U is for Use, Usage, Utilize, and other Useful and Utilitarian Units

What with all the rules about grammar, usage, and style, it’s a wonder anyone can get anything down on paper. Fortunately, native-born English speakers have internalized the rules and can speak and write from intuitive knowledge of how words work together in sentences. Any time we have a question about correctness, we can just pull our our handy reference manuals or go online to find the information we need. Or better yet, we can just let our editors fix the glitches in our writing.

What? You don’t have an editor?

Well, I don’t either, but my grammar-picky husband steps in and whacks at my writing. Sometimes he’s even right.

Grammar Reference Books and Textbooks

Good writers do use grammar reference books, and proofreaders and editors keep a large stock of them on hand. My own rather extensive collection starts with one first published in 1926. Here’s its classic opening sentence:

The Doorway to English is an outgrowth of a need of the classroom teacher of English who has been struggling long to achieve results in quality of speech from textbooks instead of making technique contribute to the quality of better speech. Almost any teacher of English can readily distribute the technique in orderly fashion through the respective grades, but few teachers are capable of allotting through a definite period of instruction the expanding qualities of good speech. L. Rader and P. Deffendall, The Doorway to English, Fifth Book, 1926.

What? Strunk and White, authors of The Elements of Style, would definitely not give this textbook writer an A for clarity.

Of course, some reference manuals vary in their pronouncements and create long-standing, hard-core devotees and crusaders, maybe even Grammar Police and Grammar Nazis.

One good example is the controversy over the serial comma, or the Oxford comma as the Brits call it. Do you use a comma after the second word in a series before the and?  Journalists frown on the use of the serial comma; academic writers adore it. Chicago Manual of Styles says yes, use it. APA says no, don’t use it. What’s a writer to do? Most writers follow what they were taught in junior high and high school, then look for evidence and authorities to support that position.

Usage and Style

Grammar and usage are different. Grammar: how words should be used in sentences. Usage: how words are used in sentences.

It’s Prescriptivist Grammar (this is the way it should be) versus Descriptivist Grammar (this is the way it is.)

Style is how an individual author puts together his or her knowledge of grammar and usage in writing.

A college professor, for example, would use a more formal, politically correct style in presenting his final report to the college president on, “The  Liberalization of the Humanities Department through the Utilization of Descriptivism in Chauvinistic Literature.”

The teenager writing on Internet uses a more informal style: mysterious acronyms that confound mature readers; pop idioms and slang; and improper spelling of there, they’re, and their, and your and you’re.

Here’s an example of a style suggestion from Strunk and White.

Avoid fancy words.

Although Strunk and White’s book does have it gallery of critics, it does offer helpful advice to developing writers. Their advice ranges from elementary rules of usage to the more hard-to-pinpoint style.

Why use a complex word when a simpler word will do? That college professor would do well to tone down his writing. The teenager will hopefully use a bit more formality in his academic writing.

The Last Meow

Hey, humans, why worry about all of this. We cats have our own grammar. The fuss that you make about these sticky details puts me to sleep. Get a life!   Meow for now.   =<^;^>=

S is for Stats and Milestones–10,000 Views Milestone! WooHoo

10,000 views of my blog? Really? How did that happen?

I hadn’t really paid much attention to the stats that WordPress keeps for each blog, not realizing how broad the reach of a blog can be. So in early April, when out of curiosity I clicked on my blog stats, I was surprised shocked to see that my blog had well over 9000 views.

Getting Started

I laughed when several years ago my daughter said, “You ought to start a blog.”

Why on earth would I do that? I laughed.

But once the seed fell out onto the ground, it began to take root and grow, not right away, but over time.

One of my first blog posts was, “They Laughed When I Sat Down at The Piano.” You know, sort of like, “They laughed when I sat down to blog.”

WANA: We Are Not Alone

I have been blogging for a while now. I muddled around started with a BlogSpot.com blog,  titled GED Writer, in September of 2010, writing about the GED (high school equivalency testing for dropouts) and adult education topics. I realized this was not a hot topic for a blog and decided to think the matter over a bit more.

