Florence (mostly Siena), Day 1

Aaron and Dan, the navigators.

NB This was co-written by Lisa and Aaron.

From Bologna, we took a train to Florence, without early morning drunken Italians this time. Florence is, of course, the home of more fantastic museums than you can shake a stick at and the home of much of what we think of as “Renaissance Italian culture.” I had spent a few days in Florence when I lived in Rome in 2003 and so while I wanted to share many of these museums with Lisa, the more important reason we visited Florence was to meet up with Suzy, a good friend of mine from Beloit, and her husband Dan, who were spending two weeks in Italy. It was very exciting because, in the nine years since we graduated from Beloit, we had only seen each other twice before Florence. Plus, the only time we had met Dan was at their wedding. So it was great to spend some time catching up with Suzy and getting to know Dan better.

Florence Duomo, exterior.

Florence Duomo, interior.

We got to Florence in the morning and met Dan and Suzy at their hotel. Since it was still raining in northern Italy for a second day, we decided to do something indoors, the  13^th-century Florence cathedral or Duomo. Unfortunately, because Florence is the city of lines, we had to wait in line outside in the rain for about twenty minutes to get in. The outside of the Duomo is amazing – lots of green and white marble and the red brick roof of the dome – and the inside doesn’t quite measure up. (Lisa begs to differ and will show you why in Florence, Day 2.) There’s not a lot of interior decoration, other than the frescoes painted high on the dome’s ceiling. Still, its architecture, floor plan, and use of colored marble flooring makes it very different from all the French Gothic cathedrals we’ve seen this year, and that’s a relief. Lisa and I also went into the cathedral’s crypt to see the remains of the earlier 10^th-century church, although it was barely signed at all so we had no idea what we were looking at most of the time.

Piazza, Siena.

When we left the cathedral, the rain had cleared up and the sun had come out so after getting some pizza by the slice at a place Dan and Suzy had found the day before, we decided to take a bus to hill town of Siena. The weather continued to hold there, too, and we were very glad we made the trip. Siena is a wonderful little hill town about an hour from Florence. In the Middle Ages, it was quite a wealthy and prosperous place but it was eventually conquered by Florence in the fifteenth century, meaning that most of the city dates from its medieval prosperous days. We started with Grom gelato (fantastic!) and then walked to the big piazza in the center of town where colorful medieval-style horse races are held every July and August. 

Siena cathedral, exterior.

Piccolimini Library.

Pope heads.

We also visited the cathedral in Siena, one of my favorite buildings in the world. The exterior is similar to Florence’s cathedral, with white and black marble, but the inside is amazing, with decoration everywhere. The walls and ceiling are painted with gorgeous murals; busts of every Pope from St. Peter to the 1280s (when the church was built) look down at you from a parapet high above; the floor is all inlaid marble depicting prophets, Biblical stories, and even ancient Roman fables; and there’s a great little library room attached, built to house the books of the humanist Aeneas Piccolimini, who was from Siena and became Pope in the fifteenth century. The walls there are covered with massive frescoes depicting important scenes of his life. It’s a great building that I think everyone enjoyed.

Siena cathedral, interior. I think these
should be part of Willy Wonka's world.

Would you be distracted if this were
under your seat in the cathedral?

Another interesting aspect about our time at both cathedrals was that people started talking to us - perfect strangers! This is a rare occurrence in France. We think this is because of a couple things: 1) we were a group of four Americans, obviously delighting in each other's company, so it attracted other Americans to join in the conversation, and 2) because these were high tourist areas, there were more Americans to overhear us. One couple was connecting with family members found on facebook (like Lisa did with her cousin Liam!), and the other couple was traveling around Italy on their own, enjoying the religious buildings.

St. Catherine's House.

After that, we visited the house of St. Catherine of Siena, an important late medieval saint who advocated a contemplative, prayerful life. Lisa was very excited about this, and Dan and Suzy were very kind to go along with us when they were hungry! Lisa definitely thought the place was worth the visit, first because of her interest in Catherine herself, but also because it was like a cloister on a hill, and Lisa really enjoys cloisters. Because Catherine founded an order of nuns, her house was transformed into their convent, meaning there’s little original, although we did see some clothes that supposedly belonged to her. Following that, we had dinner on the main square and took the bus home.

Florence bell tower, daytime.

Florence bell tower, nighttime.