Sienna

Thursday, March 31 we went to Siena. This was a pretty interesting trip from a historical point of view. We found out a lot about the ancient rivalry between the people of Siena and Firenze, which the Fiorentinos won eventually mostly because they had a large river that allowed their population to outpace that of Siena, and also because they recovered more quickly from the Black Plague. The trip was mostly just a sightseeing tour however, and because I have a lot of other things to write about I'm going to leave this one as a photo-tour as well.

We got up super early to go to Siena, this was the sunrise in Castiglion before we left


More of the view from Castiglion


Jim at the walls of Siena


Our group entering Siena


The beautiful hills of Siena


Our approach to one of the large churches in Siena


Standing below the same church


One of the many fountains in town


The fountains served Siena in place of a river


The lower part of the town center


The streets as we walked up the hills toward the Cathedral


The view from the main hill in town of the hill from which we arrived


Peter Lang pointing out some stuff about the baptistry under the cathedral


Walking up from the baptistry to the front of the Cathedral


The Cathedral of Siena


The parks along the sides of the old walls


The back side of the old hospital


They've been renovating here for a LONG time, see the weeds growing on the scaffolding?


Streets near the city center


A park just outside the city center, this has a huge parking garage underneath


View from the top of the Garage of the old city as it is concentrated on the pilgrimage route


Another view from the garage


Jim shrunk, the couple in front of him didn't notice, they just kept mugging out


The tower is the center of town


And here we are at the town center


The Beatles

So about that last painting, we went to this modern art exhibit which was interesting, there were all kinds of paintings from movies and stuff which was quite cool. The work was done by Paul Davis (I think), because he is something of a famous illustrator. Anyhow, it was neat. We also ran into a bunch of rude Spanish people (which apparently is normal for Spanish people) who were making fun of a nice Caribinero who was trying to clear the exit from the cathedral so people could get out. Jerks. I liked Siena a lot, it was much nicer than Firenze in my opinion, as far as appearances go. Firenze is in some ways more modern but in general its just more flat and crowded, Siena was a much more pleasant place to walk around.

Oh and I sat on my headphones and broke them in Siena, so now I am listening to a pair of HORRIBLE headphones I bought in town for 6 euro. There were all that was available in town. Sucks. But Siena was cool. Ok, tomorrow hopefully I'll be able to write about Switzerland (or maybe, maybe tonight if I feel good after dinner) and our trip today to Pienza (which was rather uneventful and won't take me long to write about). Ciao!