Six hours in Siena

Yesterday we left Florence and its suburbs for the first time. Not to say Florence isn't beautiful and entertaining, but I was really looking forward to stretching our legs a little outside the city, so we chose medieval Siena as a start. We hit some minor bumps, though, but after missing the past several weekends to rainy weather, I was determined to go this time! To begin, Seth has a nasty cold to compliment his achy jaw, I have a mild version of what he has, and I soon realized I was underdressed for the chilly weather. At least it wasn't raining!

The next inconvenience was that after we boarded the late-morning bus we soon noticed that they don't let the bus sell out of tickets, so once the seats were filled in front of our eyes we were left STANDING the 1hr and 15min ride to Siena. This wasn't as bad as we thought it would be--we were able to lean a little on the occupied seats, but with about 30min left we both felt a bit ill from going up and down all the hills and making the tight turns.

Upon arriving we left the bus (thank goodness!), then followed the tourist trail to Il Campo, Siena's famous main square, from which the rest of the city spirals outward. This square is divided into nine sections representing the city's nine districts, which compete annually in their horse race, Il Palio. We got nice and chilly eating our bagged lunch here, so we hustled to the Duomo.

Il Campo

We bought a combo ticket that let us into the main cathedral sites, so we started with the large, black and white stripped Duomo.

Siena's Duomo (13th century, Gothic)Pretty intense facade

I love the stripes, though they remind me of the legs of mosquitoes

The floor took 200 years and 40 artists to complete and is usually covered, but lucky for us they unveil it for a couple weeks every year. It is described by Vasari as "the most beautiful, great and magnificent pavement ever made" (1568). Unfortunately this was hard to capture with a camera so we only took a couple pictures of the marble panels.

Pisano's Pulpit (1268)

Piccolomini Library. The 550 year old frescoes have never been restored, but look as vibrant as ever!

After gawking over the cathedral, we headed to the Duomo Museum and we waited in our first tourist line since arriving in Italy--50min to walk up a swirly staircase for a panoramic view of the city. That was worth the wait! Plus, it was nice to have a seat for a little while and get re-organized before seeing the rest of the museum.

It was very bright

Though already content, we decided to make the most of our ticket and hopped into the crypt (not as impressive as you'd think) and finally the Baptistery.

The Baptistery, also in stripes!

Hungry, we grabbed a couple slices of pizza and strolled around the city for our final hour before boarding the 6:20pm bus home (we were planning to stay in the city for a real dinner but we think this was the last bus of the evening... ergh). This bus was much nicer, AND we got seats! The problem, however, came when the radiator blew out and the bus broke down, stranding us on the side of the highway for 30min as we waited to be picked up by a replacement bus. At least there seemed to be mostly other tourists on the bus, so everyone seemed to have a good laugh over it, despite the annoyance.

There was an Oktoberfest behind these thick stone walls!

San Domenico and the Duomo resting on the next hill over

A nice night to wait by the broken-down bus on the side of the highway.

Overall, Siena was extremely picturesque, packing its steep hills with strange outcroppings of old buildings and tiny little streets and parks. It would have been nice to do lots more wandering around, but that will have to wait until next time! However, with negative impressions from 2 out of our 2 bus rides so far, I must question the reliability of Italian intercity buses for future trips...