Sixth Day - Siena

September 25th, 2008

We added a day trip to Siena to our plans because Rick Steve's talked in his guide book about wonderful place it is to visit. Siena is about an hour south-east of Florence, we bought round trip bus tickets early in the morning in Florence and went to see this medieval Renaissance town.

The color Burnt Sienna is named for this this city, if you look at the bricks in my pictures, you will recognize the color.

The Rough Guide map to Florence also has a map of Siena on the back. This map was quite useful as we navigated our way around the windy old streets. Siena was built on steep hills, perhaps because this allowed them to more easily fortify their city against attackers. During the Renaissance, Siena and Florence were bitter rival city states. Because of the Siena hills, the city roads haven't changed in hundreds of years, most roads are too steep and narrow for modern motor vehicles. This lends Siena a lot of its authentic medieval charm. Florence is a nice city, but it has a lot of traffic noise. In Florence, the tall stone buildings create echoing canyons of noise, it is much harder to pretend you are in the Renaissance with trucks and motorbikes everywhere.

One good reason to take the bus to Siena instead of the train is that the bus drops you off right in central part of the city, while the train station is out beyond the city walls. We got off the bus and the first thing we saw was the basilica of San Domenico. Since it was open, we went in and walked around, admiring its stained glass. But photographs are forbidden on the inside, so I have nothing to show you of the interior.

We walked up and down hills until we got to the Duomo, but saw that there was no line to go in. So we decided to head to the Campo and do the city tower right away, in case the tower climb got crowded in mid-day. The Piazza del Campo is the main square of Siena. Every year they hold a horse race right in the square - they put down dirt around the perimeter, and all the citizens of the city pile into the center of the square to watch the horses race past. This race is featured in the opening of the James Bond film Quantum of Solace.

The climb to the top of the tower was fun. It always exhilirating to get to the top of a tall structure with commanding views in all directions. I tried to get a panorama picture in each of the directions. Siena is a hilltop town; from the top of the tower you can look beyond the city walls and see the surrounding Tuscan countryside.

After our descent to the Piazza del Campo, we checked out the Gala Fountain. The square was mostly empty, even though it was nearly midday. We wandered around behind the city hall, and found ourselves in the Piazza del Mercato (Market Square). Climbing up and down some steep city streets, and we made our way to the Duomo. We bought some pizza and ate just outside the Duomo doors.

The Siena Duomo is famous for the mosaics on its floor. Eleven months of the year, the mosaics are protected by plywood. But one month out of the year, the mosaics are uncovered - and we happened to be in Siena on that one particular month (which I guess must be the month of September.) Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take flash photographs inside the Siena Duomo, so many of my mosaic pictures didn't turn out too well. I tried to lighten the best images with Photoshop, you can judge the results.

In one little room off of the Duomo is a the Piccolomini Library. I was amazed and delighted by this room. The entire surface of the room is covered in brilliant colored paintings that depict the scenes from thelife of Enea Silvio Piccolomini - a native son of Siena who would later become Pope Pius II. The art work is a demonstration of perspective painting. During the Renaissance, the idea of depict depth with perspective was radically new, so the artist used the wall paintings to display his technical proficiency in perspective. In addition to the wonderful paintings, there are huge illuminated choir books on display in the Piccolomini Library. The books are opened to pages that show marvelous illuminated letters. The choir books are huge - four or five feet tall - because the text of the songs had to be readable by singers standing in the back row of the choir. The Piccolomini Library is evidentally Siena's attempt to rival the Sistine Chapel in Rome. I really enjoyed seeing this room.

Once we left the marvelous Duomo, we went on a walking tour of Siena. Our first destination was the city fort. You can walk right into the fort. It seems to be a park now, with trees and grass up on the battlements. The fortress walls remain in good repair, while standing on the walls you get a nice view back at the city and of the surrounding countryside.

From the fort we followed a walking route to see various fountains and churches. We were just exploring Siena to soak up its medieval charms.

That evening we caught the bus back to Florence. After a late dinner at the apartment, we walked over to the Piazza Signoria. We wanted to see if the statues were illuminated at night, but they were not. We had been hoping for some dramatic night shots, but I had to settle for some flash photographs.