See You in Siena

My last major stop over the weekend was to Siena. Siena is a town unlike any I've been to, and with the exception of Rome, it's been my favorite stop in Italy. Twice a year, this hilltop town has a city wide horse race, where the districts (I think there are 10) train a horse and race it against the other district's horses, through the streets of town. I hope to one day attend this race, which is held on July 2nd and August 15th, but even after the race is over the festivities continue, as I witnessed when I visited on July 6th. I arrived in Siena and immediately stumbled across a victory parade of the winning district:

The town was bedecked with the colors and everyone had on pendants and flags of this winning district. I disengaged myself from the parade and went looking for the major tourist attractions of the city. I arrived around 12:30, and had to leave for the train station at 3:30, so I had to hustle a little bit, and didn't have time to stop and sniff the roses. It wasn't long before I came to one of Siena's great views:

Siena, like many Italian cities, is built using the hills as natural defenses. It is a city on a hill, that is actually composed of two hills right next to each other, as seen by this diagram I found in a museum:

The blue domed building in the photo is the Duomo, and it is the one of the major attractions in the city, along with the museum directly across the square from it. This museum is a former hospital, and featured a four floor descent into the Earth, with tunnels and various maze like structures. The hotel is built right into the hill, so there's lots of mixing of natural rock with rooms. It is also currently being excavated, so that added to the thrill.

I'm also going to include the typical tourist photos of the Duomo.

Coming down from the duomo, I came to the main square where the horses run, grabbed a gelato, and then started to run out of time. I had missed the closing time for another of the museums (closed at a time other than what the website had listed) and so I decided to leave the beaten path and go exploring.

So I found this nice view, and decided I wanted to hike over and see that other church. So I did, and was rewarded with this view:

Along the way, I had to pass through a street that was packed with people feasting. I don't know if this was a district celebration for the victory, or just a big Italian family Sunday dinner, but they were cheering and the streets echoed with drunken men belting out their cries and victory ballads.

You'll note those weird looking light fixtures in the upper left corner of the above photo. Those are markers for the race track, and are lit so the riders now where to direct their mounts. I had to hurry back from the far church to the train station, and then headed back to Rome. I had to take an hour layover in Chiusi (train from Siena to Chiusi, Chiusi to Rome) and there's a bit to tell there. Chiusi is a bump in the road kind of town, reminding me fondly of an Indiana town. The locales all looked at me like they had never seen an American before. This trip was weird for me, especially with how others treated me. The major oddity, was that people started asking me for directions...in Italian. I don't know if it's more swagger, or my dashing good looks (in my dirty Baltimore Ravens shirt and even dirtier cargo shorts, I got marker or something on them, I have no idea what happened) but people seemed to think I knew what I was doing. Maybe they were desperate or I don't know what, but I was decked out in American garb, and couldn't have made my touristy look any more evident. Still, Italians would approach and take off with questions in Italian, most of which I could surprisingly answer. Don't know what to say, but I'm just hoping that all these directions worked better than some of the ones I've received along the way. I'm figuring out Italy I suppose. Anyhow, back to Chiusi. It's a small town, with residents of a style I'm familiar with:

They were hicks like from back home, the only difference was they spoke Italian. There was also a work of art that seemed oddly familiar:

There was only one pizza joint in this town, and one gelato stand, so I grabbed dinner and a quick photo of the three wise men passing by on their Sunday afternoon stroll:

All were rocking the same pose. I got on the train around 7, caught some of the sunset and then went home and went to bed. A good trip, now its only a matter of duplicating my good fortune in the other trips I plan. To end, the Roman sky at sunset:

Sorry for the poor quality, but I doubt this is the last sunset photo you'll see from me. Thanks for reading!