A Hill Top Town

After our tour of Assisi we drove to Siena, one of Italy's famous hill top cities.  Siena is in the heart of the Tuscan hills and provides beautiful views from it's hill top perch.  Our arrival is Siena was a little rough as we had some trouble finding a parking space.  Not a lot of big lots on top of the hill with the old city.  So we opted to track down the football (yes, soccer for all the Americans) stadium and park their.  With a little finesse my Dad parked out little car and we climbed the hill to the city while eating the pastries we bought in Assisi.  I don't remember exactly what kind of pastry I got but I remember I really liked it.  We walked through the city along the shopping street called Banchi di Sopra.  We did a little window shopping along the way until we reached Il Campo which is the big city square.  It's not really a square per se but a half moon opening in the middle of the city.  The flat end of the "square" butts up against City Hall and other government buildings while the circular edge has restaurants, cafes, and shops all around it.  It's a fun place to sit and people watch as the locals are mixed with the tourists sitting in the middle of the square and enjoying the summer weather.  We didn't spend to much time there as we arrived fairly late and wanted to see the Duomo.

We took off looking for the Duomo but I read the map upside down so we first walked in the wrong direction and had to get a police officer to point us in the right direction.  I never said maps were my strong suit.  When we got to the Duomo we took a few minutes to admire the outside.  The front is carved white marble, it's very intricate and beautiful.  The other side has a tower painted with black and white horizontal stripes.  Yes, this is the zebra church.  We ventured inside the Duomo to find all the columns painted the same black and white zebra pattern which I still find really amusing.  According to my information the church was built in 1215 with most of the decorations being completed during 1250 to 1350.  Ringing the top of the nave are the heads of 172 popes who look down on the visitors and parishioners.  If you look closely at the heads you will find that the same 4 faces are used over and over again because apparently they only knew what 4 of the popes looked like and went with that.  While the church is beautiful the biggest draw is the marble floors which show the stories of the Old Testament, allegories and intricate patterns throughout the church.  The floor was created by 40 master artists during approximately 2 centuries.  One of the more interesting sections shows the rarely depicted Slaughter of the Innocents.

The church also house one seriously carved Pisano pulpit and a faux dome.  Faux dome meaning it is a painted illusion as no such dome is visible from the outside.  Some artist had a fabulous time making it look like the ceiling was a dome.  On one side of the church there is a Donatello bronze of John the Baptist and on the other side a Michelangelo sculpture next to the Bernini chapel.  The Bernini chapel housing 3 marble sculptures of Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene and Saint Jerome.  Of the three sculptures the Mary Magdalene was the most amazing to me.  Her face was veiled but it was so amazingly beautiful and melancholy.  I spoke volumes to me and Mom.  We attempted to get a picture but couldn't use flash so they didn't come out at all.  We tried to buy one later in the gift shop but they didn't have one of just her.  After walking through and admiring the church and most importantly the floor we headed to the gift shop where Mom bought a couple of post cards then headed out as the church was getting ready to be closed.

After our church visit it was almost 7pm so we headed back to look for something to eat before finishing the drive to Pisa.  We walked back to Il Campo and decided to try another of Rick Steves recommendations and ended up at Ristorante Guidoriccio just off the Campo.  Dinner was fabulous probably my second or third favorite meal in all of Italy.  I had the house special of spicy spaghetti, Mom had the daily special of vegetarian lasagna, and Dad had a spaghetti marinara.  He wasn't overly happy with his but not because it wasn't good but because he ordered the wrong thing.  He wanted something spicy like what I had.  Mine and Mom's were awesome and I just about wanted to lick the plate when I was done.

When dinner was done and paid for we walked back through the city to the car and headed out for the final drive of the day to Pisa.  We would be staying in a hotel outside of Pisa for the next 2 nights.  We drove without any problems, well once we got out of Siena, all the way to Pisa.  When we got to Pisa we missed the turn for our hotel and had to drive a bit before we found an opening to turn around in.  Unfortunately there are only a couple of inlets on the road we were on in the middle of the fields and both the ones we saw had prostitutes hanging out waiting for a customer.  When we pulled off to turn around there was a black prostitute who came walking toward the car until she saw there was three of us and figured we weren't in the market.  But I locked the door none the less.  We back tracked to our hotel and checked in.  The room was decent enough but not all that great.  We had had a long day and were planning to drive to Cinque Terra the next so we went to bed pretty early.