Highlights of Tuscany–Siena

On Monday we had an outing to Siena another very old town, a good hour and a half coach trip each way. Once we arrived we were met by a local guide by the fort and taken round the town. There is a good view of the town from the fort. As you can see its a good walk to the old town from where the coach dropped us.

The first place we visited was The Basilica of San Domenico which is dedicated to Saint Catharine of Siena and is one of the most important churches in Siena. They don’t allow any photographs to be take inside the building, but like many other buildings they have some very interesting out side lights.

     
The town is very famous for its horse racing that takes place every year in the centre of the old town at Il Campo. Its a crazy race as can be seen HERE The crowd congregates in the centre and the horses race round on a dirt track laid on to of the pavement as can be seen on this poster held out by our guide.

The town is a real maze of narrow streets and walkways and I think its only thanks to the app, Maps.me that we found our way back to the coach on time.

On our way to the Il Campo we passed the cathedral, there were plans for it to be much bigger and the end wall of the new wing got built, but then the Black Death swept through the region killing a high percentage of the population so the work was never completed and the end wall stands there in all its glory.

As well as the Cathedral, like many Italian cities there is the Baptistry, in this case the Baptistry of St John or Battistero di San Giovanni.

All around Siena there are images of a she wolf suckling two small boys, some white, some black. In some cases it looks as if the wolf is looking forward protecting the children, in others looking back to make sure they are safe under her. I expect you all know the tale of Romulus, founder of Rome, and his brother Remus.

We had to be back at the coach by 3pm so after the guided tour finished we found a nice little café to have lunch outside. This was a leisurely affair and it was a brisk walk back to the coach afterwards. We did arrive back in time for a brief walk round the fort, there is only one entrance and in the centre a large amphitheatre and a single building. Other than that the ground level is within a meter of the top of the walls.  Walking round to the coach it started to rain quite heavily, the only rain we had in 10 days.