We drove the hour from Florence to Siena. It was not freeway, but through the Tuscan hills with lots of farms and small towns. It was a beautiful drive.
This was our AirBnB house in Siena. We had the whole house to ourselves, and it was very nice. We appreciate Kevin and Tess booking it so we could stay with them.
This was our first view of Siena. The large church on the left is St. Catherine's and the duomo, with its black and white stripes, is to the right, with the old city of Siena around it. We walked from the AirBnB into the old city, which reminded us of Cità Alta of Bergamo, but much larger.
We walked down, and up, narrow streets.
And heard the noise of drums and chanting, and a lot of people. They were having a procession through the streets, with young men with banners. We got there just as it was ending. We don't know what it was about, except that Siena is famous for processions.
The old piazzas were full of people on a Sunday afternoon.
The big building at the end of the above pix (this is the door) must be the headquarters of the famous bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena. There are branches everywhere in northern Italy, even one in Opera. It was founded in the 1400s as I have noted on a previous post. I use the ATM at their branch near the mission office.
We strolled down more narrow streets, with Kevin's GPS telling us where to go.
One street opened up into this piazza, which was very large. Kevin and Tess climbed to the top of this tower of the city hall the following day. This is the piazza where they have the famous horse races of Siena, which I believe are held twice a year. Kevin read from a Rick Steves narration that it is the horses which race. If you fall off your horse and he makes it to the end, he could still win, and you would win merda on your face.
Not very far away from the piazza is the back of the duomo, which is the bapistry. The steep stairs to the left lead to the front of the duomo.
Where I took this pix of Kevin and his mother, waiting for me to climb the steps.
They were admiring the duomo, which had closed for the evening.
There were still lots of people out, some with their dogs. This one was a small horse.
We took a different route out, down this inclined street instead of the steps
looking at restaurant menus on the walls
until we found this old tavern (La Vecchia Taverna). It was a little cool to eat outside, so we ate inside.
Tess started with brochetta, an appetizer of toasted bread, with olive oil and fresh tomatoes. She also had gnocchi with tomato sauce.
I had spaghetti alla carbonara, which is spaghetti with bacon, eggs and cheese.
Myrna and Kevin had lasagna, which was served in these clay tegami, fresh from the oven.
When we are out and about, we get frequent phone calls from missionaries. Myrna is helping one figure out how to go to the questura for his permesso, about which she gets frequent calls.
According to the clock on the tower of city hall, it was 8:30 pm
The crowds had thinned out quite a bit by then.
On the way back to the house, I snapped this pix of colorful shoes in a shop window.
The next morning we first visited the cavernous church where the bones of St. Catherine of Siena, one of the patron saints of Italy, are visitable, but you aren't supposed to take pix. I saw a visiting priest take a pix, so I did too, but must have moved the camera too much.
In this silver holder the sign says is the "dito pollice (thumb) of the right hand of St. Catherine of Siena."
And, indeed, there was, a well preserved thumb, including nail. Her head, at least a skull, was in another altar, heavily adorned and venerated, but I did not attempt to sneak a pix of it (although the priest did).
Out the side door you could see the duomo in the distance.
The streets are very narrow and sometimes very steep, the laundry was already out drying,
I thought this was interesting. It is now the street of St. Catherine, but had been the Street of the Panccaia before her time. She died in 1380, so they really wanted to remember the old name of the street. The more modern sign below shows the way to the large piazza, city hall and church of St Mary on the Stairs.
Walking along the streets of Siena, I saw doorbells for the houses. Usually they are made of polished brass, which is polished every day by dutiful little old grandmothers. However, this was a set of very old ringers; you pull a stop, sort of like an organ stop, and mechanically ring a bell within an apartment above.
The shops were opening. These were very good looking fruits, the red gapes look big, which they were. Who knows from where they come; no grapes are ripe in May in Italy yet. The grape vines here have just leafed out.
On a side street I passed this elevated statue of the wolf nursing the twins who founded Rome.
In Siena there are shops which sell large beautifully painted ceramic dishes, which I really like. They are fairly expensive (like €500 each), and would be hard to get home because they are heavy.
And we saw the duomo in morning light. It does not open, for tourists, until 10:30 am, but the ticket office opens at 10:00. We were the first in line. While Myrna and I waited in line, Kevin and Tess walked over and climbed the tower of the city hall. I wish I could see their pix, they are undoubtedly wonderful.
People are buried everywhere. This is in a city wall and is of a priest who was buried there.
The ticket office is here, and there was a large sign about a display of the Norcia earthquake a few years ago. In case you can't enlarge it, the fireman is tenderly carrying a statue of a baby Jesus.
In the piazza duomo was another statue of the she wolf nursing the boys who founded Rome. Siena is closer to Rome than where we live, and we hadn't seen these before, and we saw two in the same morning.
This is the line of ticket holders waiting to get inside the duomo of Siena. The line actually moved fairly fast, once the doors opened exactly at 10:30.
This mosaic above the main doors is of the coronation of Mary, a common depiction in Italy.
There were lots of statues on the outside, and also lots inside, as there are on most duomos.
One inside, this was our first view of the large and ornate cathedral, with its theme colors of striped black and white, and banners, which are typical of Siena.
