San Gimignano, Pisa, Lucca, Milan

Our next stop was San Gimignano, a city with very narrow streets and all kinds of businesses everywhere.  This is a city where its towers were built during the 12th and 13th centuries, when the town's position--on the main pilgrim route from northern Europe to Rome--brought it great prosperity.

Dick and Richard are standing to the sides.

This is the city's duomo.  I'm in the foreground.

Here is a view or the grape orchards from San Gimignano. What beautiful country.

On to Pisa, where we witnessed for ourselves the "Leaning Tower of Pisa."  It's really leaning.  It was begun in 1173 on sandy silt subsoil and started to tilt even before the third level was finished in 1274.  Despite the shallow foundations, construction continued and it was completed in 1350.  It gives a whole new meaning of building on a "sandy" foundation.  Many people come to visit this site.  Recently its tilt has increased by about 16.5 ft.  That's kind of scary.

Richard Pattee was supposed to be holding up the tower, but we missed a bit.

Here is the duomo next to the tower.

This is the baptistry.

We enjoyed a nice lunch with the tower in the background.

Our next stop was Lucca, the birthplace of Giacomo Puccini, who was a famous opera composer.  This part of our group before we went in to see a Puccini concert.

The two women were the singers and the man was the piano player.  They sang exerpts from Puccini's operas--La Boheme  and others.  It was a beautiful concert.

On our way to Milan, we passed Carrara, which is renowned for its marble quarries.  Its white stone has been prized for centuries by famous sculptors, particularly Michelangelo, who carved "David."  

Milan is the center of fashion and business in Italy.  It is more like a "big" city and not as interesting as some of the cities we had seen before.  The above picture is the inner court of an ancient castle.

Smart cars were everywhere.  They don't take too much room to park.

The duomo.

A statue of Leonardo.

We were able to go see the original "Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci.  They would not let us take pictures of the real painting, but this was outside on a wall, so I took a picture of it.  The original painting was painted in 1495-1497 on the refectory wall of Santa Maria delle Grazie.  We were able to stay and look at it for about 15 minutes.  It's quite interesting.

We then went on to a huge, beautiful shopping mall , which is one of the oldest shopping malls.

Have you ever seen a McDonalds with such a classy outside.  Inside was about the same as other McDonalds, which was a little disappointing.

This church was connected to the building at the left, which housed the "Last Supper" painting.

After walking around Milan, we decided that we needed a gelato break.  As we ate, we watched two boys come out with their gelato.  They surely look happy.  That's how we felt we went got our gelato every day.