I’m so excited to return to the City of Lights for a few weeks! Catching the next yellow balloon tomorrow!
Art by Exit, Enter, on a wall in Florence.
A recent visit to Giardino Torrigiani, Florence
A special vineyard in the Italian Dolomites: Castel Monreale
Not far from Merano, Italy stands a very interesting vineyard: Castel Monreale. Here’s a bottle of their great red, a picture I took later with the backdrop of Lake Como.
http://www.rametz.com/italiano/cabernet-aa-doc-castello-2015-125-46915.html
So, here’s the locale: not bad, eh?
The grape plants shown in the next 3 pictures are about 75 years old and planted in the old style, which is very labor intensive because no mechanization can be used.
The cortile of the castle:
The 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death
2019 is the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci and Italy is doing it up right to mark the occasion. All over Italy, but especially in Tuscany and Florence in particular, and in Milan, exhibitions are celebrating his art and life.
I love the comic relief one get’s from a poster like the one below. At least we can have a little fun with the fact that he often wrote backwards!
Lake Garda
I’m enjoying a springtime journey through northern Italy and the famous lakes. First stop: Lake Garda
Starting in the province of Brescia in Lombardy, Sirmione is a sweet little town whose historic center stands on the peninsula that divides the lower section of Lake Garda almost in half.
Sirmione is known to have been a popular resort town since the 1st century B.C.E., largely because of its thermal hot springs; there are Roman ruins in the historic center. The remains of a Roman villa are at the end of the peninsula, and are called the Grottoes of Catullus – the name of a Roman poet whose family lived in Sirmione in the 1st century B.C.E. Another attraction is the Rocca Scaligera, a 13th-century castle. More recently, Maria Callas built a villa on the pennisula and, the 2017 film “Call me by your name” was partly filmed in Sirmione.
Below: there is nothing like sailing into a medieval port to start your day!
Merano, Italy, a Swiss/German/Italian town in the Dolomites
A very chic pastry shop and cafe, with wonderful looking treats:
So, of course, I’m only human and had to try the strudel:
And yes, it was as tasty as it looks!
These artificial flowers are a dying breed
The green lungs of Milan
First, in traditional architecture:
Then, a modern adaptation:
I was told that the tall narrow apparatus that looks like a crane, on the top of both sections of the high rise, is actually a part of the irrigation system that keeps all this plant material alive.
Apparently the first high rise has been quite successful, for as you can see, a second high rise is going up nearby.
The Chelsea flower show
Galleria Vittorio Emauele, Milano
When I was in Milano at Christmas, I saw this beautiful galleria decked to the 9s. It was a bit less hectic today, and, even without the Christmas finery, this early shopping mall is still a sight to behold. I enjoyed it from inside and underneath the glass ceiling, but then I went hunting for a way to get outside and on top of the galleria. Do you think I found a way?
If you said “no,” then you don’t know me very well! I have the will and I find the way!
So, here it is from the outside, above the rooftop.
get back, lauretta! 
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