A Soggy Scene in Siena

“Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring.” 
― St. Catherine of Siena

Today, the 20ish of us in my program ventured to the Tuscan city of Siena. We knew it was going to be cold and that there was a chance of snow. That was putting it mildly.

Granted, I am from Maine so this was nothing compared to most of the storms we get at home, however, for Italy, it was unexpected and not pleasant. For the most part, we had dressed warmly enough, but Siena is a hilly town so during our walk around the town, from place to place, we had to walk along slippery stone streets trying not to fall and break anything or anyone.

When we left Florence, around 7:30 a.m., the weather was not bad - just chilly and overcast. However, as we were on the hour-long bus ride, the clouds got thicker and more ominous. The bus dropped us off and we walked about 15 minutes to the "city center" where we then had about half-an-hour to find a restroom and grab some breakfast/coffee/a snack etc.

When we re-congregated our Art History professor talked about the town hall and government "square" which is more like an oval, and is still used for an annual horse race between the different sections/neighborhoods of the city.

The government square

The town hall

Once we had learned about the "square" and all it entailed, we ventured inside the town hall where we learned about the history of the building as well as the frescoes decorating the different rooms and some of their influence on the government leaders of the time. The building is still used for government offices and functions, however the part we saw was the museum section where the government officials used to meet but don't any longer.

From the town hall we walked to the Cathedral.

By this time the rain had started to fall and the puddles we forming.

At the cathedral we learned about the altar, the different "shrines", the pulpit, and a personal library - of the Medici family (I think...)

The ceiling of the library       The Cathedral altar        The ceiling of the dome

From the Cathedral, we slogged across the piazza to the Cathedral Museum where we saw the original statues that adorned the facade of the Cathedral (the ones there now are replicas.) We also had the chance to climb to the top of the museum building to get a panoramic view of Siena (in the rain and snow...)

After we were all safely on the ground, we had a break for lunch.

Julia, Max, Sam S, Erin, Lauren, Lexi, Sam D, and myself made the short trek to a small restaurant where we all had some form of pasta (of course!) I had spaghetti with meat sauce, while many of the others had Pici with sausage and mushroom sauce. We got bread and water with our meals to share.

Following lunch, we attempted to meet up with the rest of our group.

We had been told the restaurant we went to was closer to the church we were going to than the meeting point, so we were going to meet the group there - instead of going to the meeting point and then going back to where we had just come from.

HOWEVER, no one really knew where the church was.

Or the name of it...

Let me just paint the picture for you:

8 American students who have only been in Italy for 3 weeks,

never having been to Siena before today,

attempting to find a church we didn't know the name of.

Oh, and it had started snowing.

And by snowing I mean giant golf ball-sized flakes, mixed with rain.

Remember how I said Siena is a hilly town? Yeah.

Needless to say, we had a great time trying not to slip and slide up and down the stone-paved roads,

along with making sure each other was safe...

Well we ended up having to call our professor to figure out where we were supposed to go (after trying to find it on our own) and ended up going back past the restaurant - where we had started our travels - and literally two minutes down the street in the OTHER direction was the church.

It was certainly an adventure!

Once we finally got back to our group, it was time to meet the bus.

15 minutes later we were back on the bus and about 10 pounds heavier thanks to the weather.

We had been scheduled to go from Siena to a vineyard for a wine tasting, however the snow was getting heavier and the vineyard is even more rural so we decided not to risk it, and we're going to try to do the wine tasting another day.

We all wanted to get out of our wet clothes, however we had to sit in them for the hour-long drive back to Florence...

By the time we got back (about 4:30) we all still had to walk back to our separate apartments, which was another 10-15 minute walk.

Luckily, the snow hadn't reached Florence yet, but it was raining.

Needless to say, as soon as I got back to my room,

I stripped off all my wet things and extra layers and jumped in the blessedly warm shower.

While my wet feet and cold hands were not pleasant by any means, the snow and Siena were beautiful and it was a grand adventure none of us will forget!