It is always a pleasure to climb a summit, or to cross a mountain pass.
But even more so when the path descends to some nice spot or hamlet, like here.
I wonder if there will some Betrachter willing to determine which is the (hopefully nice) hamlet depicted, where I am descending from (knowing that I had started at a village of comparable size), and where I am at this point.
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The stretch of the Appennino between Bologna and Firenze is not my favourite one, although now it has become very popular due to the strongly advertised walking path "Via degli Dei". For cyclists, I find that the passes Futa and Raticosa are less interesting than Radici, Cerreto or Lagastrello, above Modena and Reggio, which are my favourites.
However, coming this way one is rewarded by a very interesting view of Firenze, other than the one (too) widely known from Piazzale Michelangelo. The present work is very reductive, focusing on the main buildings, but on the other side of the valley, at a slightly higher elevation, there would be Fiesole, not to speak of all the elegant hills surrounding the town.
Trespiano is a village of little more than 1000 inhabitants - far more people are hosted perhaps in its cemetery, one of the most panoramic that one can imagine, rivalling with Staglieno in Genova for position, surely not for monumentality.
If anybody ever heard the name Trespiano, this may be because of Dante, who in Par XVI, 52-57, complains:
Oh quanto fora meglio esser vicine
quelle genti ch'io dico, e al Galluzzo
e a Trespiano aver vostro confine,
che averle dentro e sostener lo puzzo
del villan d'Aguglion, di quel da Signa,
che gia` per barattare ha l'occhio aguzzo!
Dante is complaining about the lost purity of Firenze, which is now filled by people from the countryside: crude peasants who, besides literally stinking, keep their eyes pointed to catch every chance of merchandise. He wishes a return to the old status, with Trespiano and Galluzzo (south of the town, nowadays with another big cemetery) marking the border of the town.
In any case, Dante would not have had anything to complain about my coming, since I was only heading to the train station to catch a train to Livorno, whence the ship to Palermo.
Position: 43.81443 11.28581
12 images at 220 mm
Hans-Jürgen Bayer, Müller Björn, Hans-Jörg Bäuerle, Martin Kraus, Dieter Leimkötter, Giuseppe Marzulli, Matthias Matthey, Steffen Minack, Niels Müller-Warmuth, Jan Lindgaard Rasmussen, Arne Rönsch, Björn Sothmann, Jens Vischer, Alexander Von Mackensen, Augustin Werner
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Comments
I was lookin for such a location (instead of classic Piazza Michelangelo) but time was too short.
Is there a Scuola di Musica nearby ?
Du bist zweifellos nördlich der Stadt, ich schätze mal 5 km Luftlinie. Unterwegs warst du mit einem Tele, 300 mm? Mein Tipp wäre auf dem Weg von Serpiolle nach Trespiano.
Grüße,
Dieter
I attended it for two years; the teacher was German - Alexander Lonquich, who still lives in Florence, I guess. He was always wanted by some Musikhochschule, but he reasoned: why to leave this place for a Musikhochschule??
(By the way, also Fiesole is hoch: no less than 300 m)
I am wondering if I can use somewhat warmer colors...
Cheers, Alberto.
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