And, Back to Siena!

OK, One last day in Siena.  I know I'm dragging it out, but the Rabbits had to have Their say for Thanksgiving.

You know how it is.

So, back we go to lovely Siena.  Ready?

Remember, no, we just left the Cathedral and we are headed down....the.....stairs....

 ...and, to the Crypt underneath the Cathedral!  This was another one of those places where it is forbidden to take pictures, but I had to take, well, a couple, right?  Please don't call the Polizia!

Anyhow, that's why they are a little dark and/or blurry:

A painting from the wall of the Crypt.  Imagine HOW OLD THIS IS!!!!  I mean, come on!!!

And, another...

This is another randomly placed praying station.  Everywhere, they are!  So cool.

Remember the Panorama site I mentioned that our ticket covered-- to see the big sights in Siena?  Well, this is the arch underneath the Panorama wall you can walk on.  From up there, you can look out over the whole city.  Unfortunately, the line to go up on the wall had a wait that was over an hour long, so I didn't go up the stairs.

I love heights and would have loved to walk across that wall, but actually, the sights from below were equally as cool...

Here are some Italian pigeons.  I haven't shared any pigeon shots yet, have I?  I took pictures of pigeons pretty much every place we went.  I can't resist them.  This one is running through the Piazza right in front of the Cathedral.  RUN, PIGEON, RUN!

This picture shows a bit of the wedding cake look of the Cathedral.  Doesn't it look like it's covered in delicious piped frosting?  Mmmmmmm.  It makes me want cake.  You can also see the gorgeous blue sky that made our day extra nice.

This is a very hungry looking kitty that lives inside the Baptistery.  It made me feel at home.  SOmeone put some food in that trap!  It's hanging open!

Here is the Vespa that I really wanted to bring home.  I don't think it would have fit in my suitcase, but...

I'm not sure why I took this picture, but I did.  I think it was a picture that constituted my "bread crumb trail" of pictures so we could find our way back tot he car.

After a beautiful day in Siena, we came back to our villa in Tavernelle and to THIS SUNSET!

It was truly a wonderful day!  I loved Siena, in case you couldn't tell.  I would highly recommend a trip there if you ever get the opportunity.

I can't remember where we are off to next.  Oh, wait, I think I remember.  Well, you will find out on Wednesday!  SEE YOU THEN!

Still In Siena

We only spent one day in Siena, and it wasn't even a whole day, but it seems I am still writing about it.  It such an amazingly beautiful city.  Again in Siena, I was (understandably) struck by the oldness of it all.  Like, when you 're in a place that was settled by Etruscans in 900-400 BC, it is a little mind boggling.

That's kind of an understatement.

I will pick up where I left off.  I still won't finish up Siena today, but maybe by Wednesday.  Then, next week, we can move on to somewhere else.

When we first got to the Piazza del Duomo, we tried to go into the Cathedral.  What we didn't know is that we needed a ticket to get in!  The ticket was a good purchase, because for about 12 euros, you can then get into the Cathedral, the Museo Dell'Opera del Duomo, the Crypt (underneath the Cathedral), the Panorama, which is a wall you can climb up onto with a view of the entire city, the Baptistry,  and another place I can't remember, because we didn't visit whatever it was. 

Oops.  Bad memory.

This is a shot of the Cathedral from the side as we were walking back from buying our tickets.  There was a guy right below this shot, totally rocking out on his accordian.  I'm not sure why I didn't get a picture of him.  He was playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons.  Pretty amazing!  And, look at that blue sky!!

Our first stop after getting our tickets, was the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, which is full of religious art.  In this picture, you see one of a display of Illuminated Manuscripts (note:  you weren't really supposed to take pictures in here, but I had to in order to show the Chick what I saw, so a lot of the lighting is dark and sometimes the shots are even a little blurry).

There was one whole room that was filled with Holy Relics.  This is the crazily ornate box containing St. Clement.  I have tried to figure out which St. Clement this was, as apparently there are about 8 St. Clements, but so far, I can't figure out who he was.  He was pretty much all inside this box, though:

This is just some gorgeous stained glass window.  I'm sure there's more aof a story to it, but really, it doesn't need one:

I tried really hard not to violate the rules too much and take too many pictures where I shouldn't.  Just a few.  :)

After leaving the Museo, we stopped for some lunch at this lovely place.  I think I had pizza and sparkling mineral water:

This is another view from the side of the Cathedral as we are walking toward it...

...to go inside!  Here is the view down the central corridor looking toward the alter.  I'm sure "corridor" is not the architectural term.  I love the Black and White Stripes!

The floor is absolutely gorgeous inside.  Most of it is roped off and not allowed to be walked on.  They had little paths so that you could get around.  This shot shows a place in the floor where they had various Italian cities featured with their mascot animals.  Siena is Romulus and Remus suckling from the Wolf:

And Pisa is.......A RABBIT!!!  Well, somone had to be, right?  Don't you imagine a great war waging over who got to be the Rabbit?

This is one of my favorite shots-- up into the Duomo!  It was a tough shot to get, because I had to lean way over the ropes, and being a Very Small Animal with Very Short Arms, getting a shot of this was a challenge.  But I like how it turned out:

This is a shot from behind the alter:

And this shows the Black and White Stripey-ness again.  I love that!

On Wednesday, we will go to the Crypt, underneath the Cathedral and a couple of other places, and then we'll be ready to leave Siena. 

See you then!

On to...Siena!

Well, I thought that I could finish off the second half of the day I began to tell you about on Monday with today's post, but you know what?  I don't think it's going to work.  The problem is, I took SO MANY FREAKING PICTURES and I don't want to shortchange them, and it's so hard to pick and choose what to tell about and what not to tell about, and...

...well, whatever, right?  I'll start today and finish when I finish.

We started this particular day in Tavernelle Val di Pesa at the open Air Market, a tale I told you on Monday.  And after that, we drove a very short way to Siena.

Siena is a beautiful city built in a way that no matter which way you go, you seem to be walking up a hill! 

Siena is another walled city.  Here was the view looking out as we walked along the wall:

In this picture, you can see the wall through the archway.  See, there?  On the left?  That's the wall. (You may also notice the slight incline.  See?  Everything's a hill!!)

This praying station was just inside the main gates of the city.  Up high in the corner of some buildings.  Neat-o-neat!!

In this picture, you can see some of the Siena's flags.  Each little section, or Contrade, of the city has it's own flag.  For more on this, click here.

Siena is pretty darn famous for it's pottery.  I would have brought some home if I hadn't been worried that it would get broken.  After our flight to Italy and seeing how our suitcases got thrown around and, well...lost, i thought purchasing pottery would not be the best idea.  Though there was lots of it and it was all awesome.  I did buy some espresso cups and small pottery-related things, but big pieces seemed like a bad idea.  I took pictures instead!

And, picture this:  You are walking and walking along these tiny, narrow brick streets (made of ANCIENT bricks, mind you, and then suddenly...

...you come across AN AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL CATHEDRAL!!  This is Siena's Duomo.

When I showed the Chick these pictures, she said "It looks like a wedding cake!!"  And it DOES!  In real life it looks like you could EAT IT!  Though, I don't suppose anyone would want to.

Well, maybe a little bite.  I want a frosting flower!

So, more about Siena to come.  TOO MANY PICTURES!!

This is seriously taking away from Rabbit Air Time.