Florence blog

They say that carnivals usually bring violence, fighting, too much excess, party without limits and loss. Of course, the long tradition of carnivals have so many stories that it’s impossible to tell them all, good or bad. Carnivals around the world are the precise tim to let go and cheer up to carry on celebrating. Perhaps the most colourful traditional celebrations, the carnival ones, are those that unite everyone in a party of dancing, music and colour.

In the same way, carnivals are a singular moment when all cultures unite and can show the most colourful side of their traditions, all of them represented in light and costumes. Once again, wrapping the body with festive or allegoric costumes make communities discover unusual celebration experiences and, generally, the costumes refer to particular regions, the history of the place and the great character of the party itself.

What costume do you choose in order to be part of the carnival? Perhaps in an Italian carnival, an essential item is the beautiful mask, that you can find in all types, sizes and colours. Then dress with lively colours, whether it’s red, blue, yellow or green and a tunic or a light garment will be the best things you can use to be part of the celebration on those dates. Florence is one of the cities that offers best options when it comes to purchasing an adequate costume, a unique and interesting one. You have to arrive in good time though, if you’re thinking of sorting out your whole costume in Florence itself.

In the same way, an open attitude to adventure can be your best way to get to know new people, explore new options of fun and, who knows, maybe some romance too. A chance like the one where you use a costume and a mask allows you to become someone else, become a different person and modify your personality according to the carnival character that you are. Don’t doubt in experimenting with your personality when you’re dressed up and ready for the party. In Florence, everything in possible. This beautiful city still preserves the charm of its past centuries that has conquered so many travellers from around the world.

Once in Florence, you’re just a step away from one of the most successful and famous carnivals in the whole of Italy, no less than the Carnival of Viareggio, in the town with the same name. It will take you only an hour and a half to arrive there. The carnival is divided in four Sundays and a Saturday. The dates are the 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th of February and Saturday 3rd of March. You can buy the whole packet or simply go on the dates that are best for you from Florence. The train trip is very comfortable, you’ll enjoy beautiful views going towards the fun that awaits in Viareggio. For more information click the following link: http://www.viareggio.ilcarnevale.com/

Alexa Ray

Get apartments in Florence and travel to the famous Carnival of Viareggio. Days of light, colour and fun await you in this typical Italian celebration.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Florence is known for its history. Many people know the Renaissance and the monumental amount of classics that emerged from this magnificent city including: Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Dante. But Florence also embarks on modernity, and many attractions go beyond the traditional, while offering locals and tourists, many ways to enjoy the nightlife, contemporary art and current band concerts, among others.

Florence is also a city of students from all over the world, which makes its nightlife to be diverse and vibrant. Over the current sounds, clubs and bars are changing transmissions according to the interests of their young and giddy audience. Like other cities in Italy, fashion and style are part of everyday’s life, in this emerging youth scene, which is not afraid of taking risks with the most “hipster” of the moment, and fashionable sounds Pitchfork recommended. Bars, clubs and zones “underground” are at your disposal without exploring with some curiosity and enthusiasm.

You can spend whole nights traveling from cocktail to cocktail and from bar to bar, tasting tapas and food from the most exotic and diverse type. Unlike other European cities, spontaneity is a typical resource in Florence, it is not enough to make a safe plan on how to end the night, a target can lead to another and so unexpected you embark on an intense and colorful festival. Much information is at your disposal in bars and streets, from flyers, fanzines, posters, can be guided by the secret routes and modern Florence.

One of the classic places for concerts in Florence is the Palasport, where some of the most interesting bands of the moment are presented in spectacular concerts. People like Marilyn Manson, Eric Clapton, The Cranberries, The Cure, Bob Dylan, Iron Maiden, have offered concerts at this legendary concert place.

