Il Dolce Viaggio: Siena

Even though Siena is not even among the ten largest cities of Tuscany, it is second only to Florence in popularity with visitors. The entire historical center is one of Tuscany's seven UNESCO World Heritage sites. According to local legend the city was founded by Senio, a son of Remus, who fled Rome with his twin brother Ascanio after Remus was murdered by his own twin brother Romulus. The legend of Senio and Ascanio closely mirrors that of Romulus and Remus in that both sets of twins were purportedly nursed by a she-wolf, so it seems likely that both cities co-opted the same legend and these were ultimately merged into one continuous story. The she-wolf has become an even more important symbol in Siena than it is in Rome. In addition, the black and white horses that the brothers rode during their escape from Rome have been enshrined in the balzana, the coat of arms of the city.

We arrived in the early evening as the sun was beginning to set. Our Airbnb host had advised us that the entire center was ZTL and we would have to park in the Il Campo garage unless we were willing to take quite a long walk from the free parking area. The ZTL sign was posted outside the Tufi gate of the city which would have unnerved me if I hadn’t already known about the small print indicating that it was legal to proceed through to the garage. Siena was not shy about presenting its beauty. We had an amazing view of the city’s noble skyline at dusk as we walked from the garage along Via di Fontanella towards the city entrance.

Our Airbnb was an apartment in a great location on Via Giovanni Duprè, just inside the historic center. It was similar to our prior Tuscan accommodations, an updated and comfortable space within antiquated surroundings, slightly cramped but sufficient for our needs. Its most exceptional feature was a spacious rear patio with the same view of the town that we had seen walking from the garage. It was largely wasted on us as we aren’t the types to spend an evening sipping wine on our patio. Instead we immediately deposited our baggage and stepped back out into the street to look for dinner.

it was immediately clear that this was no ordinary evening. Rows of tables had been placed in the street and many were already occupied by locals wearing kerchiefs of blue and white, many of them children. At first we were hopeful that this was some communal dinner in which we might be able to participate but there wasn’t really any food visible and it seemed like any feast was likely at least an hour away. Furthermore the similarity of costume indicated this was more likely to be a closed event, perhaps a gathering of an extended family or a local club.

As we passed the tables and pressed deeper into the city it became apparent that we had stumbled upon some kind of festival in progress. This surprised me as I knew that Siena’s most famous event, the Palio, took place every year rigorously on the second of July and the sixteenth of August. I had checked our itinerary in advance to see if there was any way of being in Siena during the Palio and determined it was quite impossible. It was now the thirteenth of July and the first Palio should have been a thing of the past. We began to encounter celebrants filtering out of the Piazza del Campo, many of them in various stages of inebriation and clad in whimsical costumes such as dinosaurs and inflatable penises. My kids hadn’t encountered the penis costume previously and were practically collapsing with laughter so I got a photo with one to commemorate the occasion.

At this point a series of pick-up trucks that had been converted into bargain basement parade floats began to stream out of the piazza. We watched a few of them go by and then proceeded into the piazza where it seemed that a large celebration was coming to an end. Little groups of dinosaurs and penises remained engaged in animated conversation but clearly the main event was over and the participants were dissipating into the various streets and alleys that converged on the piazza. I finally overcame my inhibitions and asked someone what was going on. Fortunately he was able to speak some English and explained that it was an event to celebrate the winner of the first Palio. Apparently each neighborhood of the city sponsors a horse in the race and the winner receives a substantial prize. I asked him what that had to do with inflatable penises and he just gave an embarrassed laugh and shrugged his shoulders. I was in my twenties once so I didn’t need any further explanation of why very little reason is needed when the opportunity arises to don an inflatable penis costume.

I was somewhat regretful we hadn’t arrived an hour earlier because I was curious about what we had missed, but I wouldn’t have wanted to curtail our exploration of the other cities we had visited that day. It felt great to be in the wide expanse of the Piazza del Campo, a square I had read so much about in preparation for our trip. The impressive stature of the Torre del Mangia gave the piazza a dignified atmosphere that accentuated the hilarity of this day’s lighthearted proceedings. The restaurants surrounding us were busy but only offered comfort food like pizza. I consulted the review sites and determined there were very few options in the old town despite it being Saturday evening. Our first choice turned us away but we had better luck with the second. We had a rather typical Tuscan dinner which was satisfying but not very memorable. Cleo is the only one of us who seems particularly taken with Tuscan food as her favorite pasta with truffles is pretty much ubiquitous. As we returned to our Airbnb the feast we had anticipated earlier was now in full swing. It seemed that our local neighborhood was the one whose horse had won the Palio.

