Sleepy Sienna

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Siena Day one

Yay, back on Busabout today. Head off to Siena today. We drive for a few hours and stop in Orverto. Beautiful place, would have loved to spend at least a night there. But unfortunately we had about an hour to get up to the top to the village, find a panini and get back to the bottom in time. Didn’t see much at all. Arrived into Siena about 1.30pm and checked into the sweatbox! Headed straight into town and began our usual dawdle around the town to get orientated. I love Siena, would be even greater if it wasn’t so hot, but you can’t have it all. Very gothic buildings all enclosed with the ‘old walls’. Lots of beautiful old churches too. We went to the Santa Maria d. Servi Basilica and it had the body of a mummified saint on display in his little coffin. I think it was the body of San Francesco who was born in 1266 and died sometime in the early 1300’s. We slowly made our way back towards the bus stop in the sweltering heat. It was very humid and we had already drunk 2 litres of water. We stopped off at the supermarket on the way home, and picked up some dinner (salad) and fruit and muesli bars. We have definatly blown the budget of late! Spent the evening trying to get the fridge to cool down so we could crack the bottle of wine and beers we also got, and sat outside to enjoy the cooling temperatures and chatting to other Busabouter’s.

Day two

Woke up early today and headed into the town with a few others. We found the old walls and the view over it was spectacular. Exactly what you expect of the Tuscan countryside! And nice and green too! We spent the morning wandering, and then headed up the tower in the Piazza del Campo. This is the same piazza where they hold the famous horse race, the Palio. One rider from 10 of Siena’s 17 districts is chosen to represent their district, and they race their horses around the piazza. The last race was on the 2 July, so we missed out by a couple of weeks. Never mind. The view from the tower was pretty spectacular. To get to the top we had to climb a very narrow and low staircase up 205 meters (thank goodness I’m not claustrophobic) up to the bell tower.
We then headed for some lunch before making our way to the Duomo. The outside was an amazing puzzle of colour, blues and whites, and the inside was spectacular too. It had a library which had on display music in these books that must have been a meter high! We then moved onto the San Caterina church, where they have the mummified head (and thumb) of St. Catherine after she was decapitated in the early 1300’s. Lovely little church. From here we found a little park which had nice big shady trees and a view that also looked over this lush green ravine. It was on the edge of the city because it was located near the city walls. From here were decided to make tracks and head for home. We had another nice night (much cooler than the night before) and again sat around drinking wine and beer, salad for dinner and chatting to new friends.

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