Siena

Snow on the nearby hills. 

On March 2nd, the Texas A&M group went to Siena (a close by town in Tuscany). When we left Castig in the morning there was snow on the hills nearby. Thankfully it was much warmer and sunnier in Siena. I slept on the bus ride there, which was about an hour long. Our tour guide for the day was the same one that we had in Arezzo, Giovanni. He's really funny and constantly talking and telling stories to break up the non-stop art and architecture talk. His wife is originally from Dallas and he works as a cabinet maker in addition to being a tour guide.

Relics of Saint Catherine.

Our first stop was Basilica Cateriniana di San Dominico. It was a church dedicated to one of the patron saints of Italy, Saint Catherine. The most interesting thing about the church (at least to me) was that inside, Saint Catherine's mummified head is displayed as a church relic. It was kind of gross, I'm not gonna lie.

Afterwards we stopped at a nearby convent that is built on the site of Saint Catherine's house. We got to see some gorgeous frescoes and mosaic floors. We also got to see enormous choir books that are hundreds of years old.

We went to Siena's town hall which used to be a palace and also serves as a museum. Paintings covered every wall, ranging from medieval to renaissance styles. The room I remember most is a more recent set of paintings dedicated to the resorgimento.

Duomo. Sienna, Italy.

Duomo. Sienna, Italy.

The last stop on the tour was the duomo. It is in the gothic style and is absolutely beautiful. Inside, the columns and walls are made up of stacked limestone and marble to give the cathedral a striped effect. The duomo was built at the same time as the Florence cathedral in competition, but lost because its location on a hill caused architectural problems.

Piazza del Campo.

When our tour ended, Micah, Jillian, Katie, and I went and picked up a quick lunch and ate in Piazza del Campo. The piazza is famous for the yearly house races held there called the Palio. We ate and basked in the sun absorbing the warmth- something we rarely get to do.

The walk back to the bus was an event. Micah, our resident boy scout, decided to take us on a shortcut which took us off the map and into the abyss. Thankfully a woman we saw helped us find our way and we were actually the first people back. We to witness an awkward public make-out session while waiting for the bus to show up. Italians are way different about PDA than Americans it seems. They really have no shame- it may just be the younger kids though.

When we got back to Castig, all four of us roomies took a nap until dinner, which we almost missed if Adrian hadn't come to wake us up. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful.