The bridges of Florence

I have to post some bridge-pics of Firenze, even if the light wasn't great this time of the day. Huge clouds made everything look sort of flat...
..anyway, here is THE brigade from far away...
..and here from close, in front of the surrounding hills: the Ponte Vecchio (everything is sort of 'Vecchio' :-)

On top of it runs an ancient corridor, connecting Palazzo Vecchio (!) and Palazzo Pitti, the rest are house with a shopfront, mainly goldsmiths.

And lots of tourists, of course..
..and the tourist entertainment industry as well..
View from the other side: the windows of the corridor right under the roof are visible from this side.

Il Duomo di Firenze

Once more a couple of pics from Florence in April. This time it's about the cathedral, the Duomo. Even with the ultra wide angle lens I wasn't able to get a picture of the whole building, it's simply to huge.


Beautiful building with these colored marble walls and the almost unlimited number of details.
On the inside it was rather empty, besides the many visitors.
We climbed the small stairs under the cupola...
..and when we reached the roof the clouds had covered the sun :-(
Nice view, though, over the old city with the red roofs and the surrounding Tuscan hills in the background.

Palazzo Vecchio from above...

...and here's the roof garden cafe of the Uffizi, the famous art gallery (where we had coffee later the same day:-)
Here another fine roof garden, can I get this on top of my Berlin home please? :-)
This one is Santa Croce....this the central market,...
..and here is the railway station Santa Maria Novella, which is a piece of modern architecture in a medieval city.
On the tower next to us people were taking photos, too. We were higher, anyway :-)
On the descent we were able to admire the painted ceiling from close distance, so many things to admire in this city...

Florence Sculptures

Sorting through the Florence pictures from May I decided some of the sculpture pictures justify a dedicated post. Besides the sculptured rapes and beheadings in the Loggia dei Lanzi Menelaus looks almost peaceful..
..while others keep slaying..
..while the lion guards his ball.
No wonder she looks disgusted.
Then there is the one and only, just outside. At the first glance I thought I was watching a mirror ;-)

Gendarmenmarkt

So as the evening entertainment of said Saturday consisted of listening to Mozart's Requiem played by a string quartet in a church on the Gendarmenmarkt I couldn't resist to lay my cold hands one last time on the camera and take some pictures of the nicely illuminated buildings there..

First the Schauspielhaus...
...then the German cathedral..
...once more the Schauspielhaus, an hour later...
...and last but not least the French Cathedral with the buildings to its left where the concert took place some minutes later...

Autumn afternoon

In the late afternoon of that Saturday I discovered some yellow-turned Ginkgo trees in front of the ministry of economical affairs, the yellow of the leaves in a nice contrast to the blue sky...