I'm Siena Another Italian City (it's a stretch)

Siena is the capital of Tuscany, a hill top walled city much like any other found hiding within the rolling hills of the northern Italian countryside. Its long and narrow corridors, labyrinthine in layout, all flow into, or near its jewel; the piazzo del campo. Today, the large, circular square is a lounge for students and tourists to rest in the shadow of the city hall. On July 2nd, its transformed into the stage where Il Palio takes place; a near 450 year old bareback horse race where riders from the different districts of Siena race against each other for the honor of their home (yes, its a little Hunger Games-esque).

For me, I just basked in the sun on my day off from living with a family, doing manual work in exchange for meals and a place to sleep. The Palio would have been the site to see, but my timing was off and the enormous gothic cathedral nearby was ready to open it's doors at 10:30.

The cathedral stands on two levels between two streets on different sides of a hill. The whole city deals with the verticality, but the church occupies a block, presenting itself as its own mountain in a hilly city. As you approach, its immediately clear that this is something special. The facade, and later to be discovered interior, are built in alternating black and white marble. The striping adds to its vertical spectacle.

Inside, its even more impressive, as if walking into a marbled cave. Albeit, with stained glass windows and elaborate mosaic floors. The pulpit is an elaborate marble carved staircase placed where the church parishioners can have a clear view of their stately Cardinal. The floors exhibit, in addition to the cold stone slabs that mark the resting place or priest and patron, elaborate mosaics from the foundational churches medieval French influence, but the ceilings, in typical Italian flair, are carefully painted with frescoes in a way as to not take away from the architecture.

I found myself wandering the narrow streets, observing how such a city still operates confined by its building practices no longer necessary in a modern Italy. The bakeries still churned out biscotti and espresso. The more remote houses still strung their laundry across alleys. People would still be kneeling and praying at their district church. Cars were the only casualty, having to pause to let pedestrians through streets that were meant for horse and carriage.

As I made my way out of the city, I stopped by the old arena, catching the students of the musical school stumbling through an Eric Clapton guitar solo through an open window. I scaled the brick and stone walls, and landed on the upper wall parimeter to catch my final view of this uniquely similiar Tuscan city.