Arezzo...as in Guido de Arezzo!!!

Guido, what's up? It's amazing to be so far away and seeing things that I learned about in a Meredith classroom. The names of places always come alive when you go there, but reading about Guido de Arezzo and taking his picture are two very different things. (Granted, he's been dead for centuries, but his statue is still pretty cool.) Well...here's Guido and me hanging out on his street. His hand was rather unremarkable, and he refused to demonstrate "ut re mi" for me, but I wasn't disappointed. He's probably sick of hearing about it anyway.
(Editor's note: If this seems merely absolute nonsense to you, then you should have been a music major. If you are one, pay attention in music history class.)
Believe it or not, Arezzo does have more than statues of music theorists, and--which is harder to believe--I actually went to see some of them. I especially liked the archeological museum; I could tell the difference between the Roman and Etruscan pottery without knowing much about either. Some of the glasswork was astounding. I'm always shocked when I see these little test-tube looking bottles alongside clay lamps. The best part about the museum was its setting, which is right alongside of a Roman amphitheater. The glass case and the windowpane housed very similar artifacts, making you understand a bit more about the context.
And the cathedral!!! It's situated on the very top of the hill and looks a good bit like a castle. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to take any decent pictures because of the lighting, but the sun shone through a stained glass window and fell on a massive Gothic arch, reflecting up to the Old Testament scenes on the vaulted ceiling. Boy, am I a sucker for those pointed arches.

There was a lovely antique market beside the cathedral, and I had a very hard time not buying anything...a sextant, old telescopes, and entire suit of armor, LOTS of old books, teapots, TVs from the 50s, artwork old and new, a mysterious musical instrument (it looked like a cross between a clarinet and a piccolo, anybody know what it might be?) and a veritable warehouse of furniture were all beyond either my budget or the capacity of my suitcase.

Oh, well. Someday I'll come back and buy that suit of armor and set it up by my front door to hang coats on. And I'll get that three volume set of Longfellow's poems and read them curled up on that Victorian looking loveseat. And I'll get one of those TV's just for the heck of it.