Another quick walk through the monthly Sunday market in “Piazza Cavour”.


More Walks
This is the season when the ferries like the “Moby Aki” come back to the “Porto Mediceo”. During summer they move to the other side of the port, where their huge traffic of vehicles can be handled more easily in wider spaces.
The empty ferry awaits for some more vehicles and passengers.
It's nice to see again some colors in the now quite dull old port.
Nowadays the film director Paolo Virzì is one of the most famous sons of Livorno, which he has already successfully described in the 1997 flick “Ovosodo” (Hard boiled egg). His new movie, “La prima cosa bella” (The First Beautiful Thing), happens to be completely located in his home town and was shot around Livorno during last May and June.
In these images they were filming near “Piazza Giorgio Caproni”: the director is the first on the right, talking with the lead actor, Valerio Mastandrea.
In a second scene you can see Valerio Mastandrea and the actress Claudia Pandolfi riding a scooter in two, quite usual in Livorno but against the normal rules of the road.
All the passers-by you see beyond the crew were extras walking the same route at every new take.
A nun with a bike wasn't an extra but she was promptly signed up because she was so “real”.
If you are contemplating a holiday in Livorno, the four stars “Hotel Gran Duca” could be a good choice for your stay.
The distinctive structure hosting the hotel is a Medicean bastion dating back to the 17th Century, located just behind the symbol of Livorno: the monument of the “Quattro Mori” (Four Moors).
Opened in 1966 and completely restored in 2007, it has 80 rooms and apartments, some with a beautiful view on the Pamiglione, the oldest part of the port, and on the “Fortezza Vecchia”.
The hotel has a very good restaurant and is within walking distance of the porticoes of “Via Grande”. The “Porto Mediceo” and the ferries for the islands are just across the street.
A couple of weeks ago, coming back from a walk to the “Terrazza Mascagni”, we found some strange creatures on our way. The last and the most interesting was this squirrel, standing above an ornate crest decorating the gate of a villa in “Via Roma”.
Some angry fishes hide on the facade of the “Grand Hotel Palazzo”.
A not so majestic eagle on a wall in “Via Sant'Jacopo Acquaviva”.
A composed lion keeping watch from a pillar in “Via Montebello”.
On another gate, Pegasus fights what probably is a Chimera (we have one of these either) , in company of his winged mirror image.
“Via della Madonna” crosses the canal and enter the quarter of New Venice through the “Ponte di San Giovanni” (St John's Bridge). We have already seen the story of St John Nepomucene, whose statue stands in the middle of the bridge.
In the first image the bridge is seen from the “Scali del Pesce”, while the second and the third pictures are taken from the “Ponte dell'Angiolo” (Angel's Bridge), the next stop in our tour.
Behind the left part of the “Ponte di San Giovanni” we can see the turret on top of the “Palazzo Comunale” (Town Hall).