to take the train to Florence, everyone was freezing except me. I refuse to wear the new coat Mum bought me in Paris. In Florence I turn mums dads and Lucas’s fans on and off, muhahahahahhahahhah. I refuse to eat anything at all.
Tony: This should be a home-coming; after all, Deborah and I practically met at Instituta Machiavelli. But cunning manoeuvring of childer-beasts into cultural positions to no avail. So, today, reinforcements for leather fetish (Deborah two pairs, me one, but with Missoni belt). Managed (actually voluntarily) to take Lucas to first concert – Bach partita and solo violin programme – luckily Lucas agrees to stick with piano. Florence wonderful but very, very noisy at night as sound funnels up 16th century walls and full of pheromonal and unsupervised school trips by day. With post modern irony we go to excellent “Cezanne in Florence” exhibition (and expect to see “Masaccio in Nice” exhibition at the weekend).
Me: shopping tourism is unbounded in Florence as there are few (as yet) of the stolid comfort zones of department stores, gap or sephora. Instead – with aid of Lee’s unpublished notes for concierge.com – we make our way to the ‘erbalista of Sta Maria Novella for world’s best (and naturally most expensive) soaps.

Heading towards a Christmas tree near you soon….. Kids fail to realise that best part of being in a City is simply being there: walking and ogling. Humour at lunchtime in ersatz café next to local meat market, thus giggles at expense of American tourists who have inadvertently ordered whole boiled cock’s heads. Speaking of which, how many variants of sculpted willies can two small boys laugh at in one Florence stroll, we have: moley ones, pointy ones, bendy ones, ones that go up then across, anything it seems other than plain big ones. Indeed, only incentive for Uffizi tomorrow is David’s willy (small, as I recall).

Am right now hanging out of window by toe nails to bring you this...Florence anarchic enough to have unsecured wifi points but archaeic enough not to understand they might as well surrender the wep code as not....mwah!