Zim’s

This one is going to have to be brief as I’m in the lobby of our hotel in Rome (the only place where the WiFi seems to reach, though otherwise the hotel is good) and I’ve only got 20 minutes worth of juice left in the laptop.

When we last updated you we were in Florence. We took two day trips from there before heading to Rome where we’ve been for the last two days. Rome is fantastic and they’re right when they say a lifetime is not enough to see all the sights but that’s another update.

Our first trip was to the small town (~50,000) of Siena. Siena was Florence’s arch rival in the the 12th and 13th century but Siena didn’t have the quite the political connections of the Medici who ruled Florence so in the end the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V handed Siena over to Cosimo Medici as a gift in 1555. Siena today is a ‘company’ town with the bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena (founded in 1472) being the main employer besides tourism.

We spent the early part of our day in Siena’s main square. The building at the lower end of the square is the Palazzo Comunale, the tower is the Torre del Mangia. The people you see waving the flags are supporters of the Siena football team who had a match that evening and hold a rally in the square before each game. Kind of an Italian tailgate, though they might want to import a Browns fan or two to show them how to take things to the next level. Anyone know if Siena won last week?

After the square we went wandering outside the town and got pleasantly lost in the Tuscan countryside.

We managed to find our way back in time for a late lunch and then off to you guessed it the cathedral. This one was begun in 1196 with the first phase completed in 1215. The mosaics decorating it are from the 19th century however. The other thing you’ll notice is the she-wolf with Romulus and Remus usually associated with Rome. Legend has it that Siena was founded by one of Remus’ sons so the wolf is everywhere in Siena as well.

All in all a great day, with great weather in a wonderful quaint little town. Our only regret was that we missed their famous horse race around the square, but we’ll be back for it soon. One last Siena shot that I think in a strange way captures the place.

The following day we hoped the train for Pisa. Had a great train ride, we sat across from two American’s and a Japanese lady who were all studying painting in Florence and they gave us a few good tips for Napoli and also helped us with a few additional phrases in Italian.

Of course in Pisa the thing to see is the leaning tower or Torre Pendente. Like I expect most people I had always thought (the few times I ever thought about it) that the tower must have once been straight and started to lean over time as the foundation shifted. Wrong. The tower started leaning almost immediately while it was being built, by the time it had reached it’s third tier in fact. The architect (Bonanno Pisano) and his various sucessors tried to stop the lean without success. The tower today does however lean less than it used to. In 1998 cables were wrapped around it and soil from the north (high) side was removed, as a result the tower lost 40cm of it’s lean, down to 4.1 meters off centre at the top.

Of course Pisa, like every town in Italy (and a few in France) has a Piazza Girabaldi. And of course a problem with grafitti, I’m not a fan of grafitti at the best of times but the low quality of European grafitti combined with the quality of the art and architecture they deface really does grate. Either they need to import a few grafitti artists from New York or South Central or they need better cops.

That’s it for now, update you all again soon. Thanks for your good wishes and comments and a Happy (Belated) Birthday to Cousin Daan.

Cheers,

Mark & Ali

P.S. Of course George pulled a ‘Kong’ on the leaning tower. He says it was one of the nicest views he’s seen so far and plans to help out the next time they need the tower straightened.