Siena and San Gimignano

Our second full-day excursion as a group took place yesterday when we went to the Tuscan hill towns of Siena and San Gimignano. Our bus departed shortly after 8:00 a.m., and it took us about ninety minutes to reach Siena, which was a major rival of Florence in the Middle Ages. Its ultimate defeat and oppression by the Florentines in the 16^th century led to a ban on development, and the city is very well preserved. I spent about 10-15 minutes orienting the group to the city in the main square (Piazza del Campo) and then turned them loose for about 2-1/2 hours of free time. Many of the students, along with my wife and oldest son, decided they wanted to climb the 505 steps of the tower attached to the city hall (Palazzo Pubblico, pictured here). Unfortunately, only twenty-five people are allowed in the tower at a time, so our climbers spent the majority of our time in Siena waiting in line at the tower and going up and down.

While they were thus engaged, I went into the museum housed in the Palazzo and enjoyed the many frescoes of both a religious and secular nature that covered nearly every wall. The Sienese school of art peaked in the 14^th century prior to the Black Death's hitting the city in 1348, and most of the art dated from that period. However, there was one room dedicated to the Risorgimento (the movement for Italian unification in the 19^th century) with some striking frescoes of Italian troops in action.

When Vickie and Edward finally descended from the tower, we raced to the church of San Domenico to see the head and finger of St. Catherine of Siena. Then we had to race back to the bus drop-off point, past the cathedral (with only time for a brief picture), to find that we had to wait for the bus for about half an hour. When it finally arrived, we loaded up and made a forty-five-minute trip to San Gimignano, a hill town between Florence and Siena which has one of Italy's most famous skylines.

San Gimignano was another prosperous city devastated by the Black Death in 1348, losing roughly 70% of its population. It never recovered and, like Siena, ultimately fell under the control of Florence. Fourteen of its original seventy towers still stand, and the entire town is the main sight. The downside is that it is always swamped with tourists during the day. I can't imagine what it is like in July and August. We had about two hours to walk around and soak up the atmosphere. Most of the students simply wandered. My family paid to go into the town's Duomo, which isn't much to look at from the outside, but has some intense fresco cycles inside.

We returned to Citerna around 7:30 and had dinner here at the hotel. I had a bit of a sunburn and was exhausted from carrying the kids around, but it was well worth it.

Did I mention that the food here is fantastic?