Siena

This past Wednesday, we went to Siena, probably my new favorite Tuscan hill town. The first place that we went to was the main cathedral in town that features a very distinct Sienese design of horizontal black and white marble striations on the exterior as well as the interior of the church. The sky was unbelievably clear and made bell tower of the church really stand out. It was definitely a great way to start the day. 

 The interior of the church. There are no words. 

 The outside. One of the only Gothic style churches that we have seen in Italy. When the church was being built in the 11th century, the plan was to actually beat St. Peter's basilica in size. To the right of the picture you can see where the addition was intended but it was never actually realized. 

 In the center of the town is the Campo which has an enormous piazza made up of 9 "pizza slices" to stand for the 9 members of their government. It was really fun to come back to the piazza throughout the day because you could watch where people would gather, always in the shade of the tower which I am climbing up in this picture. 

 Looking up from probably only half way up the tower. It was cramped in lots of places but this tower was much easier to climb up than the Duomo because of the vertical air shaft that ran all the way through. In the Duomo we circled around 2 shells of the dome and it got tight! 

 Looking out from the top of the Tower. I love that in most of the Tuscan hill towns, we have been able to climb up the bell towers or at least get to the top of the hill to look out onto the city. The organization of buildings and street patterns is so incredible. Such a nerdy architectural thing to say but there is absolutely nothing like this any where else in the world. 

 The girls at the top of the bell tower

Ty and my honeymoon pic! 

Part of our assignment for the day was to pick one of the Contradas (regions, there are 17) of the city to visit, draw, and witness the culture. Two times a year, the 17 contradas host a Palio in which each of them recruit a horse and rider to race in the Campo. It is a huge deal for the city and the winning contrada will host a enormous dinner and festival in their region for all those that live there. I chose Torre which is the region of the Tower, symbolized with an elephant carrying a tower on its back. This was a part of the region in which the whole way down the street you could see the tower pop up between the trees and the buildings. It was beautiful. I actually stumbled upon the societa elefante which is the society for the region in which a bunch of older men were gathered together and what sounded like bullshitting about god knows what. I poked my head in and they immediately stopped talking. It got very awkward very quickly and I left them to their business. Probably the highlight of my day! haha. 
Siena was an awesome city with tons of amazing shopping. Hope to go back soon! Our next trip is to Montepulciano, home of my one of my parents favorite wine. Could life get better?