I tried again with WordPress in December of 2011, finally getting a blog going in January of 2012. I met Kristen Lamb online and began to follow her posts at Writing Warriors. I read her book, We Are Not Alone: The Writer’s Guide to Social Media, and I joined her WANA112 group: 100 writers who wanted to get better at blogging.  Kristen advised us to use our own names as our blog titles because we needed to build name recognition as serious bloggers. She also advised us to branch out and write about multiple interests rather than just write about our primary, more narrow, writing interests.  All of this was great and encouraging advice.

In the process of building my blog, I made lots of new writer friends. Of those 100 original writers in WANA112, 88 of us still keep in touch on Facebook on our closed group page.

And more amazing than that was that I gathered followers, kind readers who left encouraging notes.  I learned a lot from reading their posts, too. Such clever people, I thought. I will always appreciate these early followers. These are the best friends I have never met:

Tami Clayton, Taking Tea in the Kasbah
Elaine Smothers, Wonder in the Wild
emaginette, Shout With Emaginette
Glenda Mills, Meet Me On The Mountain
Barbara Forte Abate, Scribbling Outside The Lines
Judythe Morgan, Voice and Views from The Front Porch
Mike Schulenberg, Realms of Perilous Wonder
Sheila Pierson, Wonderstruck
Ellen V. Gregory, to beyond and back
Jodi Lea Stewart   Walking on Sunshine
Liv Rancourt, Laughter, life and romance under partly sunny skies
Elizabeth Fais, Where the awesome begins
Sara Walpert Foster, Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition
Siri Paulson, everyday enchantments
Linda Adams, Soldier, Storyteller
Sherry Isaac, Psychological Sizzle
Sherri Martin-Hutchins, live wonderstruck
And none of us could get anywhere without advice from Laird Sapir, of Shabby Chic Sarcasm

A to Z Challenge, 2012

But I didn’t really get into more serious blogging until the April 2012 A to Z Challenge (to write 26 posts in the month of April). I took the challenge seriously. I decided that if I could do 26 posts in that short a time, I could probably do more. The A to Z format certainly made it easier to come up with ideas.

I finished the 2012 A to Z with a hey,-I-can-do-this-blogging-thing attitude, further reinforcing Kristen Lamb’s yes-you-can-do-it encouragement.

Of course, blogging daily is tricky to do what with all the other commitments in life, so I settled into a doable pattern of two to three blog posts a week and continued through November of 2012 before taking a break because of family health issues. When that 2013 A to Z Challenge flashed around the Internet, I was hooked again!

Topics

In May of 2012, I traveled to Tuscany and Rome in Italy for two weeks with my sister-in-law and two other friends and found many topics to write about there. We rented a villa named Il Borghetto near San Gimignano and wrote about that. We visited other intriguing Italian cities, and I wrote about them: Florence, Lucca, Sienna, Pisa, aother charming towns. We traveled to Rome, and I wrote about our adventures there, staying in an old family-run hotel near Piazza Navona.

After Italy, I returned to Southern New Jersey and wrote about surprising things there: blueberry festivals, derecho (severe wind storm), veggie farms, Relay for Life, Ocean City, and a few other events of interest in my home state. And I added recipes for my favorite foods using “Jersey Fresh” vegetables and fruits.

For the 2013 A to Z Challenge, I have focused more on Writing PLUS Grammar-You-Can-See. Let’s just wait-and-see what comes along next!

Thanks, again, to all my faithful friends and followers. You truly are the best. My blogging adventure has been fun, though I must admit it has had its hours and hours moments of frustration. The learning curve is steep, but it does level off get less steep as you move along. Just keep writing!

***

Here’s a post from Ellen Gregory, a WANA112 friend, on her recent accomplishment of writing 200 posts. It’s so nice to see my blogger friends hit their own milestones. Congratulations, Ellen.

The Last Meow

Of course, kitties have been a big part of my blog. They always have something smart to say. They really don’t care for my grammar posts, but they seem to like the rest of my blog topics. They celebrate with me on our 10,000 views. After all, that means they get 10,000 views, too. No grumpy cats here!

Meow for now.   ={^;^}=

Hyper-Hyphenated Words Make Surprising Adjectives

Hello. It’s H-Day in the A to Z Challenge.

