Tag Archives: Cathedral

Florence in more depth

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Wednesday 7 May 2025 – Long Post Alert!

In what I suspect will be a relatively rare occurrence during this junket, we were allowed a lie-in to 7am before having to get under way for the day. The hotel offers a decent breakfast (meaning mainly that they have Earl Grey available) but in somewhat cramped conditions. No matter; at 0900 we were ready to meet our guide for the morning, Bianca.

She is clearly very knowledegable about Florence, its history and culture, and Jane very much enjoyed learning about Florence in more depth. Me, not so much; I had enormous difficulty penetrating Bianca’s very Italian delivery and accent, particularly as it was often set against the backdrop of traffic, roadworks and many, many large tour groups.

The city was crowded today – there were plenty of tourists and schoolkids in large groups, making me suspect that at least one large cruise liner had berthed at Livorno, and that this was the time of year that schools favoured for an attempt to inject kulcher into the little ones. The practical upshot was that I didn’t get a great deal of extra information from our tour. However, Jane did, so collectively we learned a lot and got some photos of wonderful places that we might not have otherwise found.

I’m not a habitual, practised or skillful street photographer, but Florence offers some nice vignettes, if you’re not careful. I managed to get told off several times during the day: taking photos of art sellers, who clearly didn’t appreciate  being photographed;

and photos from some angles which caused people in uniform in key locations to tell me to move away from where I was.

Standing on the wrong side of a piece of rope to avoid too many TV aerials interfering with a nice view of the cathedral cupola

Standing on a bench to capture a better angle of the Pieta in the Cathedral museum

I also captured a couple of vignettes of interesting people who may or may not have been couples;

OK, back to the mainstream of the day. We visited lots of very attractive and photogenic places:

The Academy of Fine Arts (this is the exit – we didn’t go in)

The local equivalent of the UK’s Ordnance Survey…

…with its fetching observatory on the roof

The Piazza della Santissima Annunziata – the Annunziata Church is on the left; on the right a hospital for foundlings

Annunziata Square (2)

The Annunziata Square was recommended by the driver who picked us up at the airport yesterday; he described it as “cute”, which is not, I think, the right word.  It’s a handsome square all right, featuring a particular Florentine architectural characteristic – the pillars and arches. The pillars form a cube which is of a consistent dimension wherever it’s used; and the arches form a hemisphere above the cube. The cube’s exact dimensions are based on an exact number of standard “forearm” measurements, documented elsewhere in the city;

 

each “forearm” is 56.83cm in length. This, by the way, is longer than my forearm by quite some margin, so I have no idea how they arrived at 56.83cm as “normal”.

One can see from the square to the Duomo, which makes the scene a favourite for wedding photographs.

A less appealing feature of the Annunziata Square is this:

The cloths hanging there are are a reminder of the prevalence of domestic violence in Italy. Each cloth represents the death, through domestic violence, of one woman – this year!

Inside the entrance of the Annunziata Church is a splendid cloister.

around the walls of which are some lovely artworks.

Outside the church is an arch

which contains a corridor, built for a lady of the Medici family who was severely disabled so that she could get to services in the church without having to negotiate stairs or other difficulties.

The buildings in the environs of the cathedral featured wine cellars, which were somewhat below street level. It was A Thing to greet cellar workers and ask for a glass of wine, which could be delivered once money had changed hands. This practice gave rise to “wine windows”

whereby one knocked on the door to gain attention, and a glass of wine could be served directly. A little further along was a similar-looking niche

but one too small to accommodate a wine bottle. This one originally had a wire and a pulley to allow the lowering of a lamp so it could be lit before being hauled back into place.

We were by this time adjacent to the cathedral, and Bianca took us round the building, telling us about some of the background to the details. One of the world’s largest churches, with the dome still the largest masonry dome ever constructed, all but the dome was complete by 1380, with the dome itself completed in 1436.

The extraordinary external decoration, in polychrome marble, was begun in the 14th century but not completed until 1887!

In the triangle, the Virgin Mary is depicted in an almond shape called a “mandorla” which is a symbol of the intersection between the divine and the human

 

Shields in the facade representing the families who gave funds towards its creation

Panels on the campanile (bell tower) tell the story of the creation: God creating Adam and Eve, here

More campanile panels showing the development of civilisation – science, construction, medicine and so forth

The amount of symbolism among the detail of the decor of the cathedral and campanile is utterly extraordinary. It’s clear that it takes a lot of work to maintain it; a gang was at work with a specially-developed cherry-picker

examining every single piece of marble by tapping it to make sure it is secure.

