{"id":10780,"date":"2015-06-20T08:56:01","date_gmt":"2015-06-20T15:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=10780"},"modified":"2015-06-20T12:40:08","modified_gmt":"2015-06-20T19:40:08","slug":"a-few-contrasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2015\/06\/20\/a-few-contrasts\/","title":{"rendered":"A Few Contrasts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Italy-Florence-view-blog\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With sketchbook work encouraged, and me having propensity for such anyway, I filled a 116 page book with 150 drawings, covering many subjects, using many styles. Here’s a pen and ink (ballpoint) of one section of majestic\u00a0Florence.<\/h6>\n

We were three weeks in Italy and I didn’t blog but once, and that wasn’t about the trip. There was too much else to do.<\/p>\n

We were part of a group, most of which were students and a few faculty from the Laguna College of Art and Design. Every day was planned, mostly around art, which included occasional lectures. There was also an emphasis on sketching and a little bit of painting when there was time, which there pretty much wasn’t.<\/p>\n

Even now, two days after returning, I can’t put together in words all we saw and did. Anne kept a journal, complete with bits of collected ephemera, to which we can return and remind ourselves of details. She also posted occasional photos on Facebook. See here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Back home, taking in some air around my\u00a0neighborhood, I got to thinking about the differences between here and the three cities we visited\u2014Rome, Florence and Venice. There I carried two pocket cameras, sometimes a third, and took hundreds of photos\u2014per day! On my little stroll, I didn’t carry a camera. Why would I?<\/p>\n

And\u00a0I got to wondering where the art museums are. They’re around, I know, somewhere; but there we visited two per day, sometimes three if you include massive churches, also overflowing with notable work in paint and stone and marble.<\/p>\n

Of art we saw some ten thousand pieces, inside buildings, outside buildings, and right on the streets. Here, on my little walk, I didn’t see any . . . nor do think I would if I walked a very long ways.<\/p>\n

There we often did walk a very long ways. And so, it seemed, did everybody else, filling the sidewalks. On my little contemplative stroll at home I didn’t see anyone at all.<\/p>\n

Of course, I don’t mind not being among throngs of tourists. The day were we in the Vatican Museum there were 50,000 others, slowly plodding, sometimes bottle-necking in very narrow\u00a0passages, often looking up. In the central square in Florence, I had to hold onto Anne lest we get separated permanently in the crowd. In Venice, the same, but with the threat of falling in. (Not really.)<\/p>\n

And everything was\u00a0so charmingly old. Driving home\u00a0from the airport we stopped at a grocery for milk and I noted a single\u00a0antique<\/em> picture on the wall. It was of the store’s early days, probably in the 1930’s. In Venice and Florence it all dates back over 800 years; and parts of Rome, a couple of thousand.<\/p>\n

It was all wonderful, even with the crowds. These are like theme parks without the rides . . . unless you include the gondolas.<\/p>\n

It’s no wonder so many go see these sights; they’re like no place on earth.<\/p>\n

But there’s another there’s no place like . . .\u00a0where I returned and took my little walk.<\/p>\n

Home.<\/p>\n

We’re grateful for it all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve been away for three weeks on long-anticipated travels to Renaissance Italy to view the roots of our culture and notice differences. Here are a few.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10780"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10800,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10780\/revisions\/10800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}