This is a good picture of it:

I remember visiting V’s new flat about 4 or 5 years ago.

It was in a modern building, on the 7th floor or so. He had had a new kitchen (not that I have any idea how he had afforded it, nor did I ask) but most of the furniture had been “ours”, of course. What wasn’t “ours” such as the sofa, were brand new.

The TV was a huge, flat-screen thing on the wall, connected to music. The whole thing was nice but definitely NOT my taste. However, the thing he was most excited to show me was that, if you went out on the balcony and peered round the corner, almost hanging over the railing, you could see the statue of the Madonna on top of the Duomo. “THIS,” he said, “is what makes this flat so wonderful.”

I was less than impressed but said all the right things, of course.

I’ve never been that bothered about it. After all, I live in an area of the city where most of the buildings are Art Nouveau or Art Deco and, so, to me, they are really beautiful.

However, the other Saturday night (the “party” thing, you may remember), one of our guests went out onto our balcony and urged me to come outside.

Looking left, he pointed out that we, too, have a view of the Madonna statue!

We’ve been there almost 7 months and I had never noticed! OK, so, even if we’re quite close to the centre, the statue doesn’t look like the one above (from where we are), but rather like this:

Can you see it?

It looks a little insignificant, to be honest. Still, it does look rather nice (now that I know it’s there) in the night, all lit up. It’s more or less in the centre of the picture, between the tree branches. In this picture, I’ve circled it.

Can you see it now?

So, not spectacular at all, really. But there. I might try a night-time photo so you can see it gleaming. If I get one, I’ll add it to the post