Florence, Day 9

Sarah and I are up super early for a Saturday... catching the bus downtown at 7:34. We take a big bus that's been reserved for just us ACM folks to the Chianti region (yes, that's where the wine comes from), stopping in Siena to spend the morning and early afternoon touring the Cathedral and the museum that's connected to it.

First of all, Siena is gorgeous. That's all that really needs to be said about that. However since a picture's worth a thousand words, take a look and decide for yourself.

Siena from the sky! Actually from a tower.

We started out at the Basilica di San Domenico, which is dedicated to St. Catherine of Siena and Madonna (you'll soon see that just about everything in this city is somehow dedicated to Mary... she's the patron saint of the city). St. Catherine is a huge deal in Siena, mostly because it's her home city, but she died while still young during a visit to Rome. The diocese in Rome decided to bury her in Rome and not return her body to her homeland, however the Italians are (like me) a stubborn people. The Sienese people found out about Rome's decision and went to claim Catherine's head (and, mysteriously, a finger...) as relics and brought them back to Siena, where they are housed in the basilica to this day.

After the basilica, we walked to Siena's Duomo and entered the Crypt (SO COOL). The second room of the crypt was only discovered and excavated in 1990s, so this is still a pretty new thing. Since this room of the crypt was sealed with dirt, the frescoes are still magnificent and the colors still rich and vibrant. No pictures allowed though. Bummer.

Once we left the crypt, we headed up a flight of marble stairs to enter the Duomo itself. Holy cow. I'll let these next few pictures speak for themselves.

The Music Room... look at that ceiling!

The height of this cathedral was amazing.

The pulpit, sculpted by Nicolo Pisano.

Pretty amazing, right?

After the Duomo, Jodi took us into the Museum next door to the Duomo, where we took a look at some of the original statues (which have been removed and replaced by copies for preservation purposes). We were then free to break for lunch, but some of decided to climb up to the top of the unfinished façade next to the museum (it was originally going to be a new "arm" of the cathedral) and see Siena spread out below us. It was so worth the wait. The first picture in this post is one I took from the rooftop, but here a couple more.

Jodie, with the unfinished facade behind her.

Siena :)

I'm on the roof!

We hurried on downstairs after this and headed off to find Piazzo del Campo (the piazza in front of the 1300s town hall). We got an amazing tour of Palazzo Pubblico (the town hall itself) from Jodi and Gail, where I saw so much gold and marble that I thought my eyeballs would fall out. I have never been so wide-eyed for so long. There's some truly incredible stuff in there and Jodi and Gail both know so much!

We didn't get to spend terribly long inside Palazzo Pubblico, we had another town to hit up! On our way back to the bus, we stopped and got to try these powdered sugar cookies that Siena is famous for. I have no idea what they were, but they were delicious. I also had gelato (the streak goes on!), chocolate and vanilla-chocolate chip today. We got back on our bus and headed over to Greve in Chianti for the Greve Wine Festival. It was just as good as it sounds. I now have a commemorative wine glass, a new favorite wine, and a pamphlet for the villa that one of the (very cute) vendors invited me to come visit. All in all, a pretty great day.

Tomorrow is a free day and a few of us are going to the beach! Should be a lot of fun. I'm excited to see the Mediterranean!