More about my first day

Lunch hour on Friday and I'm back at the hotel to rest a bit before the afternoon session. The first talk of the afternoon is in German so I'm not rushing to get back for that. It's so hard to sit still and look intelligent when you have no clue what they are saying.

So, back to yesterday. After thoroughly soaking up the atmosphere and drinking in all that green and pink and white marble, I went off in search of Via d'Orche. The Paperback Exchange is written up in several guide books and I had read an article in The Florentine the night before. So off I went. Wonderful bookstore with lots of new and used books and friendly atmosphere. I'm not saying whether I bought anything or not! Guess. From there I wondered on, heading in the general direction I thought the river would be. I turned into the Piazza della Republica and was delighted by the sight of a small bright carousel.

From there I went past Orsanmichele to the Piazza della Signoria. Wow, there they all are, the Palazzo Vecchio the Uffizi and all those statues! When you study architectural photographs, as I have done for so long, you don't have any sense (I should say I didn't anyway) of how the buildings relate to each other. In a way this is one of the important topics of the conference. In categorizing and arranging images in our collections we affect how the user interacts with them and the idea of the objects depicted as well. Would my perceptions be different if I had worked with photos of all the buildings in one piazza rather than looking at the churches, then the municipal buildings, then the museums?










At this point I realized that I was only a few longish blocks from the Arno so I decided to push on. As I walked along I could see further ahead a swarm of people on what looked like a narrow, dark street. As I got closer I realized that what I was seeing was in fact the Ponte Vecchio. I had not idea! Tiny, with the shops filled with expensive trinkets and jewels, it is a bit claustrophobic feeling (or is it me that is claustrophobic and not the bridge?) By this time it must have been almost noon, the sun was hot and not at a good angle for photos but I did stop and try to take a few views from each side of the bridge.

I'm stopping here for a break and then back to the conference. Check back for the Biblioteca Nazionale and Santa Croce.