Siena and San Gimignano, with pictures, even!

So getting out of the city was a nice change of pace. For one thing, there was actual plants and trees to see, because outside of window boxes, I haven't seen any real plant life in Florence, just rows and rows of yellow buildings. So being able to see the famous Tuscan landscape was exciting, needless to say it's a big difference from Wisconsin.



First view of Siena's Duomo.


Closer exterior view of the Duomo. It was HUGE.

The bus trip, not as exciting, although the bus was made by Mercedes-Benz; I usually ended up dozing whenever we were on it. It was a lot nicer once we actually got off the bus at Siena. We were assigned a tour guide and sent off on a bit of a whirlwind tour of the city. One thing about Siena is that it has a lot of hills, it can make for some pretty interesting views and very steep streets though. Our guide told us that the city is divided into sections and each has it's own mascot, some where like high school mascots, like the wolves or the eagles; but some were really odd like the caterpillars, the geese and the tortoises.



San Domenico, where the head of St Catherine is held.



Siena street, this was the neighborhood of the Goose.


One thing I didn't like was that for the tour we walked mostly on the main streets. Which meant there were about a million other tourists walking around as wel, and occasionally a car to walk around. But the tour was only about two and a half hours long, but it went by, fast. It also left everyone with an hour and a half to kill. We ended up going into Siena's Duomo, which wasn't as big as Florence's, but was twice as overdone with elaborate decorations on the facade. The inside was much darker, and striped, in stacks of green and white marble, again with lots of different artworks and statues all over the walls. The Piazza del Campo is the huge public square in the shape of a scallop shell, with a little fountain at one end, and big government biulding at the other. Unfortunately didn't have time to go to the Museum of Torture, but did manage to see the preserved head and thumb of St Catherine of Siena. No pictures of that, unfortunately.



Interior view of the Duomo. No Flash Photography Allowed. No Bare Shoulders allowed either.


Piazza del Campo. They hold a huge horse race in this thing twice a year. It's a realy big deal for the locals, this year the Geese were the winners.


Tower to building right by the Campo. I could see people climbing inside of it. No time for that unfortunately.

San Gimignano was smaller than Siena or Florence, but some really increidible views out onto the countryside. The town and it's setup looked like it hadn't changed since the 13th century. To enter we had to go up a huge hill and enter through a gate placed in this enormous wall that surrounded the town. It was also less packed with other tourists, So it was a nice change from both of the previous cities. Didn't go inside of any of the buildings or churches here, mostly just walked around and admired the view from various points.


One of the towers at San Gimignano. Built in the Middle Ages, there's 13 of 76 still standing today.


One of the views from San Gimignano.



That all for this post. Later I'll type about visiting some of the museums in Florence, and the Boboli gardens. Plus more pictures, when I have the time.