H is for Hyphens

Hyphens have been called lots of names: left-over punctuation marks, “the smallest of the little  horizontal line thingies” (The Grammar Cat), and “short and sweet” as compared to the dash which is long and lean (Laurie Rozakis, Complete Idiot’s Guide to Grammar and Style).  Laurie Rozakis says that the dash and the hyphen are like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito: Confused so often they are taken for each other.

Sometimes called stacked modifiers, or make-it-up-as-you-go adjectives, these adjectives can be humorous if used sparingly, or annoying if overused. This is a “what-you-may-have-been-wondering-about topic” (Grammar Girl), or maybe not.

They look something like this:

• He has a jump-off-the-page personality.
• We went to a shoot-em-up movie.
• I’m a pretty easy-going, live-and-let-live kinda girl.

Personally, I’m a love-those-hyphenated-compound-adjectives-kind-of-person! Evidently a few other writers like these phrasal adjectives, too. Here are a few samples.

• He is a member of the good-writers-understand-commas crowd.
• …give-me-my-content-through-email people…  Bob Dunn For Bloggers By Bloggers
• … a nice, safe, no-one’s-going-argue-with-this-biography. Kristen Lamb
• the best you-can’t-be-there-but-you-can-attend-anyway virtual event… http://www.copyblogger.com/blog/
• I’m-mad-as-hell-and-I’m-not-going-to-take-it-any-more crowd… Judy Dunn, in her former blog Cat’s Eye Writer.
• The uses-too-many-silly-hyphens-for-added-effect woman…  Grammar Girl

So What. Who Cares?

Of course, these stacked adjectives can get silly if they are overused, but somehow, just once-in-awhile, a stacked adjective does the job.    This one, for example:  “my good-for-nothing, pot-smoking, boyfriend-of-the-moment…” (Heather Marie Adkins). Now that one just gets right to the point.

The Last Meow

Now to the really important stuff. Here’s how to make cat faces on your very own keyboard. How’s that for a neat cat trick?

=<^ . ^>=   Meow for now.

What’s your favorite hyphenated stacked modifier?

E is for Eats, Shoots and Leaves: Punctuation Matters

HI. I’m blogging through the alphabet in April 2013 with the A to Z Challenge. Join me for some fun with A to Z Grammar.

Usually on Fridays in school, teachers slow the pace down a bit and give their restless charges a break with some lighter activities. The change of pace helps students clear their over-stuffed minds.

Following this widely accepted educator practice, I will take a break from grammar principles. Instead, I will mention two humorous books related to grammar, usage, and writing conventions.

One book, published in Great Britian in 2003, Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynn Truss, has now sold more than three million copies worldwide. Seems like there might be a bit of interest in punctuation. You think?

In the first few pages of her book, Lynne Truss refers to a joke that emphasizes the importance of the comma in writing.

A panda walked into a library, sat down, and ate his lunch. After he finished his sandwich, he fired off two arrows from his handy bow.

East, shoots and leaves

The surprised librarian asked, “Why?

The panda tossed her a badly punctuated book. “I’m a Panda, and this book says we do that.”

The librarian looked up panda in the manual and found that a panda is “a large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. It eats, shoots and leaves.”

With that, the panda walked out of the library.

A comma placed after the word shoots changes the entire meaning of the sentence. This joke captures the essence of the message that Truss wants to leave with us: be careful with punctuation. Bad punctuation changes the meaning of what you are trying to say.

Truss covers punctuation abuse (both in Great Britain and the United States) related to apostrophes, commas, colons, semicolons, dashes, and hyphens. She deplores, ridicules, and insults those who disregard the proper conventions for punctuating sentences and cause the general disintegration of the English language.  Being a self-admitted sticker, she encourages the sticklers of the world to unite to eradicate childish and barbaric abuses of punctuation. We should “fight like tigers to preserve our punctuation,” she proclaims.

Truss’s book has since been published in a children’s edition: Eats, Shoots and Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference.  Take a look at these two examples.

Look at that huge hot dog!   (a giant hot dog in a bun)

Look at that huge, hot dog!   (a very big, thirsty dog)

The point of all this is that punctuation does matter, and Truss brings that to our attention in a humorous, but serious, manner. Keep in mind though that there are differences between British spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary. These differences don’t really matter as long as you are consistent with the style guidelines of your own country. Of course there is a bit of finger-pointing between the two countries about which one has it right. No matter. That one will probably never be solved.

