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Sienna, Italy
If everything could ever be this real forever, if anything could ever be this good again
In as scenic and as well known as any of the Italian hill towns, Sienna's Piazza del Campo basks in the shadow of its bell tower.
If I was involved in the initial construction of this bell tower in Pisa, I could expect multiple lawsuits, countersuits against the structural engineer and, since it was completed hundreds of years ago, I could probably expect to be dead. The actual town itself remains uneventful, urban but not entirely unpleasant; nothing to see here, move along, move along.
Finally a car more hostile to additional passengers than my own.
Deep in the Veneto a hour west of Venezia and two hours east of Milano is Vicenza, far quieter than both but equally impressive under its hazy and forgiving sky.
The reason for my pilgrimage to Vicenza and one of the reasons I picked Italy when that whole "American in East Jerusalem" thing started to look like a bad idea, Andrea Palladio's Villa Rotunda is everything I always thought it would be.
Just a small bridge in Vicenza, over a small river, in a small town, just like me.