Our next major stop was the Palazzo Vecchio – the old palace – but en route we passed a vendor of street food

Tripe sandwiches a speciality!

and a modern Florentine craftsman – not a worker in wood of stone, but in metal.

Penko is one of the world’s most skillful goldsmiths – his work in gold and silver is exquisite.

Jane and I had passed the Palazzo Vecchio yesterday, noting it as an impressive slab of masonry; but Bianca took us inside, to an astonishing interior:

The coat of arms you can see in the above is the Medici coat of arms, demonstrating the power and influence they had in the development of the city.

Near the Palazzo Vecchio is the Accademia Gallery, which famously houses Michaelangelo’s statue of David. We weren’t about to join the long queue to see the real thing, but luckily there’s a copy outside the Palazzo Vechio. Jane took a photo of his bum, but I preferred a less prurient view

The David was originally intended to be mounted high on the cathedral for people to gaze up at

yes, on the stone just peeking above the screening; getting the perspective right for this location is said to be why the proportions of David are not quite “right” (although his bum appears to be perfectly well-formed, I’m told). Nearby is the Loggia dei Lanzi, a sort of open air sculpture gallery;  the Perseus with the Medusa head by Benvenuto Cellini is a notable example.

Bianca then led us down towards the Ponte Vecchio, via another “Tree of Life” sculpture by Roggi

which was commissioned to commemorate those killed in a Mafia car-bombing outrage on this spot in 1993. Nearby, on the outside of a neighbouring building, is another sculpture in tribute to heroism as a reaction to the bombing.

You’ll have seen yesterday’s photos of Ponte Vecchio, of course you have, but Bianca pointed out something that actually in theory I knew about but which I hadn’t noticed: the Medici Corridor. This is an extraordinary construction which allowed Grand Duke Cosimo I de Medici  to make his way from Palazzo Vecchio to Pitti Palace (south of the river, remember) – without touching the ground or, perish the thought, being seen in public. It runs right through the upper floor of the Uffizi Gallery, crosses over the road via the arch you see here,

goes along the upper storey of the Ponte Vecchio

and round corners as necessary

to get to its destination – a distance of just under a kilometre. Interestingly, the construction of this corridor led to a major change in the usage of Ponte Vecchio, which was originally the site for butchers and tanners shops (using the river as a handy waste disposal) but this was too smelly for the Grand Duke, and so a law was passed – in force still today – to ensure that only jewellers may trade on Ponte Vecchio.

The Ponte Vecchio was the only bridge over the Arno to be spared by the wartime German bombing campaign. No-one knows exactly why; although they didn’t destroy the bridge itself they blocked access to it by bombing at each end, which explains the modern and ugly buildings to be seen close to either end of the bridge.

Bianca’s final offering was to take us to another church, still south of the river – Santa Felicita

which features in it an artwork depicting Christ being taken down from the cross.

It’s by Jacopo Pontormo, entitled The Deposition, an example of 16th century “Mannerist” style, which I invite you to look up for yourselves, By this stage, whilst being grateful for all the great things we’d seen and photographed, I found that my brain was full and my stomach was empty. So I for one was grateful when she left us at a recommended pizzeria, Casella 18, where we had a Nice Lunch. I recommend the Pizza Diavola (note the correct gendering here – British Diavolo pizzas have been misgendered for years).

Refreshed, we decided that we should attempt to get inside various parts of the cathedral complex, as we are gluttons for punishment as well as pizza. Amazingly, we managed to get tickets to go into the cathedral, the baptistry and the museum. We got them in a rather random fashion; looking for the ticket office, we stumbled across a helpful young lady who said that things were mainly sold out but the her colleague over there could sort us out a ticket for only 20 Euros each. Her colleague could indeed, but only for cash (which, remarkably, I had to hand). I thought at first that we were being conned, but no, it appeared to be legit.