Among the most important clubs you can visit, there is the H202, where techno music is the daily bread. In the H202, you will find a very young community of local and international students who do not lose the opportunity to leave everything on the dance floor until four in the morning. Another inevitable choice of the night in Florence is the Meccano club, with two endless dance floors, ambient lighting and fanciful cocktails, this disco guarantees house music, techno and R & B. During the summer one of its tracks are outdoors, where you have access to a night of dancing fresh and inviting. The non-stop action continues on Tenax, another temple of techno and progressive house. In addition to huge dance floor, Tenax are some of the best alternative concerts in the city.

Alexa Ray

Get apartments in Florence and enjoy its young and modern scene. The clubs, bars and nightclubs are the best in Italy: party nights and endless action guaranteed.

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Translated by: Hans
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The technology which is upon us today cannot compare with the technology from 500 years ago. It might be an obvious point, but the concept of technology has existed in all ages, from the appearance of fire and the wheel to the development of the first weapons and transport vehicles, as well as space ships and Facebook. Each time goes hand in hand with the technology it requires and which generates itself with the passing of time. Men are prepared to die. Technology is left as a trace of the cultural advance of humanity, in spite of man himself, with the contradictions of some of our inventions. However, geniuses are necessary, because they bring important solutions to our lives. Leonardo Da Vinci was definitely a forerunner with vast knowledge.

In everyday life we’re overcome with the effects and uses of technology which with, above all, we communicate in this day and age. The almost omnipresence which the social networks facilitate in such broad aspects of communication, from video transmission, image and text, to the transfer of information to unimaginable distances in real time, make us even bigger participants of the course of technology and the way that it affects us. Whether we believe it or not, our bodies and minds are conditioned to the new artifacts that we produce and, in this way, life seems to be more practical, maybe more profitable and useful. And the risk is, of course, to allow technology to take us over. The future is already written in many films and novels.

Leonardo Da Vinci was undoubtedly one of the writers of contemporary future, writers in the way that in both their art and their dedication to the creation of new objects and artifacts make them a vanishing point to understand the vision of the future or the desire of the future which they had in the past. From ways to fly, submarines or war machines, as well as different studies on the human body and even his already vegetarian character, with a unique dignity and respect towards animals, define him as a central figure of modern culture. The impact of many of his inventions is in the artifacts that we use today. It’s difficult to image what Leonardo would have thought on the advances of our technology of today, he might have been horrified.

To get to know more about this fabulous work and its impact on our technology, visit the Galleria Michelangelo in Florence, which today has the biggest private collection of machines of the great Leonardo. The prices are relatively cheap, and you can make group visits. Also, Florence presents some of the best museums in Europe, an essential point to understand the Renaissance and contemporary culture. For more information visit the following webpage: http://www.macchinedileonardo.com/

Alexa Ray

Get apartments in Florence and discover a bit more about its fabulous history, as well as the life and work of the great Leonardo Da Vinci.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Since its inception, the LGBT community has created various events, marches, happenings, different protest  options as well as information dissemination and educational meetings  to create a better dialogue with the dominant hetero  culture  which remains nowadays as the general sexual pattern in Western society.  Despite that there have been  many centuries of gay and lesbian knowledge and practices, the heterosexual community continues to dominate the planet. The presence of religious texts like the Bible as well as many other texts of a religious order, let us know that  the line of religion and political power have always been together. This is not new, certainly religious beliefs or faiths  of any creed are above any book, religion or faith. The church above all, “churches” have served as centers of education and control of prevailing political powers.

Let’s say that today, in Europe and elsewhere, governments have a secular tendency. But what is apparently “secular” does not necessarily mean “tolerant.” Think of recent bans in France with regard to the prohibitions to pray or pray in public, among others prohibitions. What will be the next step? And what happens if one is gay and Muslim at the same time? Again, faith is above any sexual orientation, but political and religious controls demonize this reality, deny it. It is clear that the Muslim culture is much more anti-tolerant to these options. However, the reality of the Judeo-Christian “Western” society is not so different.

