I told you the guidebooks were bad, but today I found an especially . . . artistic passage in one of the free brochures. "Siena has been compared to the neck of an amphora, an arrowhead, a ship ready to sail, a hand poised atop the hills, an Etruscan tripod and a bow stretched to the breaking point. Piazza del Campo has been likened to a sundial, a navel, a womb, a shell, a pool the Virgin's open cape, a soap bubble (okay...) and opalescent crystal. And again, the cathedral has been described as a sailing ship, and its facade as a forest of symbolism.

They just keep getting better.