In the morning I was the only one interested in climbing the Torre del Mangia, as I had expected. The tower's unusual name was bestowed by the townspeople on the first bellringer who was nicknamed Mangiaguadagni, meaning profit-eater, due either to his looseness with his earnings or his prodigious appetite. Regardless of which version of the implausible story one chooses to believe, the original name of the tower has been long forgotten in favor of the sobriquet. The tickets can only be bought on the same day at the office in the Palazzo Pubblico, which opens at ten. Fortunately we had some food at the Airbnb so Mei Ling and the kids stayed behind while I set out to the Piazza del Campo. I arrived at a quarter to ten and there were only about a dozen people waiting for the office to open, which was somewhat of a relief. Just a few others arrived before the window opened promptly at ten. Although I could have bought a ticket to make the ascent at any time slot during the day I went straight for the stairs. There was a balcony at a mezzanine level which provided a pleasant view over the piazza. The remainder of the ascent was surprisingly easy, considering that there are about four hundred steps to the parapet. I forgot to count them in both directions but it didn’t seem like it could have been that many. As usual there was no particular benefit of climbing the tower aside from a dubious sense of accomplishment and the impressive views over the old town.

I tried to find a fresh route back to the Airbnb and somehow got disoriented and lost among the alleys despite using Maps. It seemed like no matter which way I turned my little blue dot went the opposite direction from the way it was supposed to. I think it was a combination of the complexity of the web of streets and a lagging cellular signal. Eventually I found my way back and collected Mei Ling and the kids. This time we turned right before the Piazza del Campo which brought us to the Piazza del Mercato. I hadn't expected to see any action here as it only hosted a flea market on Wednesdays but it was still disappointing to see such a beautiful covered market space completely deserted. From here we could see the convex rear face of the Palazzo Pubblico with a loggia on the uppermost floor.

One of the most popular tourist activities in Siena is the Porta del Cielo tour of the upper terraces of the city's thirteenth century cathedral. The Porta del Cielo ticket also includes access to the cathedral floor, the baptistery, the crypt, the Piccolomini Library, the Opera delle Metropolitana museum, and the Panorama dal Facciatone. For anyone willing to spend an entire day at the Duomo, this ticket offers the opportunity to do just that at a very reasonable price. I was entranced by the idea of having exclusive access to areas of the cathedral that have historically been off limits and made a note to buy these tickets well in advance, only to forget about the issue entirely until reviewing my notes on our arrival in Siena. I thought at first that it was surely a missed opportunity as the tickets would be sold out weeks in advance as they were for attractions such as the Sistine Chapel in Rome and the Last Supper in Milan. I was quite surprised when on the morning of our visit there were still Porta del Cielo tickets available for a variety of time slots. I half expected to be told on our arrival that I had completely misunderstood the website and I had bought tickets for something else entirely. We made the short trek uphill from the Piazza del Campo area to the Duomo through ancient alleys of crumbling brick spanned by Gothic arches. We passed the distinctive fifteenth century Loggia della Mercanzia before we finally arrived at the pinstriped facade of the Baptistery of St John, at the rear of the cathedral.

Close to the baptistery we found the ticket office where we were directed to the front of the cathedral. Once we displayed our ticket we were allowed to enter and wait just inside for our tour guide to arrive. Our group was limited to about twelve people because of the relative narrowness of the passages. Eventually we were led up a winding stone staircase to the upper level and guided through a series of viewpoints from which we could see the exterior and interior of the cathedral from above. One of the best views was of the Facciatone, a structure I had barely noticed outside when I was focused on our rendezvous with our tour guide. This incongruous, seemingly pointless wall that extends between the Opera delle Metropolitana and the Siena prefecture building was intended to be the facade of a newly expanded cathedral in the fourteenth century. As so often happened during those times, fate intervened with an outbreak of bubonic plague and construction was eventually abandoned. A little further away we could see the Cistercian Gothic style Basilica of San Domenico standing in splendid isolation on a low hill.

