Tag Archives: Cityscape

Intermission (Impossible): Siena

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Monday 19 May 2025 – Warning! Long Post Alert! Really long!!

I have to try to sum up Siena as we’ve seen it for the last couple of days, which is pretty much an impossible task. Actually, for a tourist only here for two days (for that’s what we are, before going back to becoming travellers tomorrow), there are relatively few highlights to hit: the Duomo, of course; the Campo (the main square); some notable churches; and the general scenery. Once you actually visit any of these tick-box items, though, you are deluged with all sorts of astonishing images. I’ve taken literally hundreds of photos, and obviously can’t bore you with all of them. I’ll try to summarise.

Our hotel, the Chiusarelli, is in a decent location, a few minutes walk from the centre of the old city.  I’ve mentioned its eccentricities, which also extend to decor.

Our room, while not particularly large, is comfortable enough. Unlike most hotel rooms we’ve come across so far (and not, I may add, just in Italy), it has a sufficiency of charging points for the various devices we use – camera, phones, activity monitor, backup drive, tablet – and some of these are usb-c, which is outrageously modern and very welcome. The breakfasts

are ample and feature Twining’s finest Earl Grey, so it has been a happy base from which to ramble. We’ve had a guided tour with the somewhat theatrical Serena, and also been for our own walks. Obviously. Here, in no particular order, are some of the things we’ve learned and some of the things we’ve seen.

Siena is built upon three hills. The practical upshot of this for us tourists is that to get anywhere involves toiling up really quite steep slopes. But for the original medieval settlers, it had a more significant problem – lack of water. Being on the top of hills meant that, unlike its dreaded rival Florence, a river didn’t run through it. It took some significant medieval engineering to create a series of underground aqueducts, 25km in length, called bottini. These tapped into underground springs and rainwater run-off, and were Siena’s principal source of water until the 20th century. There’s a fountain in the Campo, the Fonte Gaia, built to express gratitude for the water. It’s not impressive, like the Trevi jobbie in Rome, there are just a couple of she-wolves dribbling water,

but it represents something terrifically important for the locals.

The Campo itself, yesterday, was not the unencumbered place whose photo I shared the other day, oh no. All over the centre of Siena, barricades were being set up

and equipment rolled out

in preparation for the arrival, yesterday afternoon, of the Giro d’Italia, the Italian equivalent of the Tour de France.  As the day progressed, crowds began to build up

and, at around 5pm the circus arrived, unwatched by me, since I was

making myself useful. Jane watched on TV as the cyclists made their way into town and round the Campo to the finish. Apparently it was quite exciting.

The Campo has been used for racing of quite a different sort – horse racing, believe it or not. Twice a year, the outer edge of the Campo is covered in sand and 10 horses are raced for three laps, a process that takes just over a minute. But it’s a terrifically important minute, and the running of these races continues a tradition started, in Siena at least, in 1633 (apparently, this kind of lunacy has been going on in various other places since the middle ages, would you believe). The race, and the parades and other pageantry that precede it, is called “Il Palio“. Is it popular with the locals? You bet! This is a photo I got from a pamphlet on the Palio, showing the Campo as the race is running.

Why is it so important to the locals? This comes down to the way the city is divided into “contrade” – neighbourhoods. There are 17 in total and each horse represents a “neigh”bourhood. Only ten horses run each time; in the next Palio, the seven neighbourhoods which didn’t participate get a place as of right, and the other three places are allocated by lot. Horses are allocated by a draw, and to be the winning jockey is very important for the inter-neighbourhood rivalries.

Each neighbourhood has its own flag on which is represented its animal. The choice of animal is non-intuitive. One might expect lions, or tigers, but what you get is the rhino, the owl, the silkworm, the snail and other unlikely candidates.  Every contrada has its own museum, church, fountain and baptismal font, and if you look carefully, you can see the badges of different contrade on either side of a boundary.

Eagle on the left, Forest (featuring a rhino!) on the right

The flags are sold everywhere for tourists to buy;

one can buy individual flags or one with all of the insignia on it.

If I understand it correctly, the distinction between neighbourhoods extends even to the way the street lamps are mounted, on “braceletti”

though it would appear that there are also special braceletti, too.

