Siena Againa

With Tony still not feeling up to snuff, Dawn and I headed out on our own this morning to further explore the remarkable city of Siena. As we arrived yesterday we had to drive around a very large fortress. This, as we discovered on our walk this morning is now parkland and home to the Siena Jazz School, but was the Medicean Fortress.

On our walk, we came upon a market in a park set up along the walls of the fortress.

Then we headed back into the historic quarter for some meandering through other areas not visited yesterday. We once again came upon the Piazza del Campo, the shell-shaped town square housing the Palazzo Pubblico and the Torre del Mangia. I mentionned yesterday that a great horse race called the Palio is held in this square each summer. Since we couldn't see it, I include this shot of a postcard for some sense of the event.

We have noticed numerous statues of the Romulus and Remus legend, where they are being suckled by a she-wolf. As it turns out, legend has it that the son of Remus is the founder of Siena, therefore this statue is the official symbol of Siena. Of course Romulus, after killing Remus, goes on to found Rome, thus the name.

Wandering further into the bowels of the ancient city, more great views were to be had, including this historic library.

I also got a good light shot of the church across from our hotel called Basilica Domenico.

The weather remains pleasantly warm making leisurely strolls about town even more enjoyable.

Since we're likely to be busy for the duration of our journey, it was nice to have two days to leisurely get a good feel for Siena. We had a nice pizza lunch at Pomodorini with yet another vista of town.

We've been very happy with the location and amenities of our hotel. It's also been the least expensive hotel of the trip. This panorama shows our hotel - yellow on left - and it's relationship to the old town.

We've noted that all the Italian hotels continue to have bidets beside the toilet, while in France they are all gone. Is there a message here? For anyone uncertain of how to use one, Dawn kindly demonstrated the leg shaving method. There may be other uses for this device.

As a geography major, I appreciate information like this. Compared to France, Italy is half the area, but with 61 million people only slightly fewer than France at 66 million. The two countries have a combined area smaller than Ontario and yet Ontario has only 10% of their population. No wonder French and Italians travelling in Ontario feel that we are in a vast empty space. Don't you feel enlightened? For dinner tonight, we wandered back down the street to the area of restaurants overlooking the town. Sans Tony, we settled in at La Pizzeria de nonna Mede. We were all looking for pasta so had variations of a home made pasta called pici - tomato for Jackie, sausage and mushrooms for Dawn and duck ragout for me. Tonight the accompanying wine was a Chianti Classico called Devole La Vendemmia. It might have been the smoothest Chianti I've ever had. Back at the hotel we checked out the blog entry from the last time we were in Rome - Rome here we come!