Italy Day 5 - Riding North to Lucca

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We packed out bags for pickup at 7:30 for departure to Lucca tonight. Along the way, we stopped in Sienna to eat lunch, walk alot, see little alleys, a church, aka Domo, public square, hall of justice, and get some history about the city.

In Houston, the old section of town, buildings are from 1935, here, 1435 is considered historic. Lots of nice frescos, and it seems they are still finding stuff.

The church we toured, was very pretty, and we were fortunate because the floor of this church has 38 panels of inlaid marble in the floor, that tells the bible stories from creation through Christ's Redemption. The artists, forty of them, laid these out between 1347 - 1547. The floor is only uncovered to view two months of the year. This was one of those months, so we could see them. They are roped off so you can't walk on them, but you could see them. After this month, they will be covered again, and the church used as a church instead of museum. The craftsmen that did the work were artists indeed.

About 5PM we got back on the bus and rested our feet and continued on to Lucca.

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Photos

We didn't order bird.
Off the square in Siena, we had some Pizza at a quaint little shop.

Siena Square Il Campo
This square is huge. Once per year they have horse races around the square. The posts on the edge of the square mark the spot where all the people must be. They are on the inside center part of the square. Horses race around the outside. When it rains, all the water runs into channels below and is used. It is a big bowl, draining to the left in the center of the left side.

The public hall museum.
As you can tell, they didn't use much wallpaper. They just hired an artist, to paint the walls, ceilings, etc. Always with some story that needed to be told, since not everybody could read. The big rooms were where people met the visitors.

The Duomo
I didn't catch the name of the Duomo, just that it was the Duomo, the Cathedral.

Inside the Duomo (Cathedral)
So much artistic talent was around that is hard to believe how they could make such beautiful work. They didn't have the Black & Decker high intensity lights to light up what they were doing. And, these were not contracted out to low bid. Beauty!

Duomo
You can see the marble layers on the columns. All hand cut, and very pretty. The floor is roped off to keep you from walking on it, because after 700 years, it is beginning to show some wear.

I tried to get a picture of the stained glass window.
Something was hanging in the way on the left.

The ceiling.
Such bright colors, after so many years.

And we cap off the trip with dinner before checking in
A little place in Lucca where we pulled in to have dinner before checking into the hotel.

Comments

[James Keating]

Day 5
Those are great pictures. I like the leaning tower of Pisa picture. That's not an angle I have seen before.

[JOY]

Duomo
Beautiful church. Great capture of the stained glass.