[Leica] Hedonists, "Polka Pigs", and Leicas Part 2

[TTAbrahams@aol.com]

We continued down to Florence and stayed in a smaller town just outside, 
Fiesole, easily reached by bus from the centre of Florence, but not so easily 
reached by car (see comment on one-way street driving). The bus No.7 from 
Fiesole to Florence is known as "Pick Pocket 101 Express", but we survived 
without loosing anything, maybe it was early in the season yet! After a 
couple of nights there it was on to the top of the Tuscan Hills with Andreas 
Frijdal and his wife Chris. Great house up in the hills, cats and a small 
studio for portraits, an evening spent corking about 150 bottles of well 
seasoned red wine (could have been 150 but we had to test several batches and 
ended up corking 148), dinner at the Casa Popolo, an Italian type of village 
"Town Hall" that has the priorities right. The mayor has a small office 
there, some other bureaucrats has some cubbyholes and the rest is a 
sporthall, maybe a swimming pool and a restaurant for a light meal of 
antipasto, pasta, pizza and some wine. The next day we enjoyed a great dinner 
at the house on the hill, more wine, great cooking and great company. It 
could be very easy to get used to this kind of life!
 We had a couple of more days in Italy, driving around in the Carrara Marble 
quarries, being chased by large trucks with 20 tonnes blocks of gleaming 
white marble on the back and nominal brakes - a small sign on one road simply 
proclaimed "Loaded trucks have the right of way". Well, I am not going to 
argue with something that could flatten the Fiesta from being a three 
dimensional object to something that could be rolled up in mailing tube. 
 One place we discovered that charmed us was Camoglia, a small town, just 
south of Genoa. The town is stapled to a sheer rockface, some of houses have 
one street level entrance above and then extend down for five floors on the 
rockface. The houses look at first glance as if they are built in marble and 
sandstone, it is all painted on to the plaster covering the outside of the 
building, a town of "faux" finish. The small church in town was decorated 
inside with at least 50-60 crystal chandeliers - a rather amazing sight!
 Driving towards France, we waved at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I had 
nurtured some idea of shooting it with the Heliar, but decided to forego it. 
After 11 days of Italian food and wine, we decided to head to France (change 
of diet/wine?) and visit LUGger Pierre-Jean Ternamian and his wife Arielle. 
He, together with a Swiss friend of his has developed a Rapidplate for 
tripods and we have been communicating via e-mail and fax, trying to 
integrate their plate with the Rapidwinder. Pierre-Jean is lucky enough to 
live in the gastronomical centre of France, Lyon. All right, if you have to 
discuss mundane things like alloys, milling and thread cutting, doing it with 
the assistance of Champagne, Chateaux Neuf de Pape and some fiery French 
"white lightening" can only improve the design. The duck for dinner did not 
hamper the thought process either. We did put in some time doing sightseeing 
too. Lyon for me has always been a messy traffic jam on the way from Paris to 
Provence, but it is a very nice looking town, the centre is renovated and 
closed for traffic - restaurants and bistros as far as the eye can see. The 
church above the city has some of the most amazing mosaics I have ever seen, 
they looked somewhat like Russian icons but huge! After a lunch at one of the 
Paul Bocusse's Bistros we continued towards Germany (did say that we ate 
well, did I?). Next time I go into Lyon rather than fight the tollroad 
outside - who cares if it takes a day or so longer (lunch, dinner, etc). 
Germany now beckoned, my Leicas were eager to reach the point where they were 
born and we headed for Solms/Wetzlar.                       to be continued 
in Part 3