Several astonishing moments then transpired: the enormous queues we had seen earlier evaporated; the fact that we were dressed in sandals was not, after all, a Dress Code Problem, and they didn’t mind me toting my penknife around with me inside any of these things. So we had a full house of cathedralness. First the main cathedral building, which is not, frankly, as awe-inspiring as one might have thought, given the outside, but it has some photogenic corners,

some nice marble flooring

with overtones of the almond shape,

some decent stained glass

and a wonderfully painted ceiling, a depiction of the Last Judgement, commissioned by Grand Duke Cosimo, on the inside of the cupola.

Actually, there was far more of a “wow” factor in the next-door Baptistry of Saint John. The origins of this building lie in the 11th or 12th centuries, although the remains of a large structure dating from Roman times lie beneath it.

The outside, principally white marble and green-black serpentinite, is not as exciting as the cathedral; but the inside is very eye-catching. Regrettably, the mosaic ceiling was under maintentance, so one couldn’t see the whole thing, which apparently looks like this;

Completed between towards the end of the 12th century, the ten million tesserae form Byzantine-style depictions of the lives of Joseph, Mary, Christ and John the Baptist, and the Last Judgement. We could see portions of it

outside the scaffolding

and other details of the building were simply wonderful,

and the marble floor tiling was lovely.

Our final stop was in the museum, which Jane particularly wanted to visit in order to see the “Florentine Pieta”, the scupture of Christ being taken down from the cross originally made by Michelangelo to decorate his own tomb. But first we had to find it, which involved bumbling around all three floors of a very museum-like building,

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occasionally taking note of details such as replicas of the Adam and Eve panels from the campanile

and various important doors,

and, in my case, being shouted at for crossing a rope to take a photo. In the end, all that climbing stairs was wasted, as the sculpture of Christ being taken from the cross by Nicodemus (whose face is considered to be a self-portrait), Mary and Mary Magdalene, was in a separate room on the ground floor, where I was admonished for standing on a bench to get a better angle. But here it is again

to round off a longish, satisfying and content-rich day. I apologise for the profusion of photos, but hope that, even if you got bored and skipped a few, you got an impression of the richness of art and architecture throughout the city. Since the plan is to visit the Uffizi Gallery tomorrow, there wil be even more, so brace yourselves!

After the Camino, part I – Santiago

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Sunday 1 October 2023 – I hope you’ll forgive a couple of days of not posting updates, but I haven’t had a lot of time, what with having Nice Lunches and that. After finishing the Camino last Thursday, we had three nights’ stay in Santiago before moving on. The first day we had a guided tour of the city; the second was spent on a day trip that included two other key Camino destinations. This post is about our time actually spent in the city. The photos are selected from pictures taken on the evening after we finished walking, during our guided tour and after it; no particular order, no particular theme, but I wanted to try to give some impression of the city.

Which is quite overwhelming. Getting back to dealing (a) with life in a bustling city after six weeks in the wilderness and (b) the sheer amount of detail, history and massive religious buildings was quite tricky. But here goes….

Let’s start with some statistics. These were reeled off by our guide, Joaquin,

among a vast gout of information which meant that our brains were full after only about 10 minutes.

Despite its feeling of huge size, Santiago is by no means the largest of the cities we passed through. Burgos has 350,000 residents, and León has over 122,000. Santiago has just 90,000 residents, but receives 2 million overnight stays each year, of which over 300,000 are pilgrims. The resulting crowds, buzz and ubiquity of great lumps of religious masonry means that Santiago felt much the largest of the three to me.

At the heart of the city is the cathedral. It is massive, a very imposing presence across the city.

The above video shows it mainly from the west; in front of it you can see a large square, the Praza do Obradoiro, which is where today’s pilgrims tend to end their Camino. There are also squares on the other three sides: North, the Praza de Inmaculada, the historical end of the Camino, where we bade farewell to Susan and Bob;

with its stunningly intricate façade;

and Praza da Quitana, to the East (pay attention, now; we’ll be returning here later).

To the south of the main bulk of the cathedral lies Praza das Praterias and the cloisters, which we visited as part of our time with Joaquin.

One interesting fact came out of the welter that Joaquin deluged us with – atop one tower is a pyramid shape influenced by the architect’s visit to Mexico where he saw Mayan pyramids. The other tower around the cloister is similarly Aztec-influenced.

