Day 16

Hello!

We went to Siena today!!

We woke up early and left the apartment at 8 to meet at the train station at 8:30. Katia was at the front of out group walking over there, and she was walking reallll fast. Zoe and I ended up falling a little bit behind until a bird pooped on my head so then we ended up even further behind. Ana Maria later told me that a bird pooping on your head means good luck. Right. So we met at the train station at 8:30 and made our way to the bus station across the street. We got on a double decker coach bus that left at 9:10. The ride was an hour long and it was gorgeous. We drove through the Tuscan countryside. I sat with Katia near Dr. Zaho and a family from Wisconsin, I think, that we met on the bus. We all chatted most of the way (and by that I mean Dr. Zaho talked to them about what to do and Katia put in her opinions and I added my own position a few times).

When we got to Siena, we hopped off the bus and walked toward a nearby church that houses the head of St. Catherine of Siena. The family from the bus plus a man and his wife or girlfriend or whatever also followed us. We saw the couple a few times throughout the day, actually. Anyway, St. Catherine's head is in this church. It was placed there in the 1300s and it still looks like a fairly normal head. It's not a skull. It still has skin. It was scary but incredible at the same time.

A little back story to Siena: every summer since the 16th century, they've had a horse race known as the Palio. The city is divided into 17 contrade, which are different areas ranging in size. Each contrade has a history to it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palio_di_Siena#The_seventeen_contrade), and each competes in the Palio. Dr. Zaho had us each choose a different contrade to side with so we could look out for its emblem or flag throughout the city and feel a connection to Siena, which is Florence's rival. And since we feel so close to Florence now, we needed something to erase our bias for the day.

I chose the Chiocciola, the snail contrade. This contrade represents the southwest portion of Siena ( and I'm from SW Florida!), their rival is the Tortuca, the turtle. The Chiocciola is generally made up of terra cotta makers. I pretty much picked it because of The Format song 'Snails', but everything else works for me too (besides the rival thing - I like turtles).

So as we walked through the city after seeing St. Catherine's head, we watched out for these symbols and stopped to look at our respective flags. We made our way to Dr. Zaho's favorite place to eat in Siena: Nanini. I got their signature almond cookie (it was covered in powdered sugar and it wasn't too bad) and a big chocolate filled croissant (also covered in powdered sugar, it was delicious). They also have the best coffee that anyone in the group has tasted in Italy yet.

Once we left Nanini with our bellies full, we walked to the Cathedral of Siena. Oh jeez, up until I wrote that sentence I forgot how gorgeous that place was. Anyway, we got to the cathedral and got tickets to it all - the interior, the crypt, the baptistery, and the facciatone. While Dr. Zaho was buying our tickets we were all wandering around the side of the cathedral, some of us watching and listening to a man playing violin so beautifully. The one song I heard him play almost made me cry because it's a popular song that already has an effect on me. So I walked away and joined everyone sitting on the steps as Dr. Zaho was walking up with tickets in hand. We went to the front to look at the facade and oh my gosh it is tremendous (click here). The cathedral was built from 1215-1263 and the facade was completed in 1284. The style is Italian gothic and it features an almost countless number of sculptures showing religious figures and even a few Pagan philosophers. There was so much to look at that I'm pretty sure I missed 75% of the details.

We then entered the cathedral and I was instantly blown away. I'll give you the basics. The floors are entirely inlaid marble narrative scenes. Like, there are huge picture stories all over the floor depicted in nothing but different colors and kinds of marble inlaid into the floor. The whole floor is this. The. Whole. Floor. Look up from the floor and you'll see giant pillars made from white and black green marble. The two alternate, creating this majestic contrasted striping pattern that runs throughout the whole interior. Look at the tops of the columns and you see bust portraits peering down at you from a hundred feet up. These are the 172 bust portraits of popes from the past. They're all amazing. And above that is the ceiling, painted a deep blue with gold stars shining in it. And this is all just what you see from the front and center of the building. I love it.

After standing in awe for a little while, we went through a very small and narrow wooden doorway to get into the Piccolomini Library, a room with a complete fresco cycle encircling the space. The color and the use of one point perspective in both indoor and outdoor spaces were my favorite parts of it, though the overall product was wonderful. We sat in there for at least 20 minutes just soaking it all in. Click here for the Google image link. After that we wandered around the interior, ending up in a few stunning chapels with the most impressive domed ceilings. The insides of the lanterns on these domes were all incredible. One had a smiling sun; it was quirky and unexpected.

After that we left the cathedral and went to the Museo dell'Duomo, the museum of this duomo. We saw Duccio's famous Maesta and looked at its deconstructed parts for a little bit before we moved on to a the facciatone. The facciatone of the Cathedral of Siena is just this weird part of the building that wraps around the side of the building to extend its design even further and frankly I don't understand the point of it. But we climbed to the top of it on the most tightly wound spiral staircase I've had the pleasure to walk up. The view from up there took my breath away. You know how you see Tuscan Italy depicted in paintings, pictures, movies, etc? Well all that has nothing on the real thing. Looking out over Siena and beyond was like looking at a dream. Mountains surrounded us, all bright green with the exception of those that were off in the distance, making them a hazy blue. All the buildings around the one we were on top of are from the middle ages, so they were all old brown brick with terra cotta roofs. While we were up there the weather was perfect: sunny skies with a breeze and a temperature in the 60s. It was blissful.

We were eventually kicked off and had to go back down those awful stairs to reality. We went to the crypt of the cathedral to look at a single Caravaggio painting that is temporarily there and to see a few frescoes that have been there forever. It was pretty cool. They had glass panels in the floor in a few spots to show what was below the crypt; it was just a lot of empty rooms or something but it was still cool to stand there. When we left the crypt we went to the baptistery, connected to the back of the cathedral. It was okay. It really reminded me of the interior of Orsanmichele. There were a lot of frescoes and cool tombs and a very creaky wooden deck (not that those are attributes of Orsanmichele's interior). We all hit the point where we stopped really caring and just wanted to sit down and eat food, so we left the baptistery.

We headed towards the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena's civic (and geographic) center. It's in the shape of a giant shell. It's beautiful. We found a panino place in there called Enoteca Panini. It was okay. The bread was weird and kind of old and we're all so snobby about food now. But it was nice to sit in the middle of the palazzo and just eat it with good company. When we were finished we went into the central building of the palazzo to look at an assortment of beautiful frescoes, including another maesta (almost identical to the one we saw in the museo, actually) and a room filled with a fresco cycle by two brothers. The latter was an Allegory for Good and Bad Government, depicting good government on two  walls and bad government on one. Both situations have three scenes: the hierarchy of the government system, government in the city, and government in the country. In the good version, the government is run by virtues and all is well and peaceful in both the city and the country; women are dancing and men are having good luck farming. In the bad version of government, vices are in charge and both the city and country are in ruins. Literally, though, the fresco is in ruins. This half of it has been damaged over time. Mostly because the wall behind it was unsettled and because people actually threw things at it and intentionally defaced it. Which is kind of funny to me. Once we were done with this room we were done with the city of Siena.

We left the Palazzo Pubblico and made our way back to the bus stop. We all wanted to get little things to remember our trip and our chosen contrade, so we stopped at a few shops for everyone to get their fill. We made it to the bus stop just in time to catch a bus to take us back to our beloved Firenze. Geoff and I sat in the front seats where we enjoyed the scenery and talked about games we used to play on car trips with our families.

When we got back into Florence we all walked home more or less together. Katia and I had tortellini again and it was 9 by the time we were finished. My computer imported today's photos in a weird way so I'm hoping I don't lose them all when I shut it down!

On that note, bye!