Siena is a city about an hour bus ride from Florence. It's most recently famous for its prominence in Quantum of Solace. (See http://vimeo.com/54628135 for a video compilation of the Siena-intensive scenes - I may not capture it well here, but our visit to Siena was pretty much just as exciting - minus the horses. Warning: Violence commensurate with a Bond movie - once you hit 0:20 or so, feel free to skip to about 3:50.) For a while in the 1300s-1500s (ish), Siena and Florence were rival city states (or Duchies, or whatever it was they were). They had about the same population and vied over trade and stuff...until Florence struck up an allegiance with Spain, at which point Siena capitulated after 18 months of resistance. (See? ALL good things come from Spain.) Since then, Siena hasn't really grown much, so the city is really well preserved in all its 1550s glory.
Thus, charming streets like this are commonplace. Note that this street is much steeper than it looks, and you can really see quite a ways into the distance, which is cool.
Becca especially enjoyed the pigeons ornamenting the holy figures, particularly the one sitting on the woman's head. (Just for fun, do a google image search for "bird hat.")
One of the main sights (not surprisingly) is the cathedral. We spotted it in the distance and decided to make our way there.
After we took a silly newlywed selfie. (Only one of the trip. We have our dignity.)
The thing is, do you see the greenery behind us? It marks the rim of a seriously steep ravine lined with homes, shops, and lots of stairs. We wandered down to the base of the ravine for a bit, enjoying our time down there but dreading the massive cliff that we'd somehow have to climb in order to reach the cathedral. That is, until we spotted these:
The series of escalators took about 5 minutes to climb. SO much better than hoofing it.
Another of the main sights is the Piazza del Campo (town square), below. The Piazza is shaped more like a semi-circle than a square, with the center of the circle to the right of this picture (not shown, but near the tiny person in red to the right of my ear). It may be a little difficult to see in the picture, but the square/semi-circle slopes dramatically from the rim (particularly on the left of this picture), to the center of the circle. It's a pretty cool effect. Gelato may or may not have been consumed here. But I'll never tell.
Had the above picture been a bit wider, it would've captured the Palazzo Pubblico, pictured below. A pretty impressive piece of old architecture, and especially notable for the she-wolf motif that adorns the interior and exterior of the building, the city's symbol and a reminder that Siena was known for being just a little more pagan than some of its neighbors. (See http://www.panoramio.com/photo/59085855 for a close-up of one of the many she-wolf statues.)
Overall, we count Siena a win. Renaissance architecture? Italian ice cream? Tuscan countryside? And all in a day trip?
Sold.
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