Siena was an important city in medieval Europe, and its historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which contains several buildings from the 13th and 14th centuries. The city is famous for its cuisine, art, museums, medieval cityscape and, of course, the Palio. According to local legend, Siena was founded by Senius and Aschius, two sons of Remus and thus nephews of Romulus, after whom Rome was named. Supposedly after their father’s murder by Romulus, they fled Rome, taking with them the statue of the she-wolf suckling the infants (Capitoline Wolf), thus appropriating that symbol for the town. You can see it all over the place; for example on the wall of the courtyard inside the Palazzo Pubblico, the town hall – the building with the tall tower (the Mangia Tower) on the Campo.

You can also see the she-wolf represented on the floor of the Duomo, so now that I’ve exhausted you with talk of history and such, let me show you some images from our tour of the cathedral. It took us a little time to work out how to get in, and in fact our guide, Serena, gave us the best info. We bought the inclusive ticket, for €16 apiece, which got us into the four main bits of this vast complex – the cathedral itself, the baptistry, an area called the crypt even though it isn’t one, and the “panorama”. Fixated as I am with aerial shots of places, we started with the panorama, which you can get to via (loads of bloody steps and) a beautiful arch.

This takes you into a courtyard of which one wall overlooks the Duomo from the eastern side.

This courtyard immediately made me think that it was once a church; in fact it was going to be a church, to expand the Duomo to be bigger than that thing the bastard Florentines have. It was never completed as the pillars you can see to left and right wouldn’t have been able to bear the weight of any roof. So now it’s a car park. But it’s a car park overlooked by a very tall wall, which one can climb; entry is via the museum, the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.  An internal staircase and a couple of very narrow spiral staircases take you up to the lower

and then the upper level, officially called the Facciatone, from which vantage point the view of the Duomo is spectacular.

Because of the narrowness of the spiral staircases, the traffic up and down is closely monitored and carefully controlled; but, amazingly, we were virtually the only people there at the time we climbed it – it was more crowded later. You also get great views over the city and surrounding areas.

Coming down, you’re led through the museum, which has several museumish rooms with examples of embroidery

and paintings an’ that.

As you can tell, I’m not particularly moved by this kind of art. But awaiting me was a room with material in it which I did find engaging.

In the central display cases were books of ancient music – gregorian chants, written out on vellum and gloriously illuminated.

Around the walls were pictures on what appeared to be paper. We asked an attendant, who told us that they were drawings of the pictures made in marble on the floor of the Duomo. Indeed, there was one of the entire floor plan

with each marble picture carefully drawn.

Elsewhere, there were individual pictures of each of the tableaux.

This is a representation of the she-wolf, and it’s surrounded by the representations of other cities – Pisa, Lucca, Viterbo and so on. Remember this for later.

The way out takes you past a gallery of statues with a lovely representation of the rose window from the Duomo

and the exit is via the church of St. Nicholas,

which is also the gift shop – with possibly the ritziest gift shop ceiling on the planet.

Ritzy ceilings are a key feature in the baptistry, which is back through that arch and down a whole load of steps. Going inside made me catch my breath.

There are all sorts of beautiful details, but the fresco-painted ceilings are, for me, the most amazing aspect.

 

You’ll be unsurprised to learn that I have many more photos, but I hope these give you the basic idea. The bottom right-hand photo there is painted on the inside of a dome. Hold that thought….

Before going into the Duomo itself, we visited something inaccurately called the Crypt.  It’s not a crypt, it has no corpses in it. It was once a church, or perhaps the entry into the cathedral of the time, or maybe a meeting place – whatever, it was built on a level below the current Duomo, which was simply piled on top of it. No-one knew about this earlier space until in 1999 during renovations, workmen accidentally broke through a wall and found something painted blue. Careful research revealed this room, dating from the 1200s, whose walls were completely covered in frescoes which have been preserved by it being filled with debris in the 1300s, buried and forgotten. The interior was excavated – carefully, because of the not inconsierable bulk of the Duomo above, which necessitated special reinforcing to be put in place. And the result is a phenomenal display of frescoes telling biblical and Christian stories.

You can see the steel frame used to support the Duomo above,

and, on one wall,

lo! the outside of the dome of the baptistry. This has to be one of the most atmospheric places we have ever visited.

The final piece was, of course, a visit inside the Duomo itself.

