What Love Looks Like After 60+ Years

Two shots of my grandparents from Grandpa's birthday last Fall.

Gotta Love Communist Italian Protesters

Here.

(LvDrudge.)

Another View From Atop the Big Tower

This, I believe, is the church of San Domenico.

Vertigo?

I think I mentioned the other day that I climbed up the tower of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, which I believe is either the tallest or second-tallest secular structure in Italy, and it's 505 steps to get to the top. This is a shot of the Campo from either the very top or a look-out point just a little ways from the very top--I can't remember which, but I think it's the latter. That's a fountain down there (and not a terribly small one), and those are full-size human beings, not some specks on the lens of the camera.

Allison Having a Really Really Ridiculously Good Time on the Steps of the Duomo in Siena

We Are Sienese If You Please

So one thing that lots of people apparently like to do in Siena is to lie down in the Campo, the huge piazza where they have bareback horse races twice every summer (perhaps more on that later). It is true that sometimes people merely sit there.

But more often than not, they lie.

Or, rather, that is what late teens and adults generally do. If you are a very small child, for some reason you throw enormous amounts of confetti (and sometimes use silly string as well) all over the piazza, even if there is a city employee standing right next to you who is obviously engaged in the task of attempting to clean the piazza via sweeping confetti with a very antiquated-looking broom. Here is one such worker.


On a note unrelated to the foregoing, here is something interesting about the Duomo. In the 14th century, the Sienese decided to add a new nave to the church so that it would be the biggest in Christendom. Then some very, very bad things happened, such as the Black Death. Work was stopped and the project was never finished, and stands to this day as it was left.

Siena (1)

Allison and I got back last night from a couple-day trip up to Siena, rival of the powerful Florentines in days of yore. We'll try to get some more pics up soon, but here are a couple. The first is some rooftops and the Duomo and campanile, taken part-way up the tower of the Palazzo Pubblico.

The second is the two of us enjoying ourselves somewhere. I can't tell where it is, because it's kind of hard to get a lot of background in the shot when your range for taking the picture is the same as the length of your arm.

One More from Pompeii

This one's a monument from the necropolis (burial ground) just outside the city on the way to the Villa of the Mysteries.

There probably won't be any updates for a couple of days...until then!