Wednesday 27 September
Siena was mostly built between the 11th and 14th century, then the Black Death hit in 1348 which arrested its development. It is situated on top of a hill, 320 metres above sea level in the midst of stunning Tuscan countryside. On our first full day we wandered around the narrow streets, awestruck by the beauty of the city. All of the buildings are brick or stone, and range from artisan’s apartment blocks to palazzos on piazzas and some enormous basilicas. I have seen a lot of old cities in Europe, and Siena is the most awesome I have seen so far. The centre is entirely medieval, and the it’s like walking through a film set. There are no footpaths, just roads paved with black stone, so you regularly have to pin your back to the wall as a taxi or rubbish truck comes through.
The rubbish trucks and buses are small so that they can get round the tight corners and along the narrow streets.
We bought the bumper bundle ticket for the cathedral, which would let us visit several different parts of it over 3 days.
The Duomo is clad in black and white striped marble, whereas the Florence Duomo is green and white and bigger. The interior is sumptuously clad with marble, gold and rich frescoes on the walls. The floors are patterned in marble as well, I don’t know how they did that 700 years ago, they were very clever people!
After a shit-load of culture what you do? You have a drink right behind the cathedral in the sunshine.
The Piazza del Campo is the central “square” in Siena, overlooked by the town hall with its great tower, the Torre del Mangia. The Campo is where the Palio horse race takes place every year on the 2nd July and 16 of August. Old Siena is divided into 17 contrada which compete for a silk flag. Out of the 17, only 10 are chosen by lottery to get a horse in the race.
The horses that the contrada get are also decided by lottery, so the competition is extremely intense. Have a look at the BBC Reel video on YouTube, it’s very exciting.
The second part of our Duomo trip was up just under the roof and below the bottom of the dome. We could see inside the cathedral, and had a splendid view of the city and the Facciatone. This was an extension to the cathedral, then the Black Death came along and the builder found a better paying job somewhere else, leaving one big wall.
I managed to find a shop names after me. FACT I once stayed in TIM Hotel in Paris. I’m very popular.
Thursday 28 September
San Gimignano
San Gimignano came up on Google as a good place for a day trip from Siena by train, but it turned out to be simpler to go by bus.
The bus took us through some lovely Tuscan countryside to a hilltop village taken straight from a Chianti bottle label, I expected some men in tights to ride out of the gates on horseback.
The town was doing well and thrived until the Black Death in 1348, then its development was stopped. It still has 7 great stone towers built by rival families in the town, and a good selection of Gothic churches. Because it is so remarkably pretty, it was swarming with other day trippers getting dinner party boasting points; “Have you been to San Gimignano? It’s absolutely fabulous, and the pasta with truffles is to die for’.
We wandered the narrow streets and admired the old houses and churches. There is a panoramic view over Tuscany which looked like the scene in Gladiator where Maximus is remembering his farm.
We watched it on Netflix the other night, it’s still a great film.
There was a market selling all the usual stuff; bags, hats, “truffle oil”, olive wood salad servers. But also a van selling pork sandwiches, which he carved from a large joint of rolled roasted pork. So we literally pigged out.
In the remains of a castle at the top of the town was a man dressed as Dante giving a speech from the Divine Comedy. He had the confident voice of a stage actor, but sadly his audience was almost non-existent.
Every other night we cooked in the flat. Often there would be a simple 2 ring electric hob, which was adequate for simple meals, usually featuring pasta and tuna. There was always wine with our meals, we are in Italy and it would be rude not to.
Friday 29 September
On our last day in Siena we used up the last parts of our Duomo ticket, which was valid for three days. The first part was a museum of treasures from the cathedral; paintings, sculptures, chalices and reliquaries. Reliquaries are just weird, they are fancy silver boxes that contain bits of dead saints; bones, teeth, jawbones, even complete skulls. Pilgrims would travel hundreds of miles to see a reliquary, and they made a lot of money for the churches.
This is the jawbone of a dead saint, I think it’s revolting, but I’m not a Catholic.
The treasures are very limited in scope; Jesus, Mary, saints and the occasional bishop. Some of the statues had a very peculiar posture, but they were designed to be on the top of the cathedral looking down on the pilgrims below.
The “highlight” of the tour was the climb to the top of Facciatone, the very tall wall of unfinished cathedral extension. The last climb was up a narrow spiral staircase designed for people with smaller feet than me. Then when we got to the top the view was fantastic BUT the wall only came up to my waist. I did not like that at all, my guts were churning and my balls were tingling, so I sat down and hung onto the rail. The guide could see the fear in my face and kindly told me about what was in view. Julie took these photos, I didn’t want to let go of the rail!
There are many ancient winding streets in the old town, which have hardly changed in 700 years. On many of the walls are large iron rings, which I guess are used for tethering horses. On many streets there are flags on the wall signifying the different contrada. They are a vital part of the community and organise social events all year round for their members. We were staying in Selva, and the flag has an oak tree on it.
timharnesstravels 