ITALY: MISCELLANY

On our tour in Italy I took a number of photos that didn't seem to fit into any of my specific posts of our trip, so I thought I would dump them into a miscellaneous post to wind things up.

First, a shot of underground at O'Hare airport on our way to our flight from Chicago to Frankfurt Germany.

Next a photograph of our amazing tour director, Lella.

I also tried to get photos of each of our local guides.  (I somehow missed our Cortona guide.)  Unfortunately--and there's no excuse for this--I neglected to keep track of their names, just the places we met them.

Florence.                                                                                                                                          Siena.

Pienza.

Altesino Winery.                                                                                                                             Assisi.

Todi.

Orvieto.                                                                                                                                           Rome.

Another view of the bust of Benvenuto Celini on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.

A marble foot at Pitti Palace in Florence.

Another view of the cathedral in Siena.

A neighborhood church in Siena.

Although we didn't tour Bettona's duomo, late one afternoon I slipped into this lovely little church and took the following photos.

In Rome I caught this remarkable monument that included a series of spiraling bas relief sculptures that I'm certain were telling a story.

Our last hotel was Rome's Waldorf Astoria.  Here is a shot of a fountain at the front entrance that for some reason involved three dolphin.

And, finally, that hotel included a double helix stairway extending from the lobby to the lower level.  I repeatedly tried to capture that architectural detail from the side and finally gave up, settling for this abstract, looking down from one of the stairways to some sort of concentric circular fountain on the lower level.

John