Day 23 Siena
The day began darkly with the news that my friend’s husband succumbed
to his illness and died overnight. This left me in a pall of sadness.
We had a nice breakfast in the hotel and walked down into
the town with the general plan to follow the tourist trail we had had investigated.
Things seemed a long way off on the map but in 20 minutes or so we were down in
the historic heart of Siena.
The towers we could see on the horizon drew us like magnets
and that was just as well as the streets, even with the help of the I-Pad were
a little hard to follow. Through bricked and cobbled lanes we wound ourselves
down to the Piazza del Campo. This was a beautiful area of sweeping pavement,
surrounded by a series of grand buildings. This was the place in which the
famous historic horse race takes place, but today there were only the
occasional banners to suggest the tribal rivalries and pageantry that the race
inspires in the people of the city.
We walked through the piazza to an area beyond the grand municipal
buildings where a market building overlooked a large green valley between the
houses. From here we worked our way up and down the streets, with no particular
plan in mind. There was something rambling, unfocussed and even difficult in
our walk today.
We did come across the main church of the city, the Cathedral
of Santa Maria Assunta. It sparkled whitely in the weak sun and there was some
fabulously detailed statuary decorating the surface, but we did not go in. Up
until then we had not seen any army guards in Siena, but outside the Duomo
there were a couple, but we thought they were more there for public reassurance
than to stop anything violent as they were unarmed.
Our rambling, unfocussed walk continued and looking for
places that would afford us a view across the city we found the Basilica of San
Francesco. It was very large and dark, and even though the tour book boasted
that it had many important art works, it was so dark that we could barely see
them. Leaving the church we caught sight of a colonnade next door that looked
interesting. We followed our noses into what turned out to be the Economics
faculty of the University of Siena.
It was hard to keep up our spirits today and we seemed to
feel the tiredness much more than we had on other days. After buying pannini
and taking them to seats outside for a picnic outside Santa Caterina de Siena, we
thought it best to head back towards the hotel. Opposite our hotel was the most
enormous, and massive fort. We had seen people walking along the walls but
finding the way up proved difficult as there was only one entry point in the
whole fort. We found the stairs that raised us to the wall and walked around a
bit of the way. There was also a large park within the walls and a few
smooching couples making the most of the privacy (until we came along). The
building also housed the Siena Jazz organization and with the windows open, in the
fort’s courtyards the sound of rehearsing musicians floated.
It was a short walk to the hotel and we were both very
grateful for a rest and a nap.
