Siena!

Ceiling of a library inside the Duomo. Have you ever seen anything so ornate?
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Today, we took a huge double decker bus to Pienza, Montepulciano, and Siena.  They are all beautiful cities in the Tuscan countryside.  To me, Siena is the posterchild of Italy.  It's an old hill town and is just so quaint, as if something from the movies. Family - I think I might take you there.  So, we most definitely looked like tourists piling out of a huge blue double decker bus.  But, people in Siena are so nice!  Apparently, the people of Firenze are the snobbiest ones in Tuscany (bummer, right), but they were all just so nice, and say hi to you on the street!

The pulpit inside the Duomo.
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One odd thing I noticed was sculptures of Remus and Romulus everywhere.  Romulus and Remus are the infants who were raised by a she-wolf, Rome is named after Romulus.  Legend has it that Siena was founded by Senius, the son of Remus.  Small world, huh?

So we had about a half an hour to walk around, and we basically just split up, and I am pokey so I explored all the little shops by myself.  Then we eventually met at the Duomo.  It is a magnificent duomo.  The inside was real impressive to me in that it is so colorful on the inside.  So the story behind Siena's duomo is that it is different from most other Catholic Churches that it's axis runs north-south.  It was originally intended to follow suit with other cathedrals.  They were going to turn the original axis into the transept, which would flip the orientation, and thus fall in the category of 'normal' as far as Catholic churches go.  But, alas, in true Italian fashion, it was left unfinished as money ran out.  The unfinished portion is now a museum, if I recall correctly.  The most amazing part, is this large pulpit that the is elevated above where the congregation would sit.  It sent chills down my spine as I sat there imagined a priest reading the gospel from up there! Oh, how fabulous!

Me, in a random field, in front of a random church, Montepulciano.
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So after all of this educational visit business, we had free time.  So Brittany, Mary, and I wondered around the streets.  Earlier, by myself I had gone into a salumeria, which is more or less a butcher's shop, but they sell other things there too.  So I decided we had to go back in because it smelled so good in there.  Now this place was so typical, meat hanging from the ceiling, prosciutto is curing, sausages hanging everywhere.  It was good stuff.  So we walk in, and there are 2 men having their tea.  So we just kinda poke around and look at things.  And the third man comes out of the back room, and is chumming with us, and I'm practicing my Italian (which is hilarious).  Then they offer us cookies and cantuccini, and biscotti, and vin santo, and grappa.  Now Vin Santo is a real good sweet wine, that was delicious.  Then the grappa, not so tough.  It tasted, more or less, like a shot of bad vodka.  Grappa literally means "grape stalk", grappa is made by distilling pomace, which is grape residue: mostly the skins, but also some seeds and stemsthat are left over from winemaking.

Facade of the Duomo
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Next stop is the Piazza Del Campo,  after drinking a glass of wine, and two shots of grappa, it was an interesting visit.  It actually was very interesting!  Italians love their piazzas.  I love them too!  The Piazza Del Campo is considered one of the most beautiful public spaces in all of Europe.  There is a museum inside, within which I spaced out for a while, but one of the main that was done in Siena was the idea of good government.  And so it goes, that there is a fresco which depicts good governemnt, and the type of place that would result from it.  Then, on the opposite wall there is the place that would result from bad government.  And so it goes that this is the idea of what the American democracy was founded on.  It is debated, however, whether or not the Founding Fathers actually saw this fresco.  Interesting....

More facade of the Duomo!
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Then, we all loaded up into our dorky blue double decker bus and headed back to Sesto where we ate dinner and then we went out into Florence.  I forgot how much I hate creepy people at the bars.