This is the rose window reproduced in the statue gallery in the museum

 

As I said earlier, the floor is covered in tableaux made in marble. They are marblous!

and, of course, there’s the she-wolf.

There was nothing for it after all of this visual overload but to go for a Nice Lunch.  Heading back to the hotel afterwards for a Nice Lie-Down, we managed to do a key piece of shopping

which should stand us in good stead for the remainder of our walking.

Which restarts tomorrow.  We have some 21km to walk to Lucignano d’Arbia. We’ve had a fabulous time in Siena, and it’s been wonderful having the chance to draw breath and do the laundry – these things are important, y’know – but it will equally be nice to get underway again as we head to Rome. I hope you’ll accompany us through the medium of these pages.

Day 3 – Gambassi Terme to San Gimignano – shorter, but still non-trivial

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Wednesday 14 May 2025 – The very basic nature of our hostel accommodation was heavily borne in on us as we went down to breakfast. The tables had been set out with places allocated by name – and those before us had clearly completely ignored all this and there were basically no untouched places left for us to sit at; also, all the bread had been taken and not replaced, the kettle was nearly empty and the kitchen was locked. This was a very poor show, we thought. We’d arranged an 8am start between us and the many people who had exited earlier had swept through the buffet like a plague of locusts. It would have been a good idea to have someone on duty in the kitchen to help with replacement fodder. We organised tea and I had some cereal, but there was little there for Caroline or Jane to eat.

It’s an attractive enough setting

round the back of a 12th-Century church just outside Gambassi Terme,

but one feels it could be better run.

Off we went, then, at about 0830, into a morning in which the fog was just clearing. The Via Francigena signs pointed us towards Gambassie Terme, but the S-cape app’s red line bypassed the place.  We followed the line, and so I’m afraid I can’t tell you what the town was like. “Terme”, by the way, means it was a spa town.

The profile for the day (let me remined you here)

showed us going down from Gambassi Terme, then up about 300m overall (ugh!) before descending once more before a gentle rise up to San Gimignano. We started on tarmac before heading off on a dirt road

which led past an intriguing sign.

The scenery was, as before, lovely.

and I was particularly taken with the “stripy corduroy” effect achieved in some patches of vines.

The Chianti sign enigma was explained a little further on, as we passed an attractive winery.

It offered stamps for our “credenziali” (passports for the route) and the sign outside said it was open. But I think it was kind of Spanish open, i.e. closed. So we moved on, but in researching the name later, I learned a little to supplement my non-existent understanding of Italian wine. The Chianti region is in central Tuscany, with Chianti Classico being the area between Florence and Siena. This winery might produce Classico, or possibly Chianti Colli Senesi, which is regional to San Gimignano. Classico must be at least 80% Sangiovese grape variety, other variants of Chianti must be at least 70%.

We were on the down stretch of the walk, but soon reached the bottom, by another fine-looking establishment

which turned out to be a newly-opened agriturismo outfit called La Torre. At this point, the uphill work starts.

It was a long uphill pull, at times quite steep – but at least a lot of it was in the shade, which made it a lot less unpleasant than yesterday’s toil.

We passed a horse-riding centre (calling itself “Via Francigena”, so presumably offering people the chance to ride part of the route)

one of whose dogs accompanied us quite a way carrying a ball

but it didn’t want to part with it, so clearly wasn’t a retriever.

The steep uphill work continued for a while

but at least offered us great views of where we had earlier been descending.

We passed some handsome buildings

many of which seemed to be some kind of agriturismo setup, but none of which could actually be arsed to set up a coffee stop for thirsty passing pilgrims (of which it had to be said, there was a steady trickle).

We passed through a village, Pancole, which also had no coffee stops, but it did have a sanctuary.

We couldn’t, sadly, explore it because it was in use; a mass was about to start for a congregation seemingly made up of the local elderly and infirm – lots of ambulances and taxis outside – they didn’t invite us in, though.

We followed the road a little further until we could see San Gimignano in the distance; it didn’t seem to be much higher than we were, so I thought that perhaps the worst of the climb was over.

Wrongly, as it turned out. The Via signposts took us on to a track which carried on steeply uphill. In the spirit of proper completion, we grimly ploughed on and up, past more handsome buildings (but no coffee stops)

until we (a) got a good glimpse of our destination, San Gimignano

and (b) reached the highest point of the walk, marked by the Monasterio de Cellole.

In the inevitable way of these things, our route then led us down to a very poorly-designed road which led further down before going up into San Gimignano. One would have hoped the designers would have worked out some way of keeping it level for us poor pilgrims, but no. However, there was a consolation and a distraction because the views were, as before, stupendous. It was occasionally possible to catch a nice vignette of the countryside

but by and large it’s too big to fit into a single photo.


Eventually, we toiled up into San Gimignano, which is, you guessed it, very steep in places, mainly up

as we had to get to our hotel, Hotel La Cisterna, which is in the town’s main square, i.e. the highest point. Before you boys at the back start any schoolboy giggles, the name is nothing lavatorial. “Cisterna” in Italian means “Well”, which is more than one can say for the current US President, and you can see the well right in front of our hotel.

Our run of luck, of hotels being ready for us, continued, and our baggage had arrived, so, it being only about 1pm by this stage, we could swiftly get hosed down and changed and head out for a decent lunch, which we took just round the corner at a bar/cafe called Torre Guelfa.

After lunch, we were all feeling a siesta coming on, so had a quick look at the Duomo

and found out its opening hours for a later expedition for some sightseeing and gelato. We were intrigued by one gelato shop

which had the most extraordinary queue. It’s not as if it was the only one in town, so we decided it would clearly bear research later, when the crowds had dissipated. We also decided to visit one very interesting museum that Jane had found, to make sure we got to it before it closed.

It’s a beautiful recreation of how San Gimignano – “The City of Towers” – would have looked in medieval times. At one stage there were over a hundred towers in the town, mainly built by people to show off. 14 remain, and you can see some of them in the photos on this page.

Siesta over, we ventured out once more with our main objective being ice-cream a visit to the cathedral.  It is a well-recommended activity, and costs only €5 to get in. I wasn’t sure what to expect from such a highly-touted place, but there was a tiny clue as we headed for the entrance.

What you see, on walking in, is remarkably impactful. The interior of the church is liberally covered with frescoes and it made a huge impression on me.

It’s not an intimate space for communing with God, but it has a certain majesty about it.

Here’s a gallery of some of the photos I took to try to convey what the interior looks like.

After that, ice-cream seemed to be a good thing, so we went back to that popular shop

where the queue had died down a bit, and we could see the staggering variety of ice-cream they offered.

We consumed ours whilst sitting on the Duomo steps, and after that a drink seemed a necessity. We were heading for the Terraza outside our hotel when Jane suggested we walk down a side alley to a punto panoramico that (as it happens) our hotel bedroom looks out on. This was a good move.

There is a little enoteca in the Cisterna square called Divinorum, and it has a back door that offers a fantastic view in the afternoon sunshine.

A drink there in the last of the sunshine set us up nicely for a reasonably early night in preparation for the morrow.

Tomorrow’s walk is about the same length as today’s was, but should be a little less arduous. We have to get to Colle Val d’Elsa and the S-cape app describes the walk as “one of the most beautiful routes on the Via Francigena”. So we can look forward to something much nicer than the humdrum views we’ve been subjected to so far, eh?

A Lucca Round

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Saturday 10 May 2025 – On paper, the day’s schedule was quite relaxed, starting with a 10am transfer to Lucca. However, I wasn’t done with Pisa; I wanted to take a photo of the tower and baptistry in the morning sunshine. I thought that if I got there early enough, I might be the only one there and so could get a photo of the tower with no crowds. I was very nearly right.

I woke up shortly after 6am and decided that I would walk up to the Piazza del Duomo, so I arrived there well before 7am. The site was, indeed, very quiet. But, right bang in the middle of the shot I wanted to take, was a couple who had obviously got up really early so they could get their own shot at a classic view of the site,

except, of course, they were doing fucking selfies! And they were taking their time about it, too, so, rather than wait for them to finish, I walked around the site to get a photo of the baptistry in the morning light.

On the way back to see if my shot was clear, I passed another, clearly serious, photographer setting up with his big camera on a tripod, only to realise that he was doing fucking selfies, too!

Anyway, I got the shot I wanted in the end.