In the centre of the cloister courtyard is a huge stone bowl, made in the Romanesque style,

which used to stand in the square to the north of the cathedral – the historical end of the pilgrimage. Its purpose was to enable pilgrims to finally wash and purify themselves as part of their pilgrimage. There were four parts to the ritual:

  1. Wash and purify
  2. Burn the old pilgrim’s robes
  3. Don fresh white robes
  4. Finally wear the cockle shell that the pilgrim had acquired from shell sellers (in the city, rather than by the sea shore)

This then granted a “plenary indulgence” – forgiveness for all past sins. I’ll return to this topic later as well, so better keep paying attention, here.

The cathedral was built between 1035 and 1211, which is a pretty impressive feat of building when you consider the vast size of it. It has been renovated in the 17th and 18th century with the last titivation being in the baroque style. This means that if you look at the building through the eyes of an architect you can see a great mixture of styles: medieval, romanesque and baroque.

Inside the cathedral is probably the most impressive of the three great Camino cathedrals – Burgos, León and Santiago – at least to my eyes.  The nave is large

whereas in Burgos, for example, the huge number of fancy chapels around the nave actually served to reduce its area and thus its impact. Notice the hortizontal organ pipes – these are are used for sound effects rather than musical notes.  Horizontal pipes were once very common, but almost all other sets have been discarded over the years.

Behind me, as I took the above photo, is the Portico of Glory, the original, and very imposing, entrance to the church. Entrance to the cathedral can be free, but if you want to see the Portico, which has been very carefully and beautifully restored, you have to pay extra and join timed groups of a couple of dozen at a time to stand and marvel at it. That’s all you can do, since the buggers won’t let you take photos of it, or touch it (the sculpted Tree of Jesse bears the marks of millions of pilgrims in the form of the deep imprints of fingers and thumb – but one can no longer place ones fingers into that piece of history).

Another way that the cathedral parts punters from their money concerns the eponymous St. James – Santiago, you’ll remember. His statue forms part of the altar piece, and for an extra consideration, people are allowed to file down into the crypt to view the actual tomb of the Saint, then queue up

and climb up behind the altar to “hug the saint” and whisper their problems to him in the hope of getting inspiration, resolution or absolution.

There is, of course, a wealth of detail in the endless architectural flourishes inside the cathedral. A couple of things stood out for me: some of the original windows at the back of the church,

which predate glass – they are actually wafer-thin slices of alabaster; the original medieval baptismal font, the oldest item in the cathedral, which survived the destruction of the original medieval building by the muslim hordes;

and some of the various chapels around the side of the nave are used for taking confession in various languages.

In my post about Villafranca, I mentioned the concept of Holy Doors – special doors passing through which (along with other flummery) confers a plenary indulgence. The one in the Santiago cathedral is not hugely imposing.

However, if you look at it from the outside, there’s an impressive portal.

Peering through the bars of this portal reveals a dark secret – the portal is kind of a fake.  Through the bars, you see

the back end of the original church building! This was deemed to be not impressive enough, and so the façade was put in place to gussy the whole thing up to give it more gravitas.

Another thing the cathedral is famous for is its thurible, which is vast – it weighs 60kg.

On holy days and religious festivals – and, yes, if one is prepared to stump up the necessary moolah – this incense burner, called the Botafumeiro, becomes the centre of a spectacular piece of theatre after communion has been taken at mass.

We were lucky enough to see this twice in one day – from the side, as above and, earlier in the day, from the back, by the Portico of Glory, which was better musically but not so impressive to see.

Joaquin got us into the cathedral early on in the day, which was good because one could take photos without there being too many crowds around. He also took us into the cloisters and the museum, where, as ever, he drowned us with fascinating facts which neither of us can easily remember. Taking of photos in the museum is not allowed (yawn), but I managed to sneak one shot of a prized item,

an alabaster-and-wood altar piece depicting the life of St. James. This is a pilgrimage offering from the 1456 Holy Year of Compostela carved in Nottinghamshire at the behest of “Johanes Gudguar” (thought to be the English priest John Goodyear from the Isle of Wight).

Outside the cathedral, as you can imagine, there’s an ongoing hive of activity, particularly on the huge western square, with pilgrims arriving, sometimes en masse, like this bunch of schoolkids who had just been on a one-day “pilgrimage”

There’s often a piper.

