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Torre del Mangia (tower of the eater), located in Piazza Del Campo, built to the same height as the Duomo in Siena to signify quality between church and state. |
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Piazza Del Campo, with various friends and family. |
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Well... it's a well. |
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Duomo di Siena. The striped theme caries to the inside, symbolic of the colors of Siena, and the black and white horses of the city's founders. |
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Inside the duomo. |
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The dome, which is really a hexagon, painted to look like a round dome. |
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Lions/lionesses hold up 4 of the graphite/marble pillars for the pulpit. On the pulpit are 7 scenes depicting the life of Christ, but I didn't get a good picture of those. |
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The floor is covered in marble mosaics. This is one of the more famous depictions in the floor, showing the killing of the first-borns. You can see the mother's trying to protect their children, and some of the children already fallen. |
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The Piccolomini Library, in a room off to the side of the church. The colorfulness is almost overbearing... with ancient music books surrounding the room at the lower levels. |
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Hard to see, but he's playing a cross as you would a violin. |
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San Gimignano |
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Funeral... music reminded me of New Orleans style (from what I've seen in movies at least). |
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Well in the center of town (Piazza della Cisterna), a common gathering and meeting place in this small town. |
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The countryside around San Gimignano. |
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Bob, Mom and Me at San Gimignano - on the "free" tower up on the corner of town. It's really just a spot up on top of the old city wall, I wouldn't classify it as a tower, but it does provide great views without having to pay. I would've liked to go up one of the other towers, but nobody else wanted to go with me. |
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A few of the towers for whcih San Gimignano is famous. One of the oldest towns in the region, and the few where the towers have remained. The towers are from families of power, each of which had to build a tower taller than the others. |
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We all had dinner at the same place. What you see here was basically the whole restauarant. We filled all but a small table for two, many folks tried to stop by and were sadly turned away. |