This building, even now, is the seat of the municipality of Siena, but you need not worry, because the halls of this extraordinary medieval building are open to the public. I am absolutely convinced that you are happy to have spent your energy to climb the Torre del Mangia. That tower, completed in 1348 by the brothers Francesco and Minuccio …
Read More »A SHELL CONTAINING THE PALIO – Piazza del Campo and Via della Galluzza, secularism and holiness, into the same walls of Siena
Piazza del Campo, is where you can find all the major monuments of the city. Just like Rome, this city is built on hills, so when you begin to walk in the streets of Siena, even now you know that you will find challenging climbs and descents pleasant. Of one thing you can be sure: do not get bored. In …
Read More »BLACK MAPS – Poetry, by Mark Strand
BLACK MAPS Not the attendance of stones, nor the applauding wind, shall let you know you have arrived. Nor the sea that celebrates only departures, nor the mountains, nor the dying cities. Nothing will tell you, where you are. Each moment is a place, you’ve never been. You can walk, believing you cast a light around you. But how will …
Read More »SUMMER – Poetry by Abai Kunanbaev
SUMMER Summer climbs the mountains. Flowers overcolour and blanch. Men leave the sun and sit, tree-tented, by the cold creek. Horses bray, each apart in the warm air, and the long grass whiffles in a lime plain. Hushed and still, the horseherd stand in whiter-high; and wave the flies away with silk-swish tails; and colts clatter the air, rippling the …
Read More »BETWEEN GOING AND STAYING – Poetry by Octavio Paz
ENTRE IRSE Y QUEDARSE > Entre irse y quedarse duda el dÃa, enamorado de su transparencia. La tarde circular es ya bahÃa. En su quieto vaivén se mece el mundo. Todo es visible y todo es elusivo, todo está cerca y todo es intocable. Los papeles, el libro, el vaso, el lápiz reposan a la sombra de sus nombres. Latir …
Read More »NIGHT ON THE ISLAND – Poetry by Pablo Neruda
LA NOCHE EN LA ISLA > Toda la noche he dormido contigo junto al mar en la isla. Salvaje y dulce eras entre el placer y el sueño, entre el fuego y el agua. Tal vez muy tarde nuestros sueños se unieron en lo alto o en el fondo, arriba como ramas que un mismo viento mueve, abajo como rojas …
Read More »REMOTE, WILD AND SILENT – Travel along the north coast of Scotland
Yes, the bay is really wide. Just from that bay ferries leave for Orkney and Shetland. Thurso is really a small town, but this scenic part of Scotland’s northern coast, offers a starting point for many, very many small and valuable discoveries. Dounreay, gives the opportunity to visit the Atomic Energy Exhibition, but crossing the estuary of Stath Naver and …
Read More »SAYING SOMETHING – Poetry, by Carol Ann Duffy
SAYING SOMETHINGÂ Things assume your shape. Discarded clothes, a damp shroud in the bathroom, vacant hands. This is not fiction. This is the plain and warm material of love. My heart assumes it. We wake. Our private language starts the day. We make familiar movements through the house. The dreams we have no phrases for slip through our fingers into …
Read More »PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA (1416/1492), ITALIAN PAINTER – A myth, through the centuries
PAINTING AND TRAVELING A LOT – Piero della Francesca, nothing may be forgotten
PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA 1/4 – Of the man (which is certainly not the year of birth), born in the small Italian town of Sansepolcro, and died in the year in which America was discovered, we know relatively little. He began to paint banners and flags for his city, but also altarpieces, portraits and murals (partially lost). Professionally, he grew up …
Read More »WHEN THE CHARM HAS NO WORDS – Investigation of a myth. Piero della Francesca
Until June 26, 2016, you will not need to go to St. Sepulchre, to stay a little beside Piero, but you’ll have to go to Forli – to the Museums San Domenico – to admire the art exhibition “Piero della Francesca – on a Survey myth”. An absolutely wonderful opportunity, a real appointment with the “king” of Renaissance painting. Walking …
Read More »I DO NOT WANT ANOTHER LIGHT THAT YOUR BODY FRONT OF THE MINE – Poetry, Miguel Hernández
I DO NOT WANT ANOTHER LIGHT THAT YOUR BODY FRONT OF THE MINE I do not want other light that your body front of the mine, absolute light, complete transparency. Clarity whose belly, as the bottom of the river, affirms itself with time, sinks with the blood . What have they done to durable and shiny materials, the heart of …
Read More »3000 METERS OF SOLITUDE, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN – The archipelago of Cape Verde and the island of Fogo
Surely you’ve discovered that the downtown area has many old Portuguese houses. You know? Those noble houses of Sao Felipe are called “sobrados”, and all have a common characteristic among them are designed and built to create different spaces, for all the inhabitants of that island slave. Any color (blue or pink, yellow or green), but all the houses have …
Read More »HEAVENS 9, CARDINALS 4 POINTS, AND STEPS 365 – Welcome to Mexico, in the splendor of Chichen Itza
A city that was born in the late fifth century AD, a place that – five centuries later – was occupied by a different people, different architectures that blend harmoniously, giving to the visitor that the languages ​​of the Toltecs and Maya they can not tell. Welcome to Chichen Itza, 120 km east of Merida, Mexico. Before you can admire …
Read More »MELANCHOLY – Poetry, by Rubén DarÃo
MELANCOLIA > Hermano, tú que tienes la luz, dime la mÃa. Soy como un ciego. Voy sin rumbo y ando a tientas. Voy bajo tempestades y tormentas, ciego de sueño y loco de armonÃa. Ése es mi mal. Soñar. La poesÃa es la camisa férrea de mil puntas cruentas que llevo sobre el alma. Las espinas sangrientas dejan caer las …
Read More »