One of the great things about being in a blog community - even a very loose one, hmm doesn't sound quite right but you know what I mean - is the talent that you encounter almost daily. It may be the ability to use words or a pencil or a camera. But it is that ability to communicate thoughts, memories, humour and ideas through whatever medium that constantly amazes and delights me.
Even in busy Pesaro the Saturday Market in Centro is quiet during Ferragosto. I wonder where the residents of a seaside resort go in the summer when the rest of the world is flocking to their beach?
I overheard the conversation between this lady and the fruttivendolo (greengrocer)- she needed enough eggplant to feed eight - her son, his wife and the bambini where coming for Sunday lunch. He, of course, assured her he had just the ones she wanted!
As in most small towns here bicycle seems to the be major mode of transportation in Centro. And of course its easy to stop and have a Saturday morning gossip when you cycling through town.
- Lorraine has two brilliant posts in a row this week - not to say they aren't all brilliant just that... there I go sounding not right again! And speaking of the right she uses her remarkable facility with words to address the Religious Right and a possible (?) double standard. And this must see video has become an instant YouTube classic. I sent the link to quite a few friends and they've been spreading it around - the link I mean! Damn think I'll just give up on words today.
I am still slightly surprised when I see a pair of Mormon boys walking through the centre of an Italian town. As with most small towns the Centro Storico of Pesaro is closed to traffic. I'm not sure what the red carpet was for but it gave a festive air to an already festive city.
Rossini was born on the the ground floor of this palazzo. He very seldom returned after he left in 1796 at the age of 4. That, of course, has not stopped the sale of Rossini memorabilia in Pesaro but at least its more tasteful than the Mozartiana sold in Salzburg.
- And Speck uses words and her talents as a cartoonist to tell us all about her Labour Day Weekend (sorry Speck I just can't type labor) and an encounter with some people on the run from Gustav. And that first cartoon should be gracing the editorial pages of a major newspaper.
While hundreds of holiday makers crowd the beach seeking that perfect tan that will be the envy of their neighbours come September ...
... others just sit in the park looking out over the Adriatic and pondering the passing world.
04 settembre - San Tesauro dei Beccheria
St. Nicholas waits to greet the girls and boys - notice the switch in his hand just in case he runs into anyone who's been naughty.
The painted facades in the courtyard give the Residenzmarkt a slightly theatrical flair.
Decorative baskets, fresh fruit dipped in chocolate (the fact that its fruit negates the calories, right?)and some rather unusual flower scarves - there seems to be a stall for everything. I'm not so sure how warm those scarves are.
Everything that the well-heeled medievalist would need.
In Venetian Stories, her book of interconnected short stories set in Venice, Jane Turner Rylands (who's very Venetian intrigues with the estates of Peggy Guggenheim and Ezra Pound are worthy of a book themselves) tells one story of a slightly over the hill Gondolier. Bruno has been rowing gawking tourists through the canals for 40 years - and as his body becomes thicker with age he tries desperately to live up to his nickname "Volpon" - the fox. Its rumoured that many of Rylands stories are thinly disguised portraits of people she knows in Venice - and may have scores to settle with. As we walked by the gondolieri - many of them aging like Bruno, I wondered which one of them had pissed Rylands off.
