the marvels of Siena

For the grand finale of our trips last week, we spent most of Saturday either on a bus, driving through the Tuscan countryside, or in the delightful hill-city of Siena. 

(Quick note about travel by bus: public buses are a pain because it's mostly just standing room and they whiz around corners and stop abruptly and I always get slammed into random strangers. The private bus we took to Siena, on the other hand, was spacious with big windows and cushy seats and it was just our group. So that was a party.)

We did briefly dip into the chapel dedicated to Saint Catherine of Siena, where her preserved head is stored, but photography's not allowed in there, so you'll have to take my word for it. 

Behold, the cathedral!

Siena is all steep streets lined with cute little shops. At the top of every hill, you get a magnificent view of the city.

We wended our way downhill to the cathedral, which was so blindingly white in the morning sun that I couldn't even look at it straight on without sunglasses. I basically took all these pictures blind and didn't see how they turned out until later.

The Duomo in Florence is impressive because of its sheer size in addition to its colorful beauty, but Siena's cathedral has the fanciest wedding cake of a facade you will ever see.

Notice the winged bull. Novel-relevancy alert.

Unlike the Florence Duomo, the inside of Siena's cathedral is no less sumptuous than the outside.

Check out that organ!

The architecture is astounding on its own, but the walls are also covered in works of art.

Even the floor is a masterpiece.

Gotta love those educated pagan women carved into the floor, woo!

This is the floor of the little side room where they keep the medieval choirbooks. 

The whole chamber is a riot of color.

And the books are literally like two feet tall. They're massive. And such astounding detail!

Those books actually sort of made sense to me because we learned how to read square notation in Early Music Singers last year at school. I felt like a boss.

Here I am in the main square of Siena with two roommates (thank you Niles):

After toodling around Siena for a bit, we hopped back on the bus and made our way to Greve, enjoying the countryside along the way. Some spectacular views to be had in Tuscany, that's for sure. Unfortunately, they're almost impossible to photograph through the window of a moving bus. So once again, you'll have to take my word for it. We were actually in Greve for a wine tasting festival, but since I don't drink, I went into some of the little shops around the parameter of the square with two other girls while the rest of my program tasted wine. I did buy a book (to supplement my extremely limited supply of pleasure reading here in Italy): The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie. I'm forty pages in and enjoying it immensely so far.

All right, next up should be Santa Croce, which we visited today. Ciao, e grazie a tutti per leggere!

- Kasha