Bordering this western square,

are the Town Hall (on the left above) and the Hospital Real de Santiago de Compostela. This is now a posh Parador Hotel with an impressive entrance with bouncers an’ everyfink

but once it really was a hospital intended for pilgrims.  It’s a regrettable fact that around half of pilgrims never made it to Santiago, having died en route, or been killed, or any one of a number of causes. Having arrived in Santiago, a surprisingly large proprortion of them fell sick and many of them died, too – hence the need for the hospital. Originally pilgrims might sleep in the cathedral – women upstairs, men downstairs – but this became intolerable (I’ve heard it said that the huge incense burner was a defense against the smell!) and the hospital took over the brunt of this care.  Not all of them survived this care, so, conveniently next door to the Hospital is the Igrexa de San Frutuoso, which is where the bodies went – a funerary church.

Another interesting nugget from Joaquin was that pilgrims who had arrived safe and well often simply stayed in Santiago – I had assumed that they would just go back to where they came from, but this was apparently not the case. So there developed language-based communities of pilgrims across the the city, with French pigrims congregating in one part, Germans in another and so on.

One final piece of cathedraliana: the lightning conductors. There are three in the squares around the cathedral, and at street level they are lead into concrete posts.  In the Quintana square (remember that one?) after dark, the street lighting leads to an interesting illusion:

called the “Secret Pilgrim”. See?  It was worth paying attention, after all.

Other religious buildings that we noted included the Franciscan Church, just down from our hotel.

To the left in the picture above, you can see a remnant of the old city walls, with the church

therefore being outside the walls – no room for Franciscans in the city, it appears. On the other hand, just outside the cathedral and hence inside the city walls, is the Benedictine Monastery, Mosteiro de San Martiño Pinario.  This is so huge that it took me some time to realise that the front, by the cathedral

and the side, considerably nearer our hotel

were actually both parts of the same complex. The monks were once very rich and influential. so between 1835 and 1837, a series of decrees from Juan Álvarez Mendizábal was published, which confiscated, without compensation, monastic land estates. Well, if the dissolution of the monasteries was good enough for Henry VIII, it’s good enough for anyone, that’s clear.

Another subject that Joaquin covered was the pre-Roman history of Santiago, which means Celtic.  Something I hadn’t appreciated until walking the Camino was the extent of Celtic population and culture in Spain. Celtic presence may date back as far as the 6th century BC, until their influence was subsumed by the Roman Empire, starting from about the second century BC. There’s still evidence of Celtic culture in the presence of decorative materials (particularly jet) showing Celtic symbols

including a particular Celtic protective gesture to ward off evil.

Other things we saw included the market, Mercado de Abastos

the courtyard of the city library, which has a lovely cloisters

and features a statue of Alonso III de Fonseca, a Galician archbishop and politician and a major supporter of the university of Santiago de Compostela. He is depicted in a pose of deep thought

and not on his mobile phone, after all.

We wandered around other parts of the city, which is handsome

and quite busy in all the areas around the cathedral.  We even tried some shopping, as we wanted to buy for friends some of the so-called “Santiago Cake“, the almond cake with the St. James cross outlined on it, which is ubiquitous in these here parts. Seeking out an artisanal shop, we were spoiled for choice

but were allowed a taste test, which was nice of them.

This has only scratched the surface of our time in the city. For example, we had two Very Nice Lunches (a major factor in me not posting before now), at Asador Gonzaba where they served us 95% of a cow, and Casa Marcelo, where they served us what they chose; both very fine meals from very fine establishments. And we walked around for some 12km, almost none of which was on the straight and level – it’s quite the uppy and downy place.

As well as wandering the city, we had, as I mentioned earlier, a day trip to, inter alia, two important Camino destinations. It was an interesting trip and I’ll post about it in the next thrilling instalment. I bet you can’t wait, eh?

 

 

 

Camino Rest Day 3 – León

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Sunday 10 September 2023 – As you will have read (you will have, won’t you? Good!), we arrived here yesterday. Walking through the city to our hotel gave us a chance at some of the sights. Since our hotel room was available and a Nice Lunch was forthcoming there, we needed a walk afterwards, and we also went out during the evening to see if any of the sights looked nice lit up. Today we took another walk around, so we’ve covered a few miles and seen quite a lot of what the city has to offer,  It’s-a nice-a place – the centre is very handsome and has such a cosmopolitan feel that I actually found it difficult on occasions to remember that I was in Spain.

