All of the streets in the main part of Siena surround the main piazza, but before we got there we passed the world's first bank! Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena was stablished in 1492, and still is used for banking today. A wonderful volunteer guide helped lead us to the Piazza del Campo where the first cathedral of Siena was built, and there was also a very cute fountain that was surrounded by worried parents and kids trying to climb into it to swim! Whats cool about the Piazza del Campo (built in 13th century) is that it is shaped and the bricks are laid so its like a seashell divided into 9 parts, symbolizing fish and water, and each section represents an important ruler during the time of construction. The fountain was also a main source of water for the people who lived inside the wall. Of course we took pictures!
Throughout the city of Siena, there are MANY statues up on single pillars that depict the brothers Romulus and Remus suckling on a she-wolf. According to legend, the wolf raised the two boys as her own, and then Remus died later in life, Romulus found Rome, and Romulus' son Senius found Siena. Theres a lot of Greek god stuff thrown in there, like the brothers being conceived by Mars or Hercules with a virgin. Left to die, that's where the wolf came in and they grew up to be leaders and conquerers. Great story, right? At least that's my version.
We were able to go inside the atrium of the cathedral, but that was about the furthest we could go. Since Italy has so many churches, we quickly found ourselves discovering other little hidden churches around the town (one that was very similar to the Duomo in Florence). We stopped for pizza first though. And it was the best I've had so far, the slices were the size of my face and I don't even think my brothers could finish off an entire pizza if their lives depended on it. There were so many more small, family owned shops around Siena- bakeries, gelaterias, oil/cheese shops, ceramics/pottery- and many more!
The other great thing about Siena is that it is much more child-friendly, and we even found a playground to burn some steam off and the swing set overlooked a large chunk of Tuscany. It may have been my favorite part because you could swing for hours and see for miles, a great view of the city, mountains, vineyards, houses with real yards (those don't exist in Florence), and it was peaceful. Brought out my inner child for about 10 minutes! haha (Side note: Tuscany is the state/region that Florence, Siena, Lucca, and Pisa are in... There are 20ish states in all of Italy. so when people refer to Tuscany, it's like saying "the midwest" comparably to the USA, but theres much more culture, cheese and wine here than in the midwest).
Siena is very different because of the streets: they go up and down, and swerve and lead you to dead ends and secret alley ways like I've never seen before. It also made for a great work out and plenty of fresh air! We also snuck into a university that had stain glass doors with a huge open terrace on the other side with a basketball court that overlooked many more vineyards. I could definitely go to school here with a view like that! Some students looked at us funny, so we snuck out and then came across a huge gated garden next to it. We couldn't figure out how to sneak in there, but it was really cool to look through the gates and gaze up at the palm trees/flowers.
After exploring Siena for about 5 hours, of course we wanted to go to another city nearby, so we went to the bus station to get tickets to go to San Gimignano (Jim-in-yan-o). Of course we can not do a trip without goofing something up or something funny happening, so if you want to hear about it, read on! First off, we had to get special bus tickets because it was to another city. We get to the ticket office down at the bottom of the city (at the train station) and we do our best to talk to the bus ticket man. He sells us bus tickets and gives us the schedule. Assuming there were still buses running at 4PM, we checked the schedule and the next bus was at 4:15. Waited out by the other buses, and waited some more, then 4:25 comes along and no bus to San Gimignano shows up! So we go inside and after trying to understand each other for 10 minutes, we soon realize we had to go back up to the bus station in the city center to catch our bus. But the 4:15 bus was the last one of the day. So now I have bus tickets to Sanny (thats what Emma calls it because its hard to pronounce), which will be another adventure another day! So we trained it back to Florence, and got dinner at a wonderful Florentine restaurant across the river ran by 3 old men that were brothers, and their sons. Best pasta I had yet, and can't wait to go back. We also walked around until 11PM, then called it a night. What a wonderful day again in Italy. Next stop: Cortona (seen the movie Under the Tuscan Sun??) Much love, AF
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