The following humorous little video points out a few differences between British English and American English. Take a minute to watch, and I guarantee you will chuckle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6ekn8h6jzE

So What? Who Cares?

Many metaphors have been used to describe the importance of punctuation, but Lynn Truss prefers this simple definition of purpose:

Punctuation is a courtesy designed to help readers to understand story without stumbling.

Improper punctuation can create potentially embarrassing situations, so the polite, careful writer will pay attention to punctuation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6ekn8h6jzE

The Last Meow

Gotta love those know-it-all cats.

See you tomorrow. https://janiceheck.wordpress.com

C is for… Complements and Compliments: So What? Who Cares?

26 letters of the alphabet, 26 days, 26 posts (Sundays are freebee days. *clap* clap* clap.*)

My theme for 2013: Writing PLUS Grammar You Can See

A strong knowledge of grammar helps writers produce more effective writing; more effective writing improves communication.

Each post will feature one aspect of writing with a grammar connection. Most posts will include a “So What? Who Cares?” section and a “Goals/Suggestions” section.  The goals won’t be to just write more; anyone can do that. The goal will be to write better.

Along the way, I plan to throw in a cat or two. Sorry, they just have a way of sneaking into my blogs.

C is for Complements and Compliments:  So What? Who Cares?

Complements and compliments often get mixed up in writing; in fact, these two words are on many common error in writing lists. This is a usage problem, not a grammar problem. Personally, I prefer compliments, but complements can be very effective in writing when used wisely.

Usage: complement and compliment

Usage is the customary way we use words in Standard Written English. Unfortunately, we sometimes switch words that sound alike but have different spellings and meanings. Complement and compliment are two of these commonly confused words. The chart below summarizes definitions, examples, and memory tricks to help avoid this mix-up.

Grammar: Complement

Everyone loves compliments, but the word compliment is not a grammatical term, so we can drop that word from our discussion.  Complement, on the other hand, is a much more functional term. It is a grammatical term, and it has the power to improve your writing skills.

A complement is a word or group of words that, with the verb, complete the structure and meaning in the predicate of a sentence. (Webster’s) Complements take two forms: predicate nouns and predicate adjectives. Both give more information about the subject of the sentence. Both fall in a common sentence pattern:  S  +   LV   +   C.

Just as little children learn language patterns through listening and speaking without ever learning the grammatical terminology, we have learned about subject complements without having to memorize the terms.

So What? Who Cares?

You already know about complements intuitively from using our language for so many years, so why bother to review this?  Why? Because complements affect style in writing, and style sets you apart from other writers.

 Style

Everyone learns about basic sentence structure in the elementary grades. Even with snow days, field trips, bomb scares, and tie-dying days thrown in to interrupt the teaching schedules, everyone seems to learn about the basic sentence types: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex. Students and writers use these types of sentences in their writing without even thinking about the terms. Yet those writers who do know these terms and how they function learn to manipulate their sentence structure and vocabulary to have a stronger impact on their readers. Here is how you can do this, too.

1.       Count your izzes and wazzes, then exchange these weak verbs for stronger ones.

Complements require the use of linking verbs, thus these verbs become very repetitive. Because they are so overused, they are weak. Count how many times you use linking verbs in your sentences, and you will discover an opportunity to sharpen your writing.

Mr. Terry is a hiker.

Mr. Terry hikes on the Appalachian Trail even when a blizzard swirls around him.

2.        Choose more specific adjectives. Add specific detail.

“Show, don’t tell” is a common piece of advice for writers. When we replace weak adjectives with stronger verbs and add more specific detail, we strengthen our writing.

Mr. Terry is tired. He is stumbling through the deep snow.

Mr. Terry trudges through the deep snow of the Appalachian Trail, moving only a few yards before he has to rest on his walking poles.

3.         Introduce word pairs and trios in place of vague adjectives and try them in different places.

Mr. Terry is tired.

Mr. Terry is stumbling through the snow, breathing heavily, and mumbling to himself. He is panicking because the storm has intensified, and he cannot see the next trail marker.

Stumbling through the snow, breathing heavily, and mumbling to himself, Mr. Terry panics when he can’t locate the next trail marker.

