Siena

Siena

Thursday 8th October

Yep the day started with 4 different sets of Bells taking it in turn to chime out every 15 minutes so it became one long jam session from about 7.30 – 8.30 accompanied by a perfectly lovely view from our windows of the slowly lifting shroud of mist. Then a perfect shower followed by a delicious breakfast with big cups of coffee, ham n cheese and fruit, beautiful background music before heading to the duomo/cathedral.

As it turns out this activity was the best value for money yet – 10euro each provided entry into 5 separate buildings – the cathedral itself was bizarrely ornate with square inch was ornately decorated to within an inch of its life – a gothic structure made out of dark green and white marble- marble columns reaching to the ceiling with 6inch bands of white and green marble – a very striking example of the opposite to minimalist – where it seems that yes, more is definitely more. The floors were covered with about a 24 giant drawings made from inlaid marble which we were lucky to see because they spend most of the year covered up – statues by Donatello and Michelangelo, giant old incredibly decorated 15th century choir - songbooks/manuscripts, frescoes, incredibly intricate carved furniture and statuary – every visitor had to sit down at some point in just plain wonder at all this work, and attempts to create beauty , find truth, pay homage all in the name of God.
The church would have been value enough but then there was: the Crypt, the Baptistery, the Museum of the Works - with the best panoramic/iconic view of Tuscany one could ever hope for on top of what looks like the remains of some wall and archway and finally the Oratory of S Bernardino – yet to be explored. We ran out of time as Mary had a hair appointment at 3.30 and we had been on the go for about 5 hours as it was. And as it with all these wonderful historic places there was one bonus after another but the best for Mary was the number of reliquaries in the Museum of the Works – there even appeared to be full skeletons with the bones artfully rearranged and decorated to fit in bejewelled glass cases.