We swam for a couple hours in the AM. We are trying to be a little sensitive to the girls burning out on hilltop towns (and me too). We left for Siane some time after noon. It was about 30 min away. This was our second trip to town and we know the layout and where to park. It was not crowded at all today and we got to a parking spot quickly. We parked in the Soccer Stadium for the Sienna AC and we were able to get into the stands. I’m not sure if they are Serie A… I’ll have to check them out on ESPN360 if they are. The stadium was built into a natural bowl 10 min away from the main city plaza. Like Wrigley Field there are many apartment buildings that surround the field and would have great views on game day.
We stopped in the San Domenico basilica and checked out the art and relics. Fiona is obsessed with relics right now for some reason. She hit the mother load today as San Domico displayed the head and thumb of St Catherine. Is that Doot’s patron saint? I definitely think there should be some limits placed on displaying relics. A thousand year old head seems like it just going to give people the willies, not inspire faith. I’ll email Pope Benedict a link to the blog.
Sienna’s Central Square is huge and beautiful. Definitely top 3 Piazza we’ve seen so far. It is so big they do a horse race every year (Palio) where each neighborhood fields a horse and they race around the square to win bragging rights. I would have like to have seen that. That might be fun for Chicago to do something like that.
We checked out the duomo there which was chock full of works from the masters. There was a Michelangelo, a Donatello, lots of Bernini and a lot of other very impressive art. No ghastly relics were on display. After the duomo in Florence was built, Siena decided to build the biggest church in the world and you can see pert of their efforts to expand the duomo by making the nave part of the transept of the new church. Alas they were stopped by the black plague and never got back to the project.
Tried to find an ATM before we left, walked through the whole town a couple times to find one. I ended up at the other end of the town near the San Francesco Basilica so I stepped in for a sec. That was a spooky place. Really dark and a priest was chanting somewhere. Couldn't see any of the art it was so dark. Left quickly. finally found an ATM and then headed back to the family. Bought some wine and pan forte to get change for parking.
We stopped in Lucignano on the way home for dinner. It is a teeny hilltop town that takes 10 min to explore. We found a great place for dinner and really enjoyed it. This town makes me see why people like to explore hilltop towns. Just stop in, relax and have a bite to eat. Bridget is now enjoying pasta carbonara, Nora likes Ravioli, Fiona Pasta Ragu. Maggie had some with pasta Maccioca(?) with Chili sauce that was great. I had never had that before. I had Panzanella and Pasta e fagioli which were both very good. We stopped for Gelato on the way out of town, made our way home in the dark (it took us 10 min to get out of the parking lot because the exit lane was so narrow and we had to back out -- we had everyone giving me readouts on how close I was on thier side. Although at one point Nora said I think you're ok on my side and I told her there is need for more certainty in this case.
No comments:
Post a Comment