Journey to Tuscany

Michele, my beloved cousin, lives in Pisa since almost 20 years. 

He is a lovely person, married, with two pretty daughters.

A couple of weeks ago I went to visit him in Tuscany. I spent two days in Florence too, where we've been hosted by Katia, a good friend of Lucia.

It was a major pleasure for me to spend with Michele some time together, creating with him a sort of complicity, exchanging each other memories of our family. 

As my chief at work says "life is too short". I agree 100% with him.

Michele lives in the countryside, few miles from Pisa.

Michele takes us to visit Pisa, this fantastic city, famous all around the world because of piazza dei Miracoli, where like a flower, it's set the Torre di Pisa (pictured).

"When I first arrived in Pisa, almost 20 years ago, foggiano (born in Foggia, Apulia), was synonymous of being rough" My cousin says.

He continues "Once, I went in a shop in Pisa to buy a shirt. After having dressed one of them, I asked the shop assistant how it looked like. She replied: It makes you looking foggiano. But I'm foggiano, I addressed her. She turned purple, of course".

I burst laughing, and kept laughing for a while. Actually, I still do it when I recall such story.

This was due to the shock caused at the time by the immigration flow in Tuscany from Foggia, as my cousin soon after explained.

Pisa is really cool, I have to say.

With Genova, Amalfi and Venice, Pisa was one of the four Repubbliche marinare which dominated the Mediterranean sea in the Middle Age.

Michele leads us to see the Keith Haring's murales, called Tuttomondo.

This murales was painted on the wall of a church. 

It took Keith four days to complete it. The paint was donated to the New Yorker artist by a local company.

Early in the 80ies, Keith Haring and Jean Michel Basquiat expressed themselves by painting all around the "big apple", covering public spaces of their paintings, mostly the underground.

Tuttomondo, the murales in Pisa was painted in 1989. Keith would have died few months later of AIDS.

His messages of love, hope and peace are nowadays perpetuated by the Keith Haring Foundation .

Michele and Anna, his wife, bring us to visit Lucca, very close to Pisa.

Lucca is a well preserved Medieval town.

What really strikes me is viewing the Roman theatre being incorporated by Medieval urbanisation (pictured).

The day is sunny.

This gentleman takes the opportunity of being cheered up by the sun in the afternoon.

A slow walk within the walls of Lucca is something I definitely recommend of .

You'll discovery so many interesting places and corners, like the one nearby the conservatory.  

On Monday, we leave Michele and his fantastic family, heading to Florence, capital of Renaissance.

Florence is undoubtedly an open air museum, as we have realised by just getting out the train station.

I have seen so many tourists around here. 

From an art perspective, the climax of this journey is the visit at Galleria degli Uffizi.

We'll be spending at Galleria a whole afternoon, admiring the paintings collection made up by the Medici family along centuries.

Caravaggio, Piero della Francesca, Tiziano, Canaletto, Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli are just some of the artists exposed there.

Once in the life, you must come to Tuscany.

By the way, concerning Michelangelo Merisi, also called Caravaggio, the National Gallery in London is currently hosting an exhibition called Beyond Caravaggio dedicated to this revolutionary artist.

It will be on till the 15th January 2017.