The Bahblog

We took a quick trip to Siena on Sunday afternoon and had a lovely time. We took a noon bus from Florence and arrived in Siena around 1:45. Our bus actually stopped in Colle di Val d'Elsa, which is the closest town to the house we stayed at in July. It was fun to return to the town, albeit briefly, and recognize some of the places we drove past this summer.

Our first order of business in Siena was to get lunch. I found a pizza place, La Piccola Ciaccineria, online that looked good so we decided to give it a try. It was the best pizza we've had in Italy! We had a slice of their special "Sienese" pizza, which was essentially a two layer pizza stuffed with ham and mozzarella - divine.

We also split a pizza with arugula, buffalo mozzarella, and tomatoes. We sat on the steps of a church as we ate and watched the locals stroll by. It was wonderful.

Fueled by pizza, we set off to explore Siena. We went to Siena in July and had a lovely time, but it was also hot and crowded. It was a bit chilly on Sunday but the locals walking around far outnumbered the tourists. We walked to Il Campo, which is the main square, though it's shaped more like a shell. Even in March, it's filled with people sunbathing on the concrete in front of the City Hall.

When we were there in July, the area around Il Campo was covered in hay because the Palio, a famous horse race, had occurred just a couple days prior. During the horse race, the neighborhoods of Siena compete to be the year's winner. The "dragon" neighborhood won this past July and we got to see the victory parade. It was so neat to see people of all ages walking around with their neighborhood's flag and full of pride, cheering and singing.

We didn't witness any parades this time, but we did take notice of the tiles on all of the corners that designate the neighborhood.

One of the streets was completely decked out in the flags of the neighborhood (interestingly enough, this isn't the neighborhood that we saw in the July victory parade).

We also made a stop at the beautiful Duomo. It's not quite as big as Florence's, but the outside is beautiful and grand and the inside is much nicer than Florence's Duomo interior.

The bell tower is six stories but is made to look taller due to an optical illusion - the white stripes get narrower toward the top.

The inside has the heads of 172 popes going around the upper perimeter of the nave. If you look closely, you can tell that the same four heads repeat again and again. The marble floor has scenes from the Old Testament as well as a depiction of Siena ruling over the lesser Italian cities, such as Rome and Florence.

The Piccolomini Altar has a statue by Michaelangelo and three by his students. Can you guess which one was done by Michaelangelo? [Edit: Nate only took a photo of the Michaelangelo :-) ]

The marble pulpit was done by Pisano and contains seven relief panels telling the life of Christ.

In a chapel just off of the pulpit, there's a statue by Donatello (and a couple dangling feet from the dome).

Another chapel contains two statues by Bernini.

The big highlight for us on this visit was the Piccolimini Library. The Library contains beautiful frescos from the 1400s that haven't been restored and still look just as vivid.

It also has beautiful music scores lining the cabinets along the wall.

But we were told not to stay, so we left (we had also seen the whole church by this point).

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Siena. It's a delightful city - on a Sunday afternoon it was filled with locals relaxing, chatting, and walking their dogs. The neighborhood pride (and division) is unlike anything I've ever seen and is part of what makes the city so unique. It's the perfect city to stroll and take in the sights.

We did return to Il Campo one final time before catching our return bus. The sun had moved pretty considerably and, yes, so had the sunbathers.