4.       Use comparisons: similes and metaphors.

Initially students write common comparisons, but we can encourage them to use original comparisons.

Mr. Terry is as tired as an old man after working all day.

Mr. Terry feels as tired as a hiker on Mount Everest without a Sherpa to carry his overstuffed backpack.

Feeling as tired as a hiker on Mount Everest without a Sherpa to carry his overstuffed backpack, Mr. Terry falls into a deep sleep in a mountain shelter near the trail.

Half the fun of writing is manipulating words and sentences to make them more interesting. Have fun with complements. I’m sure you’ll do a good job. That’s a compliment!

The Last Meow

Here’s a little kitty that loves the snow.

Writers and cats go together like chocolate and peanuts. Here’s a link to a post I wrote last year entitled, Cat-A-Log of Cat Crimes against Writers. You might enjoy reading about these crime perpetuators. https://janiceheck.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/a-to-z-c-is-for-cat-a-log-of-cat-crimes-against-writers/

Alison at alisonamazed likes kitties, too. Her post has a neat video of a cat leading a dog on a leash back to their home.

http://alisonamazed.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/a-z-gratitude-c-is-for-cats/

B is for Blogging Bliss, Boohoos, and Booyahs

April 2013 A to Z Challenge: 26 days. 26 posts. (Sundays are freebee days. *clap* clap* clap.*)

I joined the A to Z Challenge last year and despite some nail biting and hair pulling, I finished. Booyah.

Would I do that again? Hmmm.

But here it is again, the 2013 A to Z Challenge with 1969 participants lined up at the starting line. How many of us will make it to the end?  Well, one day at a time. Let’s just see how it goes. How far will we get before life interferes and brings us back to reality? In the meantime, let’s have some fun.

My theme for this year is . . .

Writing PLUS Grammar You Can See.

Through the month of April, I plan to give examples of how a strong knowledge of grammar can help writers produce more effective writing. More effective writing improves communication.

Along the way, I plan to throw in a cat or two. Sorry, they just have a way of sneaking into my blogs.

B is for Blogging Bliss, Booboos, and Booyahs

Blogging is a good way to develop your writing skill. Take a letter of the alphabet and write a brief commentary on it, add a picture, and post. Easy. Right?

Last year I published 67 posts before I caved in and took a hiatus. I went through the whole blogging learning curve, from dimwit to getting it. I managed to finish the A to Z, then added an equal number of posts on random topics of food, travel, weather, health, grammar, cats, and assorted other you-name-it topics.

Then along came a cold and nasty winter along with brain freeze, travel-to-warmer-climes wishes, and drat-it-all, family health issues.  Blogging fell by the wayside, until *tadah* the announcement of the 2013 A to Z Challenge. Memories of blogging past seemed blissful. Yes, I can do that. I did it once. I can do it again. I remembered the double-punch-in-the-air booyahs I gave myself when I published blog post number 26 in 2012. What could be more fun?

Boohoos

Theoretically, it should have been easy. I pulled up my dormant WordPress blog, raring to go. But yikes.  It looked different.  It was uncooperative and frustrating. Sometime during my absence, WordPress came in and changed a few things.

I couldn’t find my old media. I couldn’t pull up all my photo folders from my computer to select media (only some of them came up). I couldn’t remember how to add widgets.

Draft after draft disappeared. I typed and saved and typed and saved only to see my best wording and glamorous writing get swallowed up by who knows what? Whatever. Not once. Multiple times.

One post. Four hours and nothing final to show for it. Paranoia set in. I started saving drafts every two minutes, but I still lost my most recent draft.

Now I see. Part of this process is learning humility. Developing patience. Building character. I had to start back at the bottom of the learning curve again, back where it says, “Dimwit.”  Boohoo.

Okay, enough of that. Thankfully, I have already found some helpful advice from other AtoZers. Thanks, guys.

Booyahs

Along the way back up the learning curve, I outsmarted WordPress and printed off a hard copy of my post, well, several hard copies. Why hadn’t I thought of that before?

I also knew WordPress must be saving these drafts somewhere, but where? After a little exploration, I found “Screen Options” and under that “revisions,” and there I found draft after draft of my post all neatly numbered and dated.

