Siena - A Nave With a View

Our first jaunt in the hire car was to the beautiful medieval city of Siena. The roads were fairly quiet and we enjoyed the Autumnal colours of the undulating Tuscan hillsides, particularly the earthy browns and burnt oranges of the recently ploughed fields. It was a glorious crisp sunny November morning and as we neared the city we noticed how well wrapped up the locals were. Thankful that we had put extra fleeces in the boot of the car we parked in a well disguised multi-story car-park (with piped "supermarket" music!) and set off on foot, arranging to meet up with Mike and Jean after lunch in the main square.

We really liked Siena. It was one of those towns where you could glimpse another stunning sight on every corner. Il Campo, the main square, is not a regular quadrilateral at all. A scallop shell shape is perhaps the best description, even with the curved segmented scoop. There are nine segments, said to honour the Council of Nine, the city's governors in the 13th and 14th century. Clearly the focal point of Siena today it was buzzing with people sitting either in the numerous cafes or on the sloping ground, soaking up the atmosphere. It is also the venue for Siena's famous Palio, a twice-yearly festival with a bareback horse race round Il Campo and other medieval pageantry.

The best tower for a roof top view of the city is the Torre del Mangia on the south of Il Campo but the queue was phenomenal and Chris and I opted to go to the Duomo instead. I'm not a huge admirer of the black and white marble cathedrals, which are so popular in Tuscany, but I could appreciate the skill and effort that went into its construction, and the intricacy of the Facade, desiged by Pisano, was amazing. Inside the "sgraffito" marble panelled pavement was largely covered to protect it from the scores of feet but one or two were revealed to provide some idea of the overall effect. We studied the faces of the Popes whose line of carved heads stare down on the congregation from above, and decided that they looked quite a grumpy lot! It was also interesting to see Donatello's bronze of John the Baptist, in the same gruesome style as his Mary Magdalene we had seen in Florence.

There had been many plans to extend the Duomo, and one attempt, which would have made it the largest in Italy outside Rome, was finally abandoned in 1348 when cracks appeared in the new nave. With the arrival of the Black Death and subsequent lack of funds Siena's Duomo remained at its 1215 completion stage. The new, partially constructed, nave still stands however, and we paid to climb the steep, narrow spiral stairway to get a view from the rather scary exposed walkway! What astonished me was the way some people were happily perched on the wall sketching the view or details of the Duomo. It was a fantastic scene below us though, across to Il Campo or further out beyond the city walls. The red rooftops mirrored the colour we had seen earlier in the day in the ploughed fields, the local clay put to good use.