All of these other structures could be seen from various other locations in Siena as well. What was most special about the Porta del Cielo was the views from the upper terraces down into the interior of the Duomo. As we circled the building within the passages we had various angles from which to view the remarkably opulent decorative scheme of the cathedral, but my favorite was when we were behind the altar looking directly towards the entrance. This gave us a remarkable perspective on the two rows of striped columns that lined the nave and the intricate mosaics in the center of the floor. Directly in front of us were the portraits of the ancestors of Jesus that lined the drum of the cathedral dome. These portraits were remarkable for the realistic detail in the folds of their robes which cannot be perceived from the ground level. Once we had toured the entire perimeter of the nave our guide brought us back down and released us to complete the remainder of the sights included in the ticket. From the floor level the Duomo seemed much larger and the columns more imposing. The iconic black and white striping of the interior counteracted the solemnity of the space, although I doubt that was the original intention. It seemed like no matter how many of these magnificent cathedrals we saw in Italy, each had their own particular character and distinctive features.

A doorway on the left side of the nave provided access to the Piccolomini Library. The Piccolomini family was a powerful and prominent family in medieval Siena that produced two popes. The first of these was Enea Silvio Piccolomini who became Pius II in 1458. After his death his nephew Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini, the Archbishop of Siena, commissioned the library to commemorate his uncle with a series of detailed frescoes depicting episodes of the elder Piccolomini's life in chronological order. The frescoes were painted by Pinturicchio although he may have received some assistance from Raphael. The ceiling is decorated in the Grotesque style with scenes from Greek mythology and the Piccolomini coat of arms. In the center stands a marble statue of the Three Graces. Francesco Piccolomini went on to become pope himself as Pius III, although he only held the office for twenty-six days before dying mysteriously, The name Piccolomini is likely a contraction of "piccolo uomini", the little men, although the family wasn't known to be of short stature. Piccolomini can also be interpreted as a redundancy of the word little, so that the library has been nicknamed "the little little library".

We decided to forgo the baptistery and crypt and stepped back out into the bright sunlight, where we were finally able to appreciate the stunning facade of the cathedral. The red and green marble accents were reminiscent of the Duomo of Florence, although perhaps not quite as striking. What stood out the most were the countless detailed statues and gargoyles that crowded every available space on the facade, as well as the intricate sculpting of the columns. It would have taken hours to examine each feature individually so I simply had to stand back and attempt to appreciate it in the aggregate, although the effect was overwhelming. We moved around to take in the profile of the Duomo. The black and white stripes of the campanile, as with the interior columns, reflect the coat of arms of Siena and possibly the duality of good and evil although the latter symbolism is more speculative. It wasn't hard to understand why such a magnificent edifice would have taken almost two hundred years to complete.

My main motivation in buying the Porta del Cielo ticket had been to secure the exclusive tour through the upper level of the cathedral. I hadn't given much thought to the other sights that were included such as the museum and at that point I had no idea what the Panorama was. In fact we were about to leave the Duomo entirely when we fortuitously noticed the people standing on the upper levels of the Facciatone. I wondered if this was in fact the Panorama that my ticket referred to and decided that if we had already paid for it, we might as well see what was up there.

We had some difficulty figuring out how to access the Panorama. We tried the prefecture building on the southern side first but that was obviously wrong and then the archaeology museum to no avail. Eventually someone directed us to the Opera delle Metropolitana museum which was included in our ticket as well. We began climbing floors trying to figure out where the entrance to the Panorama was but there were no signs indicating which was the correct floor or direction. Finally we bumped into someone coming the opposite direction who had just returned from the Panorama and gave us proper directions.

As with the Porta del Cielo only a limited number of people were allowed onto the structure at once. Fortunately we only had to wait for one other group to go through before we were ushered at to the lower level of the Facciatone. The visit was divided into sections for each of the two levels of the wall. I was pleased to find that the views of Siena were the best I had that day, even better than at the Torre del Mangia. Even though the Facciatone wasn't as tall as the tower, it stood on higher ground and thus provided that desirable bird's eye perspective. We had a great look at the profile of the Duomo and of course because we weren't on the tower, we could see the Torre del Mangia as well. I was quite glad I hadn't pushed the others to climb the tower because the exercise had proven to be quite pointless.

Even though we had only spent a short time in Siena this morning and the previous evening, I felt comfortable leaving the town at this point to explore some of the nearby cities on my itinerary. As we walked back through the archway that led to the parking garage Cleo pointed out the blue and white fish lamps that had been placed on the brick walls. They matched the ubiquitous blue and white flags that were posted around our neighborhood and the kerchiefs that the celebrants had been wearing on our street the previous evening. Later I learned there are seventeen neighborhoods, known as contrade, in Siena and ten are selected to compete in each Palio. Our neighborhood was Onda, the Wave, which explained the blue and white colors and the fish symbolism. If we ever return to Siena we'll have to make sure our visit coincides with the Palio so we can get a better understanding of this fascinating tradition.