Day 13 Siena
The day starts early in Siena. There are several large churches and they
seem to have a bell ringing contest starting at 7 am!
Dominican Church from our hotel room
We stayed at the Albergo Bernini. The best thing about this hotel is its
location. It is down one of the many
side streets in town. The family lives
in the same building. It was one of the
two hotels we booked that did not come with breakfast, you could add it on for
a small fee, but we decided to venture out and find our own.
View of the Duomo from our hotel
The locals are apparently used to all the bells, and most
shops do not open until 10. But we did
find a nice bar and had our normal tea and cappuccino as well as pastries. We ate outdoors, the people watching was
great.
Our big plan for the day, aside from the Food class, was to visit
the Duomo. There is a combination ticket
available to gain entrance to all the different parts of the church.
While in line for our ticket, we noticed a wall at the end
of the piazza…just a wall, no building.
The Blog Fodder wondered why it was there, and what those crazy people
were doing on top of it…I mean, how in the world did they even get there?
As it turns out, in the 1330’s Siena was planning on
building the BIGGEST CHURCH EVER! Along
comes the plague, and there goes that idea.
The wall is all that is there.
But no worries, we are not crazy enough to go up there, even
if we could figure out how in the world you get up there.
We then used our ticket to visit the Baptistery, with its
ornate decorations
And the crypt, that was surprisingly open and airy.
View into the Church from the Crypt
View into the Crypt from the Church
It had rained overnight, so we were both thrilled at the
thought of klutzy me going down these slick steps.
We can't say we weren't warned!
We then went into the church itself.
Don’t’ ask me why it is weirdly striped, I don’t know!
They have the obligatory “Shawls of Shame” made out of
paper, for people who show up improperly dressed. They also hire guards, whose whole job is to
yell “No Flash! No Flash!” all day long.
The church is large and impressive. There is a Bernini chapel
and many inlaid
scenes on the floor.
There was also a
great library with old ornate books.
I'm sure the B.F. was taking a picture of the ornate ceiling, and not the statue of naked women!
One funny note…the credit card we use for Europe is a
CapitalOne card. They let you download
your own picture for the front of the card.
We have our feet on a beach in the Caribbean. The clerk in the gift shop was really bored
at the end of her day with dealing with all these tourist. I selected some earrings, and the B.F. handed
her his card. She started to ring us up,
and noticed the front. She got very
animated when she found out it was our feet on the card! No one in the US has ever noticed.
Once done with the church, we went into the museum. It was kind of like a huge garage sale of
items the church no longer uses (of course, nothing was actually for
sale!) There were statues that used to
be on the roof, and other items used inside and out of the church. The rooms were fairly small, and stacked up,
so we climbed a lot of stairs.
We got to
one room with vestments from prior cardinals that served in the area.
There was a velvet rope and a guard who
indicated we should sit in the chairs provided.
Ooooooo-kay…..
The B.F. and I were really unsure what this was all about,
and what we were waiting for, but not willing to mess with the guard.
After a few minutes, a group of tourist came out of a door
at the end of the room, huffing and puffing.
The guard then indicated that our group could go through the
door.
Ooooooo-kay…..
Inside the door there was a teeny tiny marble spiral stair
case.
Ooooooo-kay…..
Have I mentioned that I am claustrophobic?
The B.F. said “I think we are going to the top of that
wall!”
Ooooooo-kay…..
Have I mentioned the B.F. is afraid of heights?
So now, WE ARE THE CRAZY PEOPLE!
I was relieved to get to the top and out of that
circular-staircase-hell! The B.F. was
alarmed to find that we were waaaaaay up there, with just a teeny tiny wall
stopping us from plunging to our deaths!
Fun times!
We did get some great pictures. The B.F. stayed dead center on the wall, I
was busy sweating out the return trip down the staircase.
When we got back down to terra firma, we were both shaking
pretty good and needed a nice, soothing gelato.
We later had a lovely dinner on Il Campo. This is Siena’s main square. They fill the area with sand twice a year and
hold a wild horse race.
The tower there,
Torre Del Mangia, supposedly does not have a very good foundation and is only
being held up by the belief of the locals.
Accidently or not, we are nowhere near crazy enough to climb that one!
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