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This was the "piece de resistance" for my wife - one of the statues of "David' by Michaelangelo, now housed in a museum in Firenze. He is so popular that lineups waiting to enter the museum start early in the morning, and continue all day. We were lucky in that we waited only 2 hours. A copy of this statue is found outside, not far from the museum. |
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This is the tomb of Galileo. Michaelangelo's tomb is also found here in this church in Firenze, as is the tomb of many other famous Italian writers, poets, sculptors, painters, and various religious and political leaders. |
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From Firenze, we took a day trip by train to Siena, an interesting medieval town SW of Firenze. This is the second-hightst medieval tower in Italy. We climbed each of its 400 narrow steps to reach the top, below the bell, where a magnificent view rewarded us for our efforts. |
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This is the view from the Siena tower, looking down onto the expansive
courtyard below.
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Five days of our last week in Italy were spent in Verriaggio, a small resort town at the southern tip of the Italian Riviera. The weather was very hot by now, so this was an ideal place to come for some final relaxation. |
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All along the main strip in Verriaggio are entrances such as this to various private beaches. For a fee, one can rent an umbrella and a couple chairs, and then relax under the hot sun. We made the mistake of trusting the umbrella too far, and ended up with good sunburns despite our precautions. |
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This is a view of the largest beach in Veriaggio early in the morning before the chairs and umbrellas are in use. |
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Since our sunburns would not allow us to enjoy the beach again, we went touring (by local bus) up into the mountains to Carerra, and further on to Colonetta, where the finest Italian marble is quarried. It is literally carved right off the side of the mountain. Michalangelo's "David" came from this area. |
Our holiday had finally come to an end, so after waiting 4 hours for the next train (due to a strike), we travelled back to Rome where we spent one day catching up on some of the sights which we had missed. It was now time to say "buon giorno" one last time, and fly home. It was one of the best holidays we had ever enjoyed.