This garden, with its weird implements, is in the middle of a torture museum in San Gimignano. One thing you learn there, is that people have done some pretty horrible things to each other. The imagination involved in creating some of these contraptions is just mad. One of the creepiest sections was entering the dungeon to see a small vault where a man was actually walled up. For those that don’t know, that’s when they stick someone in a closet sized hole and brick them in to starve to death.
I was pretty happy when I managed to get this photo on a gloomy, wet morning in Rome. Then I came across this photo taken on a much nicer morning!
This is the first shot I took of the horse parked conveniently in the Piazza Rotunda. I’m not sure how the driver got it to stay there while he went for his morning coffee in a nearby cafe.
I liked this little square I stumbled upon in Rome and had planned on eating lunch there, but by lunchtime I realised my wanderings had taken me a long way away.
According to Wikipedia, the Ponte Vecchio is “a Medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge”. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I thought I’d fill you in just the same.
About ten years ago I had dinner with my family in a restaurant “Golden View” across the river from here. I stayed behind after dinner, with my girlfriend at the time, and wound up playing the piano there. That resulted in the waiter providing us with complimentary champagne, strawberries and cream before driving us back to our hotel out in the countryside!
I planned on trying that trick again on this trip, but never made it across the river.
I’m not sure If I focused solely on the Pantheon’s giant doors intentionally or if it was a mistake. I like the kind of surreal feel it’s created in this image though. It seems to add to the feeling that the building is looming over you.
Extra points for anyone who translates the inscription for me.
This is my attempt to take an interesting shot of the leaning tower of Pisa. I feel like it’s trying to see past the huge church in front of it.
An Egyptian artifact, next to a former Pagan place of worship that’s now a Christian church… there’s a lot going on in this photo.
You probably recognize the Pantheon from earlier images. This obelisk, relocated from the Temple of Rome in Heliopolis, was once part of a pair. It was rediscovered in San Macuto in 1373 and found its current positioning in 1711 where it was used to add a flourish to the already present fountain.
I’m not sure when the garbage bin was installed… but did they really have to put it there? There was one on each corner of the fountain too, as if they wanted to make sure the scene was nicely balanced.
It took me quite a while to find an angle to get an oblique shot of the Pantheon showing off the amazing pillars and pediment as well as the immensity of the cylinder supporting the dome. I also had to wait for a number of people to stop chatting and move out of frame. I decided I was happy to keep the person sitting on the stairs to give you a sense of scale.
I went down to the Trevi Fountain with a specific photo in mind. The Trevi Fountain with a lamp glowing in the foreground as the sun turned the sky a dark blue prior to breaching the horizon. After succeeding in that goal, despite competing with slick marble and worn out shoes, I set about taking a more basic photo taking in the whole thing. I realized after selling photos to the Four Seasons in Prague, for web use, that they preferred the simpler images that just showed the landmarks, so I try to remember to snap a few after taking the ones I really like.
I’m starting to run low on photos from past travels! I’m going to have to start heading out at sunrise in Bermuda, and just hope the February weather decides to behave!
