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After we were cut loose for our meagre couple of hours in San Gimignano, some of us went up to one of the old fortification walls. Certainly we could appreciate the view for its own merits. But there was more to it than that.

With the exception of a fragment on the left you really can't see much of the walls in this panorama stitch of four images. But I did take a few minutes to just feel the thick stone under my hands and wonder how many people, ordinary people now long forgotten by all, had stood here on these walls over the centuries. They had looked out over that valley. Sometimes in times of peace, sometimes to detect real threats. And sometimes they would have seen a half moon just as we see here over the large hill on the right, though it's little more than a white dot at the reduced size of this image.

Hundreds of years, and with modern day tourism thrown in doubtless tens of thousands of people. It's a thing to ponder.