We had never seen floors like this, with lots of depictions inlaid in marble. You can't walk on them, so there are paths, usually carpeted, within the cathedral where you can walk.
Nearing the high altar, there were already a lot of people inside, and they restrict the number of tourists they let inside at one time.
Looking at the back of the church
The stained glass is of the Last Supper
The inside of the dome.
There are two organs, facing each other, at the front of the church. The plaques and metals below the organ were put there in appreciation of miracles.
This is the organ on the other side, with more modern trumpets (antique Italian organs don't have them, but Spanish ones do) pointing straight out.
The old mechanical organs were separate, but have since been combined and are playable on this modern console.
Not far from the plaques below the organ were display cases of jewelry given to the church to commemorate more miracles, and these are not for miracles by St. Catherine, of which there are many in her church.
This is the high altar. Before Pope John XXXIII's council in the 1960's, the priest celebrated mass with his back to the congregation, but after the council, he faced the congregation and put the chalice and host on the little table in front. Catholics view this as a very significant change in the church and give credit to the pope, who they call the Good Pope John.
There were inlays everywhere in the floors.
This is a detail of one.
In another part of the floor was glass, under which you could see older altars under the floor in the catacombs of the church.
This is the modern baptismal font, probably from the 1400s. The old baptisty is in back of the duomo and actually has a font big enough to immerse people.
One panel of this font shows Eve offering the forbidden fruit to Adam.
In another part of the church was this statue of Adam and Eve being driven out of the Garden.
Detail from another floor inlay.
Under a side altar was a life size pietà, or Jesus being held by his mother with adoring saints.
Near the pietà was a small door that led into a fairly large side room, full of old music books with large fresco paintings on the walls and ceiling.
The old music books are very large, because they couldn't print them yet. They are of Gregorian Chant. They were hand drawn on sheep skin and were placed so the choir could sing from the same page, so to speak.
Detail of one, there were many of these large bound books.
Chant allelu ia to the notes above.
Sort of a fat little angel in a picture adorning a hymnbook
This one was a gradual (part of the mass) by Girolomo of Cremona, from the 1400s.
The wall frescoes were very beautiful
As was the ceiling.
The floor in the music room did not have pictures, but had interesting tile.
These depictions of Mary holding baby Jesus, with saints and/or patrons, are very common.
Another detail from the floor. I couldn't get over how many there were. I have seen many duomos in Italy, and this is one of them, but it is very unique and interesting in many ways.
We were hungry, and as we were walking out of Siena we saw this hole in the wall place, The Pharos, where they sell pizza, kebap and panini, and also deliver to your home, but no place to sit inside! Myrna and I had ours on the usual bread (like pizza bread), but Kevin and Tess had their kebaps on piadinne, which are thick tortillas rolled up, which they said were really good. We need to try it that way sometime. I really like kebap, which, in addition to pizza, is Italian fast food.
So we drove, mostly in rain, from Siena to Pisa, about 2 hours, through the countryside. Kevin and Tess took the usual pix of the leaning tower when we got there.
Tess tells Kevin he needs to push a little harder to the right. We wouldn't want the tower to topple, would we?
It had stopped raining by the time we got to Pisa.
But the grass was still wet, although you couldn't walk on it anyway.
The base of the tower is about 2-8 feet below ground level, because it tilts.
A detail from the tower shows that Pisa was near the seacoast, although farther now than centuries ago. The tower was built on a sandy foundation, which caused the famous list.
There must have been sea monsters when it was built.
We had an enjoyable time with Kevin and Tess. When we tried to get tickets to go inside the duomo, we couldn't go in for a couple of hours, longer than we could wait.
However, I have come to believe that this pix of me and my companion, Fransciso Real, was printed backwards, which was easy to do with negative film. The tower leans the other way. Maybe another time we will figure it out.
On one of the side streets a painter who uses spray paint, as does Dallin, had his pictures out, but he must have gone on a break. When Dallin was there the painter had just folded up shop. He sells them for €10 each and will make anything you want, if you could communicate what you want to him and he can paint it. There are many of these spray painters in Italy, including those who do graffiti (an Italian word) on everything.
On the way out we passed by this red motor scooter--very Italian, although you don't see as many of them as you did 50 years ago. Now they have bigger motorcycles, even Harleys.
To leave the duomo complex you pass through this gate of the old city walls, through trinket shop alley and to the parking lot, which I have come to appreciate, where there are many friendly (for coins) Africani.
We then hurried back to Florence, where we dropped Kevin and Tess off at the train station, Santa Maria Novella. They went by Freccerosa to Rome, then Venice, then drove to the mountains near Cortina, and we drove home, which took an extra hour because of heavy traffic north of Firenze.
On Thursday evening, 4 May, we were there when Kevin and Tess got off the train at the Rogoredo station. We took them home, they packed their bags and we slept for a while before going to Malpensa the next morning. We really enjoyed our short time with them and hope they weren't too disappointed in the rainy weather this week.
Ciao for now.
Looks like you had a great time w/ Kevin and Tess. I'm so glad you were able to see Sienna as this was your first trip there I think despite so many visitors seeing so many places.
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