Super tourists!

Woo hoo breakfast with a view! Not nearly as good as in France but it is pretty darn good for Italy. Unfortunately the milk carton I bought (from a nonrefrigerated aisle, for it is superpasturized as the Europeans and Mexicans are wont to do) contains stuff that doesn’t taste like it does at home. This happens every time I travel…I have to give up milk unless it’s with something like cereal because it tastes too weird plain. Blast. Oh well, I tried, and it wasn’t expensive.

After we were fortified we walked over to the Jewish quarter…since I found it I figured we had to visit. It also coincides with some of the oldest roads in Siena, and they were appropriately cool looking. We followed one to the Duomo here, which may have been smaller than the one in Florence but it was way more interesting inside. There were marble frescoes on the floors that depicted scenes from the bible, some very complicated, and the pillars were green and white striped marble which was neat. Since we got the “My name is Duccio” pass (apparently famous artist that did lots of work around here) we got admission to several things in the area at once, which paid itself off very quickly. The nearby crypt was cool – they filled it in originally to help support the weight of the new Duomo, and the paintings sat for several centuries until they were unearthed again. The colors are still vivid and what they could get to was in pretty good condition. They also excavated the former church connected to the crypt, and had places where you could look through the floor and see that there was a whole extra level downstairs. The brickwork on some of the old entrances also held up very well…we got the impression that if the Duomo and the crypt were to be abandoned, while most modern buildings would perish these old ones would stand forever. Very cool. Also visited another baptistery with works by Donatello and a pretty cool floor inlay – this one had skulls! A good morning all in all!

After all that we got pretty hungry again so we wandered around looking for cheap sandwiches. On the way we found an awesome candle place where each is made by hand, and some are layer dipped and peeled back for a cool effect. So we did a little shopping before ultimately finding a nice place with good sandwiches. Stomach savior! Then we were ready to finish off our Duccio pass, which involved going to the medieval Museo dell’opera (the treasures and bishop hats were cool, everything else was kind of just ok) and climbing the very narrow stairs to a panoramic overlook of Siena. That part, called the Facciatone, indeed had a great view but the people flow was pretty badly planned. Some people would selfishly try to go against the flow of traffic even though the stairwells were pretty much one lane only. Ah well, tourist trap traps stupid tourists, kind of silly. Once we finally got down we headed back to do our laundry so we could hang it out in the heat of the day. The washer was unfortunately really slow so it took us a bit longer … but that just gave us time for naps.

When we were finally ready we set out on a path recommended by one of the walking tour pamphlets that the apartment owners had left for us. It tours the Camollia section and we first went to the Santuario di Santa Caterina (St. Catherine of Siena), which was free to the public but unfortunately all in Italian. She is one of the Patron Saints of Italy apparently, a kind of local figure who died pretty young of a stroke (says wikipedia). The place was very pretty, all done up in frescoes of her life, although we didn’t really understand what was happening. We did see the stone pillow she traditionally slept on, which was strange. After that we walked to the Fontebranda, which is a big fountain dating back to the 1300s that, while heavily used, was suspected to cause traits of insanity for a while. The water isn’t potable now but it does house a large variety of strange looking fish – huge blue ones, one crazy yellow one, a few abandoned goldfish, etc. It was pretty cool!

Next was a climb up to the basilica di San Domenico, which is the primary scenery object outside our window so we figured we should pay it a visit. We hit it at the right time, when these awesome fat rays of afternoon sun were streaming through the windows and hitting all the dust in the air. Although it had some wood and wasn’t all marble it was just as impressive, and looked like it was actually used quite frequently. It did have the relic of St. Catherine’s head, though, which was partly mummified and wrapped with a nun’s habit. That was really spooky, and people were praying to it – a severed head (her body is somewhere else >.>)! The whole sainthood thing is pretty strange.

Anyway, the Fortezza Medicea was our next stop, and we walked all around it to check it out. It had cool corners that were kind of spat out by lion heads…pictures to come later. Eventually we figured out how to get up top, although the Enoteca Italiana, which houses 1600 kinds of Italian wine to test and buy, had been rented out for the night. So wine tasting was out, but we walked around the top anyway and the sights were pretty good.

Then it was almost time for dinner! We headed back to collect our clothes off the line (maybe we’re getting better at hanging them, maybe not) and change. Tonight we ended up at Osteria Le Logge, which was another internet recommendation, and we were pretty happy with the choice finally! They served spaghetti with bacon and onions in a great sauce. I would have been happy with just more of that, but we also ordered the bistecca alla fiorentina, which is “the most famous steak in Tuscany from the meat of the white Chiania cattle” according to the Florence map we had. We figured we had to try it, as huge and expensive as it is, and it was definitely delicious. Perhaps even too much meat, although Peter (who heartily enjoyed the meal) might disagree with me. I had developed a pretty bad headache over the course of dinner actually, so I probably enjoyed it a bit less, but it was still interesting.

After our day of power-tourism, tomorrow will be a day of relaxing, I think! We have hit most of what we wanted to see so perhaps we will just lounge about or go looking for that delicious dessert wine from Bea Vita. The waitress told me it was Fragolino but when I looked it up i learned that the real kind isn’t readily available. Foo! So I will look…although if I don’t find it that will just contribute to the memory of Venice. Ah well!

(headache is better this morning but still not gone. Booo. Hopefully we will either relax enough or do enough things to distract it.)