The Birds

 Oops, I cropped the birds. Here they are--two lovebirds.

 Second picture is Lynne in the Boboli Gardens one rainy Sunday when we seemed to have the wet streets and tenebrous cafes pretty much to ourselves.

 The clay-tiled dome floats on the city like a vast ceramic bubble, still after six centuries an overwhelming spectacle of magnitude and artistry. Alas, alas, claustrophobia keeps me from climbing up the mole's burrow between inner and outer shells of the dome to the top. 

 Funny how often one comes across buildings in this city just left undone--facades of ragged brick, or the equally raw band of masonry at the base of the dome. Money, I guess. Or patrons, in the slip-slide of Florentine power, suddenly hounded out of town.