Two sketches from the outskirts of Florence

Two more swiftly done watercolours, both done on a postcard-size pad. Never tried to mail them, though.

Fiesole is a small community perched high on the mountain overlooking Florence to the north. A thousand years ago it was a dangerous rival to the larger city, but the Florentines put paid to that with customary brutality. The picture depicts the campanile of the village's main church.

Ponte a Mensola was a handful of buildings clustered around - as the name implies - a bridge over the Mensola stream. These days it's entirely subsumed into Florence's east end. The church in my sketch is renaissance era. It's not too impressive itself, but well situated on the top of a slope with a cypress-lined path leading up to it.