Day Trip to Siena

Buona sera, all!

Today we took a class day-trip to Siena, Italy! The following is a little history lesson on Siena, which I personally thought was really interesting but some people *cough* Reid *cough* found my paragraph boring :( so you can skip it if you like.

Siena is a prominent city in the south of Tuscany, which is the region of Italy that I am in. According to legend, the original founders of Rome, the two brothers Romulus and Remus, eventually had a falling out and Romulus killed Remus. Remus, however, had two children, who fled Rome and founded what is now Siena. The crux of a heavily traveled trade route between France and Rome, Siena became an extremely powerful "city state," or a kind of little self-sustaining nation. Florence and Siena were rival powers throughout the middle ages. The Medici family gained control of Florence in 1500-something, and to gain stable control of the region, they fought Siena and won, thus beginning three centuries of Medici rule over the region of Tuscany (until the Italian states were united in 1861.) So, Siena is a very strange mix of Roman, Florentine, and French architectural influence. At least, that's what I gathered from infoplease.com and our tour guide lady today. :)

So first, here is the Siena Skyline:




As you can see, there is another huge cathedral on the top of the hill, also called the Duomo (just like the Duomo in Florence. Evidently it's very vogue here for towns to have a giant Duomo.) But the first thing we saw when we arrived is this rebuilt medieval church:


Which is where St. Catherine came from, and where her skull is still on display. Granted, she sounds like a pretty groovy lady, but seeing her skull with a wax mask stretched over was pretty creepy.


I thought the most interesting part was the door, which has all sorts of bas relief carvings in it. These sorts of carvings are all over Siena, and they are all creepy. You will soon see why.




We then met up with our extremely enthusiastic tour guide, who showed us a little of the downtown area. This is the first public bank in history. It is still functioning as a bank, and is the fifth largest bank in all of Italy.


We then headed over to the Duomo:


They are doing some construction on it unfortunately, to the scaffolding is in the way, but is really is beautiful.




Spiffy pipe organ:


Organ medium close up:






Some intricate marble inlay on the floor:


And I lit a little candle.


Here is some of the beautiful marble carving on the facade:


And, as promised, creepy head carvings. Really don't get that. They go to all that trouble to make it so beautiful, and then they shove that on there.


And now here is something I don't understand at all. They could carve those intricate designs into marble, but they absolutely could not lay bricks:




What is that?? But back to the cathedral: there is a really interesting history to it. This is the outside of the cathedral: What's that big weird wall jutting off the bell tower? Well, 'tis...


...the beginning of a massive cathedral that was designed to encompass the original one and provide enough seating for the entire city state of Siena to come to mass each Sunday. Work was begun in the 16th century and continued for nine years, until the plague struck. Suddenly, they didn't need all that extra seating and the gigantic construction project was completely abandoned. Now, shops and other buildings are wedged in between the intricate marble skeleton. And, gotta say it: Siena, our Duomo is still bigger than ya'll's Duomo.


Here is what would have been a side entrance to the new cathedral, and which is now simply an archway over the street:


A little ways down the hill is a open, elliptical plaza. (More history - but do read this, it's interesting.) Now, Siena has a very weird and unique tradition. The medieval part of the city is divided into 17 contradas, or neighborhoods. It is much more of a neighborhood, though, it's more like a cult-ish country club. Each contrada is represented by a different animal: called the eagle, caterpillar, she-wolf, and others. Every year for the past 500 years, there is an annual horse race, called the Palio, in which each of the contradas has a horse. It is an all-consuming festival: our tour guide was telling us that in the past five centuries, her contrada has won 46 times, so each year there are 46 contrada-wide dinners to celebrate those victories. You are a life time member of the contrada you are born into, no matter where you move to or who you marry. When people meet each other in Siena, they first ask "so what's your contrada?" (But in Italian, of course.) Now, for the race, 35,000 people cram into the tiny plaza (which is like half the size of Washington Square Park, for those of you familar with NY) and the horses actually race around them for three laps. Whichever contrada wins gets year long bragging rights and a warm fuzzy feeling. Now, the horses are actually distributed at random through a lottery, so there is like no reason or skill involved in this whatsoever. It is such a huge thing in Siena that we actually ran into a guy our age today who was already practicing his drum part behind a church because he was going to be one of the drumers in the parade before the next Palio, even though the race isn't until July. So Siena is a really strange, very traditional and self-contained little place. Here are some pictures of the plaza that the race is held in:






Right next door the the Cathedral is another holy building:


Hahaha. And here are a few shots of the streets in between this plaza and the Duomo.












More creepy heads:


More carvings:




Here, you can really see how the medieval architecture, French, Roman, and Florentine influence are all layered within the city:


You'll see at the top of this skyline the would-have-been Cathedral wall.


Dryers are rare here so this is a common site:


And a less common site is the occasional import store with crazy dancing wooden sculptures: (Peanut butter, by the way, is an import here, lol. And Bud Light is "imported beer!")


And in preparation for the upcoming Carnivale (or what we know as Mardi Gras:)




But Carnivale is still a while away, and for no explainable reason, there is confetti all over the streets, not just in Siena, but all over Italy. It just shows up in massive quantities. We're trying to figure out what we're missing here.


Last, but most certainly not least, the frescos in the crypts of the Duomo:




And I think I'll just end on this:


:)

[Travel information: we took a bus to Siena that was reserved by NYU; however, a ticket through trenitalia.com at 9:30 on a Saturday morning costs 5.70 euros ($7.50 currently.) (Buy the ticket when you get to the train station at the self service kiosk - it takes just a minute or two and there is no chance they will be out of tickets. Don't forget to validate the ticket before you get on the train. You have to get the date stamped onto the ticket from a box, usually yellow, near the tracks. Otherwise, your ticket is not valid and they have the right to fine you.) I am unsure if that is one way or round trip, but it's so cheap it kind of doesn't matter. Siena is small but has a fascinating history. If you go, most certainly take a walking tour of the downtown. There's no other way to learn about the strange culture there that has carried over from medieval times. Again our tour was booked through NYU so I didn't go through the process of booking that myself and don't have any information it. You should also definately go into the Duomo (Cathedral) there, but I would not pay to see the baptistry or the crypts (which are not actually crypts - no one dead was ever there and it is very small. Not worth 6 euros.) There is a museum as well that I did not go in, but evidently the descriptions of pieces are not translated so it was difficult to fully appreciate the things there, but still neat to see. A trip to Siena is something that can be done in a day from Florence - not really a large enough place to make it a destination for the night. I'd say leave early in the morning, give yourself 5 or 6 hours, and head back to Florence for dinner and bed. Do not eat lunch on the main square where the horse race is held. It is moderately expensive but the portions are surprisingly small.]