The Catholic Church has always been a very strong in Italy. Where the Vatican coffers and retains all its inexhaustible sources of money, of which not much is said, and the fact is that the LGBT community is not necessarily appropriate. Over the years, this has been changing and it is increasingly recognized that the LGBT community is more than present in Italy this has been possible thanks to a large number of activists, protests, cultural events and celebrations that provide presence the ever emerging LGBT community. Among these options you have the LGBT International Film Festival in Florence, which runs from November 25th to December 1st. The best of gay , lesbian, queer, LGBT cinema, call it as you like is ready to be viewed and enjoyed. The truth is that there is difference, and the difference is what really counts. For more information, visit this site:

queer festival” href=”http://www.florencequeerfestival.it” target=”_blank”>http://www.florencequeerfestival.it

Alexa Ray

Get apartments in Florence and be part of this important LGBT film festival. Florence awaits you with its beautiful streets, history and artistic tradition. Perhaps one of the most romantic places remaining in old Europe.

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Translated by: Marc
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Pop icons usually dissolve quickly. Only some are still standing strong in the height of their career, still thrilling their crowd despite the years, creating sound dreams on the radio, that’s gone, that’s not there anymore, but which brings so much nostalgia. George Michael has known how to maintain himself, despite the years, as an interesting pop figure, with wide silences and distances, which has known how to make of his career an elegant pop trip, without falls or major stumbles. To think of it in another way, for example, when was the last time you heard something about George Michael, positive or negative? Well that’s the distance that places an artist in a unique position, where without recharged compromises he can have the freedom to carry on creating and being fabulous.

If, for example, you have the case of someone like Lady Gaga, it’s a different matter. Lady Gaga is, undoubtedly, talented but it seems that her reign is sustained by thousands of Twitter accounts, Facebook visits and Youtube. Of course, all of these are means in which social networks work efficiently, but little to they have to do with the original artist texture. Lady Gaga is of course the media product of today, a machinery of meanings and connotations that are incredibly post-modern. If Slavoj Zizek used to go out with her, allegedly, go figure. George Michael, however, maintains the charm and the magic that once held him as one of the 80s best singers, because it has to be said that with him, it’s not just a pretty face and elegance but also a particular style in his voice, that whispers, traps and wraps one sensually.

It has to be said that during the start of George Michael’s career, with the band Wham! together with Andrew Ridgeley, George created some of the best hits of the 80s, like ‘Wake me before you go-go’ or ‘Careless Whisper’, a romantic song with a sensual and sexual saxophone tone that, surely, warmed up thousands of love beds around the globe. Wham! only recorded three albums in its short time between 1983 and 1986, but it sold over 20 million copies of their work. George Michael, on the other hand, always captivated the world with that wonderful smile, tender eyes, toned muscles and sexy movements, both men and women. Today, the already mature but not least sexy George Michael is on tour with ‘Symphonica: The Orchestral Tour’, which has been taking him around different points in Europe and the UK. If you want to see George Michael like never before, this is your chance. What better experience than to listen to ‘Careless Whisper’ with a symphonic orchestra in the background. For more information on this tour, as well as tickets for the concert in Florence, visit George Michael’s official webpage: http://www.georgemichael.com/

Alexa Ray

Nothing better than getting apartments in Florence and enjoying this living pop icon in this beautiful city. You can’t miss it.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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The direction of music changes with time and the years. In some way, today, music touches everyone in a direct or indirect way. All contemporary sensorial experience implies that sound is present, from art in all its shape to every day life, which also isn’t exempt from thousands of different sound experiences: melody, noise, rhythm; at hand to all ears. Sound also generates movement. Hundreds of frequencies all together in the universe generate more changes and transitions of matter, which with light generate life, death, blossoming and falls. Our daily experience is with sound as it is visual, probably over all other sense. The stimulations that reality generates in this way are processed as joint experiences of which we have to find a meaning and interpret towards where reality is leading us to. And despite being disperse, locked into our own little worlds, the human condition helps us share all of this.