I really wanted an aerial version, too, and I had the drone with me. There was a sign on the site saying “no drones”, but I thought that maybe if I launched from just off the site, I could sneak a quick shot with no-one to notice.  Sadly, DJI’s software had already thought of this, and declared the area an “Authorisation Zone” – I would have to get a special code even to launch. Not only did I not know how to get this, but I realised that if I did, They would know that I’d taken an illicit shot. So, with a sigh, I packed up and walked back to the hotel.

Pisa looked very fine in the early morning light,

which made me feel extra glad that I had made the effort to get up early.

Our 10am transfer went very smoothly, with an entertaining driver who got us to Lucca in about half an hour, and deposited us at the Hotel Rex

whose staff seemed somewhat disenchanted to see us so early and bade us come back at 2pm to check in. They did allow us to leave our bags there, so we did that and wandered off into a lovely sunny day.

Embarrassingly, I had never even heard of Lucca before we planned this trip, but when I mentioned it in various conversations, people cooed about how lovely the place was; I’d seen a photo of the cathedral and heard about the walls, but that was about it. According to Wikipedia, “Lucca is known as an Italian “Città d’arte” (City of Art) from its intact Renaissance-era city walls and its very well preserved historic centre.” The hotel lies just outside these walls, and so we went with a plan to walk around them, as Jane had confirmed that this was A Thing. We first had to find a way through them

and soon found a path that led through a tunnel

and up into a delightful area. There’s a well-developed and wide path that completely circumnavigates the walls, allowing for walking, running, cycling and

the cycling equivalent of pedalos, which are for hire at many spots round the walls. The route is tree-lined and very pleasant to walk along.  It offers many a great view of the city and its buildings,

all the nicer for it being a beautful sunny day.  The round trip is around 4km, and we covered about half it before diverting off in search of a coffee, which we found in the Piazza del Amfiteatro. Jane had mentioned that there were maybe a couple of restaurants there, and actually the whole amphitheatre area is rammed with restaurants

and featuring a market in the centre.

We chose a place at random (OK, the first one we got to) and passed a pleasant hour over coffee and drinks before completing our circuit round the walls, a process which took us to just after check-in time.

En route, we passed the very pleasant Piazza San Frediano

which gets its name from the Basilica which stands on one edge, a building with a very striking facade

which features a fabulous mosaic image at its head.

It was open, so we went in, and found that the interior was every bit as striking as the outside.

It’s “Chapels’R’Us” down the sides of the nave

and there are many interesting details – lush decor and frescoes.

An extra side chapel has, among all the other splendours, a wonderful ceiling,

and, all in all, it was a very worthwhile detour. We carried on round the walls, past more splendid edifices

and, for reasons not entirely clear to us, a giant panther.

I mean, obviously it’s something to do with the Giro D’Italia cycling race, but exactly what we don’t know.

The hotel was more welcoming when we arrived at 2.15pm, and checked us in smoothly. Behind the reception is a neat floral display;

the shape of the walls, made out in hydrangeas – as can be seen in the track of our walk.

Having checked and settled in, we then mounted an expedition to find lunch, which is where we struck the first (minor) obstacle; all the serious restaurants had clearly shut their kitchens. We stumbled about until we found somewhere that could provide us something better than a packet of crisps, and had a relaxed time over focaccias and salads. There seemed to be a few hen parties in town, and one passed us whilst we were at lunch.

They were clearly having a good time, as were we.

We repaired to the hotel for a restorative cup of tea and, as the sun was going down, ventured out again, this time in search of gelato. It amazes me that we’ve been in Italy almost a week and this is the first time that ice cream has featured as part of the plan. So we headed back towards the old town, taking the opportunity to pass the cathedral, which has a very impressive facade.

We then blundered about a bit, ending up by the Piazza Napoleone. We had wondered, earlier, whether there might be restaurants here.

Yup.

It’s-a nice-a place; we may well end up having lunch here tomorrow. Jane also found a highly-recommended gelateria for us to sample – Caffè Casali, on Piazza San Michele. This is a civilised ice cream parlour

which also serves cocktails and pastries. It made for a pleasant coda to the day.

Tomorrow is the last chance we get for a leisurely schedule; after that the hard walk starts. There are a couple of towers to climb and maybe a couple of churches to visit (no shit, Sherlock – Ed). So stick with us and you’ll find out how we spent our last non-walking day.