This post is going to be mainly just a selection of the photos I took, and most of them are of the many religious buildings that litter the place.  If you’re content with that, please read on….

The City

León has a long history, having been founded as the military encampment of the Roman Legio VI Victrix around 29 BC. So the city’s name comes from the latin for Legion, and not from Lion, although you’d never guess from the number of Lion statues around the place

The lion has also been adopted as a local emblem for the Camino

though this is apparently not popular and I’ve heard some of these signs even feature bullet holes. I’m not surprised; it’s a rubbish idea, and demeans the Camino, the animal and the City all at once.

In 1188, the city hosted the first Parliament in European history under the reign of Alfonso IX, and this is why it was acknowledged as the “cradle of Parliamentarism”. Now, the Icelanders might have a thing or two to say about that, since the Althingi, established in 930 AD, is often regarded as the world’s oldest extant parliamentary institution. However, it’s essential to note that it was a very different kind of assembly from modern parliaments, being an outdoor gathering of chieftains, rather than a systematic process of representation from local burghers as well as noblemen and clergy. The city’s prominence began to decline in the early Middle Ages, partly due to the loss of independence after the union of the Leonese kingdom with the Crown of Castile, consolidated in 1301. This still rankles with the locals; all over the place you can find signposts where the “Castilla y” part of “Castilla y León” has been black spray painted over. The signpost above is one of the few I saw where this had not happened.

After a period of stagnation during the early modern age, it was one of the first cities to hold an uprising in the Spanish War of Independence, and some years later, in 1833, acquired the status of provincial capital.  This chequered but consequential history goes a long way to explain why it is such an important city.

Religious buildings

Apart from the cathedral, there are many churches and other religious buildings across the city.  Our hotel, the Hotel Real Colegiata San Isidoro, is part of the fabric of the Basilica of San Isidoro, which has a striking interior.

and also features a museum.   I took some unofficial photos in the museum.

Some of the books date from the 16th century

In the Pantheon part, they actually police the prohibition of taking photos, so I was reduced to buying a couple showing the Pantheon and some of the mural painting that has survived nearly a thousand years.

The Basilica has some lovely cloisters.

Somewhat away from the old town is the Convento de San Marcos, which has a splendid portico

and much of which is now a parador hotel (featured in the “The Way” film, apparently.

And of course, there is the cathedral.

In the 100 years after the Moors were defeated, 200 Christian cathedrals were built over Iberia. The three largest are Toledo, Burgos and, yes, León. It gives less of its interior over to the vast number of chapels that there are in the Burgos cathedral, so the inside space feels much larger.

It’s difficult to realise from the outside, but inside is one of the largest arrays of stained glass anywhere.

The choir is exquisitely carved.

The stained glass is so famous that people even use it as a garage door decoration.

The cathedral also has very grand cloisters.

There are, of course, other churches, such as the Iglesia de Santa María del Camino o del Mercado, on Plaza del Grano.

Thinking of which, there are lots of plazas, such as del Grano,

several smaller ones, inevitably with a selection of bars and restaurants,

the main one, of course, being the Plaza Mayor.

The plazas tend to feature buildings with cloisters or galleries under building overhangs,

All around the place you find statuary

The above is on a plaza outside a building designed by the famous Antoni Gaudi, whose buildings contribute to the unique feel of Barcelona. This one, by comparison is somewhat muted,

but still features an extravagant entrance.

There are other lovely architectural settings, too numerous to articulate in full.

but the tout ensemble makes the old town a very pleasant place to wander about. As we did so, it was nice to bump into some of our “Camino Family” – Molly and Mike from Minnesota, and Petra and Tom from Kõln. In the evenings, some places are lit up. This makes the cathedral even more impressive, for example.

and the shopping streets, which feature innumerable bars and restaurants, have a wonderful buzz about them.

Mind you, occasionally things take a slightly more rowdy turn, such as when we came across this bachelor party celebration in one of those plazas.

León has provided a wonderful break from walking the Camino, but we have to get back on it tomorrow.  We will retrace our steps to the convent and cross the Roman San Marcos bridge

as we make our way towards Villar del Mazerife, about 23km away – a medium-distance walk which we hope will get us back into the swing of progressing along The Way. We’re hoping for decent weather, of course, as we start this next segment of the Camino. Do please keep in touch so you can find out how it all works out, eh?