Music also occupies a great part of our internet experience. Because of that, we’re not just willing to the presence of text and visual information with graphic design, art, video which generally shoots up our interaction on the net.  All of this accompanies daily life, it pronounces us and makes us pronounce ourselves. On the other hand, the same net has known how to take advantage of the new means of sound reproduction to be able to carry on commercializing with music and sound in general. Today, any genre is available on the internet, as are programmes to share files, which allow the global information exchange to be realtime, allowing us to share sounds from any part of the globe. The different platforms and social networks allow music to be in constant movement and effervescence.

There might not be a better place for pop music than the internet. That’s how many musical and audio commercial products can promote themselves at hair-raising speeds. Let’s say that more information doesn’t mean knowledge or experience. This way, people like Lady Gaga can manipulate a single and get thousands of users in a fraction of a second and convert a song into an instant hit. What guarantees the quality of this product, its attributes regarding a pop song, is not necessarily its value as a music piece but, now, the amount of views or re-tweets that it gets on the net. The more movement a product has, bigger its impact will be. What’s curious as well is that now we’re all active participants of these advertising processes, we risk at the time of posting, twittering or uploading information onto blogs. The trap of sound, like that, gets everywhere and in a thousand ways.

On the other hand, the real experience of the classic genre of Opera can only be lived in a concert or a live performance, and it’s truly indescribable. It distances itself from the previously states phenomenons and it is, undoubtedly, an interior exploration that can’t compare to other live shows. The Anual Opera Festival in Florence runs until the 13th of August and you can’t miss it. For more information visit this website: http://www.festivalopera.it/

Alexa Ray

To enjoy good music, nothing better than getting apartments in Florence and enjoying this beautiful city and its indescribable music.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Oh Florence! One of the most beautiful cities in Europe. As you know, Florence was the medieval trading center when the Medici family were the lords, it  was also the center of the Italian Renaissance: Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli… The art and architecture of Florence is something to fall in love with.., its narrow streets are full of curious passengers who crowd the city taking photos especially in the summer.

However, Florence is best at night, when tourists go to  sleep. Then the best that this city can offer starts. You can visit the Piazza di Santa Croce and Piazza della Signoria and enjoy the intimacy that darkness offer. Nothing sexier! Strolling across Ponte Vecchio has a super exciting atmosphere as you walk near the river.

On June 24th the Festa di San Giovanni & Calcio Storico Fiorentino, takes place, celebrating the patron saint of the city, San Juan Bautista. The festivities include beautiful fireworks that start at 22.00 hours until 23.00h. For a great viewing experience, please go to the banks of the Arno River, We guarantee an unforgettable experience. On the same day, the final futbol match with costumes is celebrated. Fiorentino Calcio Storico, which some claim to be the original source of modern football  (we mean American football or rugby football)

Although  it is not similar to American football, this competition probably dates from when soldiers  played in their camps between battles, as to maintain a strong muscular body, and as to improve or learn combat skills for young soldiers who were still being trained. Now, being all male full-contact sport, it’s a homoerotic delight  of color, sweat and strength that will zap your senses

And speaking of gay friendly speaking activities, the first gay disco in Italy was opened in Florence back in 1974. Today, the gay bars and clubs in the city are somewhat small but not impossible to find. Nevertheless, our beautiful Florence is still somewhat conservative … A club you cannot miss is the Crisco Club, promoted as as the “worst” gay bar in Florence on their own website, this place is highly recommended to leave it all behind and dance and act mega crazy. They also have a dark room where you can spend a “romantic” moment with new friends. They also organize theme parties, among others  the  ”Nude & Underwear” party  something to drool and to dance to all night long. Another good place worth visiting is club “Fabrik”,  15 km from Florence unmissable if you want a night of debauchery away from the city. Especially appealing to “Bears.” For more information on gay activities in Florence, you can visit this site

http://www.gayflorence.com/

SISTER RAY

So, nothing better than getting apartments in Florence and enjoy the festivities and beautiful places. Partying also involves walking the streets and exploring the night, because behind every night there is a story to remember, or you can write your own one

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Translated by: Marc
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