Booyah.

Now to solve the widget puzzle.

In the meantime, booyah! B is done.

So What? Who Cares?

When out to dinner with friends a month or so ago, the topic of blogging came up. “Who reads your blog?” someone asked.  The obvious answer, “my husband;  my sister-in-law, Carol; and my blogger friends.”

Without readers, our blogs would have little purpose. We are all in this A to Z Challenge together. Reading each other’s blogs and making comments motivates us to keep going.

Blogger responses to my A blog mentioned a few grammar pet peeves: apostrophe abuse, contractions abuse, and plurals abuse. I’ll write about these in future posts. Thanks family, followers, and friends for your comments.

The Last Meow

Since this is B day, here’s a little cat humor for you. What do cats read on B day?

April 2013 A to Z Challenge

April 2013        A to Z Challenge

26 letters of the alphabet, 26 days, 26 posts

Arlee Post started A to Z in 2010 with an initial 100 intrepid bloggers. A to Z has now grown to over 1700 bloggers with just six hours to go on the countdown clock.

This year our faithful challenge organizers have encouraged participants to develop a theme for posts rather than write on random topics as many of us did last year.

My theme for 2013: Writing PLUS Grammar You Can See

A strong knowledge of grammar helps writers produce more effective writing; more effective writing improves communication.

Each post will feature one aspect of writing with a grammar connection. Most posts will include a “So What? Who Cares?” section and a “Goals for ___________” section.  The goals won’t be to just write more; anyone can do that. The goal will be to write better . . . and that includes me. Perhaps you, the reader, will help with some tips and comments for me. I would love that.

Of course, the danger in doing a blog on writing and grammar is that the grammar police, the trolls, and the technicality specialists will be on the lookout for my mistakes, both minute and egregious. Writers who write about writing have to look both ways before crossing the street otherwise trolls driving semis will smash them off the road.

My first few posts are ready. We’ll start with some easy stuff and go on from there.

April 1     A is for Adjectives, Anteaters, Armadillos, and Aardvarks

April 2     B is for Blogging Bliss,  Boohahs, and Booyahs

April 3     C is for Complement and Compliment Complexities

Writing can be fun, and grammar can be fun, too. Elizabeth Fais of writersinthestorm reminds us that “Making something fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior.”  Maybe we can have a little grammar fun as we take this ride on the A to Z.

Why not follow along? Perhaps we’ll come across a few of your pet peeves related to grammar.

You do have some pet peeves, don’t you? Let me know what they are. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Italy: Bike Tour in Florence

Want a fun way to get a quick orientation to Florence? Try a bike tour.

On our recent trip to Italy, my travel companions, Carol, Christine, Inger-Anne, and I joined three others travelers and our tour leader, Valentina, for an exhilarating early evening bike tour around Florence. Not only did we get a general orientation of the city on the bike ride, we got a little exercise and made some new friends.

Florence has a flat landscape, so the challenge level of our tour was just right. The evening tour lasted two-and-a-half hours and covered eight kilometers. In a bold and innovative move in 1988, the leaders of Florence banned all cars from the center city streets making them safer, not only for pedestrians, but also for our little bike tour.

The only mishap on our tour occurred early in the trip just a few blocks from the bike tour office. Christine’s bike threw its chain, and our intrepid, multi-talented tour leader, Valentina, after first attempting to fix it, quickly wheeled the bike back to the shop for a replacement. The rest of us chatted in a traffic-free alley; that is, until a horse and carriage driver came along and offered us a ride home. We declined.

Minutes later, Valentina returned with a new bike for Christine. We continued on our journey, stopping at various points to hear important information about historical, political, cultural, and economic events, structures, and artifacts of Florence.

As we were were riding through Florence, hearing those famous and notorious historical names, I couldn’t help but remember my Gordon College history professor, Dr. David Franz, our European Seminars, and my first European traveling companions. That was exactly 50 years ago!

Valentina led us first to the Piazza del Duomo, one of the most popular tourist spots in Florence. This piazza was a bit crowded with tourists, so we had to use our little ta-ling, ta-ling bike bells to warn pedestrians of our presence.

The Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore (Holy Mary with Flower) dominates the Piazza del Duomo. The original church on this spot, the Santa Reparata, was built in the fourth century but razed in 1296 to make way for the current cathedral. The cathedral’s huge dome, designed by Filippi Brunelleschi in 1420, took twenty-six years to finish and is a major architectural achievement. The Campanile (bell tower), designed by Giotto in 1334, was completed in 1359. The cathedral’s red, white, and green marble facade was finally completed in 1887. This cathedral has a long history!

We parked our bikes for a few minutes while Valentina pointed out the “Gates of Paradise,” the East Doors to the Baptistry, designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1421 to mark the end of the great plague that killed so many Europeans. These doors featured new design ideas, replacing the Florentine Gothic style and opening a new period in history: the Renaissance. The doors depict ten major biblical events.

Next stop: Santa Croce (1294), the church where Michelangelo (1475-1564, artist, sculptor, architect), Galileo (1564-1642, astronomer, mathematician, and physicist), and Machiavelli (1409-1527, author of The Prince, the original how-to book on political ruthlessness) are buried.

At one point on our tour route, a crowd gathered at a busy corner on both sides of the bike path. They waved their jackets and cheered us on as though we were Olympic champions on our final push to the finish line and our gold, silver, and bronze medals. Wish I had gotten a picture of that!

We stopped on a bridge crossing the Arno for a group picture (sans Olympic awards), then rode along Lungarno Torrigiani towards the Ponte Vecchio.

Valentina pointed out the high-water mark, 19.5 feet above street level (the white bar above the arched window of Vittorio Cuoio D’Arte Fiorentina) from the Arno floods of 1966 that caused significant damage and loss to irreplaceable art treasures. Restoration of some of those art treasures continues even today.

At the Ponte Vecchio, the oldest existing bridge in Florence, and the only one to survive WW II bombing, we politely walked our bikes through the crowd strolling amongst the gold and silver shops. We definitely planned to visit this unique and bustling spot again and mayby even leave a few euros there.

Next we headed to the Piazza della Signoria where we saw the Medici Palace, the Uffizi Gallery, and the original statues at the Fountain of Nepture (Bartolomeo Ammannati, 1575), as well as a copy of Michelangelo’s David at the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio. (The original 17-foot-tall David is located in the Galleria dell’ Accademia, to be visited on another day; a second copy of David is in the Piazzale Michelangelo on the other side of the Arno River.)

The very powerful Medici family ruled in Florence from 1434 until 1743 with brief interruptions. They were patrons of the arts and commissioned some of the great Renaissance works that are now housed in the Uffizi Gallery. Across the Arno River, the Palatine Gallery at the Pitti Palace holds more medieval and Renaissance paintings.

The kingdom of Italy was established in 1861 with King Victor Emmanuel II. Florence became its capitol. (Rome was still under Papal control but became the capitol city in 1870.)

After a number of turbulent years (including World Wars) Italy became a democratic republic in 1946. Twelve million voters rejected the monarchy in a referendum.

The political, religious, and economic aspects of Florentine history are so intertwined. It is fascinating to dig into the details, but it can also become quite confusing!

Perseus holds the head of Medusa (Cellini, 1554) in a gesture of conquest, a warning to enemies  of Cosimo I: “Beware this will happen to you.” Near Perseus, numerous ancient Roman statues stand in the Loggia dei Lanzi (di Orcagna, 1382).

At dusk, we arrived at the Piazza della Republica, the exact center of Florence. Here Valentina showed us a cast iron map of old Florence and pointed out where we had ridden on our bike tour. Across the piazza we saw a marvelous merry-go-round giving rides to children and care-free adults .

Minutes later we parked our bikes, said good-bye to Valentina, then wandered through cobbled alleys back to the Piazza della Signoria on our way to the train station. We saw and heard the ubiquitous musical groups beginning their evening performances. The lights of the piazza, the sounds of the merry-go-round, and the musicians contributed to the pleasant after-glow feeling we had about our bike tour in Florence. Thanks, Valentina! The bike tour was fun and very educational. You did a great job!

Christine Kolstad photo of the Arno River at sundown.

All in all, this bike tour was our favorite activity in Florence. Try it if you travel to Florence.

For a brief video on this bike tour, click here.  (Look at the right hand side panel for the small video window, then click on it.)