Siena

From Florence, E and I took a bus to Siena, where we stayed at the Albergo Benini, which had been recommended in Rick Steves' 2014 Italy guidebook. Rick Steves must be a very powerful man in Italy, we figured, given the number of American tourists we saw carrying his books around Tuscany. Indeed, a tour guide in Volterra (whose walking tour we took because it was recommended by you know whom) told us that something like 70% of all tourists from the U.S. use his books.

The view from our room was jaw-droppingly spectacular. I recommend both the hotel and the Rick Steves book.

We spent two nights in Siena, and enjoyed its easy walkability, beauty, and relative quietness. The old-town section was full of tourists, but at only a small fraction of the density as in Florence. Siena also had far less automobile traffic and exhaust. And while it lacked the iconic art punch of Florence, there were more than enough frescoes, sculptures, museums, towers, and gorgeous buildings to keep us ogling.

On our first afternoon, we visited churches: San Domenico, which was a block from our hotel, and the Duomo sites (museum, baptistery, and Duomo including Piccolomini Library). Just below our hotel was the much expanded house where St. Catherine grew up, so we visited that too.

San Domenico

Duomo. The Duomo museum was a highlight, but no photos allowed.

Duomo interior. Notice the pope head sculptures looking down from the wall.

Dome

Slaughtered innocents in the marble floor of the Duomo.

Two frescoes in the stunning Piccolomini library (commissioned in 1494 by Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini to house the books of his uncle Enea Silvio Piccolomini. Enea became pope Pius II; Francesco became pope Pius III. 

Piccolomini library ceiling

A fresco in the sanctuary: Enea Piccolomini becoming Pius II

That evening back in our hotel room, we heard drums, and when we looked out the window, we saw a pair of flags flying up over the roof line of the St. Catherine house below. We scrambled outside to watch flag throwers from Siena's Oca Contrada (Goose neighborhood) practice (presumably for the July 2 Palio, which was about two weeks away).

Our second day began with the Thursday market, a crazy busy couple of city blocks crammed to bursting with stands selling clothes, shoes, books, sewing supplies, kitchen gadgets, potted plants, and other assorted jim jams. There was breathing room next to the plants, which is why I have photos of plants.

We had room to turn around here, so I took a photo...

We headed to City Hall and the Piazza del Campo midday, followed by the amazing museum Santa Maria della Scala. The museum was practically empty while we were there, which was nice but surprising. Over 1000 years old, the building was built into the hill in front of the Duomo and descends for a total of four cavernous stories. It's main use was as a hospital for the ill and a hospice for the poor and abandoned. Photos, of course, were not allowed; see the museum website for a sense of how its 200,000 cubic meters are used today.

Siena City Hall

Given the scruffiness of this guy, I'm pretty sure he's supposed to be John the Baptist

Climbing up, looking down

Duomo to the left, San Domenico to the right

I used to think the detailed landscape backgrounds painted into small windows in assorted Renaissance "Madonna & Child" paintings were there to look charming and painterly, until I learned that that's what distant landscape backgrounds actually look like in Tuscany.

A hair salon hung a bunch of cardboard wigs in an alley with a sign saying "take photos and post them online!" 

Florence

From Cinque Terre, E and I parted ways with S: he went to his conference in Barga, and E and I took a train to Florence. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon (6/15), checked into our Wimdu flat, and went straight to the Uffizi, where we met up with our friend L from back home. I didn't take my camera, because I had read photos weren't allowed, although that didn't seem to prevent anyone else from snapping shots of the abundant Botticellis, Michaelangelos, and Titians.

The Uffizi is huge and a little overwhelming--the kind of museum that's best spread out over multiple visits, to comfortably view a small portion at a time. For me, the highlight was the ornately painted ceiling throughout the top floor; had the galleries been empty, the ceiling alone would have made the visit worthwhile. As for the rest of the art, like the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, it looks better in photos than from behind the heads of a gazillion other tourists.

We left the Uffizi after 2.5 hours--earlier than we'd planned--to chase a costumed parade that we had seen through a window: folks dressed in Renaissance garb, playing drums and horns, making their way to a re-creation of a Renaissance football game. We never quite managed to navigate around other tourists to catch up with the parade, but the effort got us wandering into the piss-scented garbage-dumpster-filled back streets of east central Florence, where eventually, to our delight, we emerged into a small plaza a block away from a small open supermarket (on a Sunday afternoon! Clearly, Italy isn't Germany). We bought food for dinner, made a brief detour to gawk at the exterior of the synagogue, then walked all the way back to our flat on the west side of central Florence to make dinner with L.

Florence Day 2 was a Monday, when many museums are closed. That didn't keep us from occupying ourselves in art and architecture. In a nutshell: rain and clouds, Campanile (416 steps up and down), Da Vinci Machines Museum, vegetarian tourist lunch (pasta), bright sunshine, Baptistery, Arno stroll, dingy public restroom experience (a pricey Euro, but for that one gets a slip of paper with a customer number, plus they had both soap and toilet seats), spiritually cleansing gelato (me: maracuja and chocolate; E: black cherry and hardcore caffe), Forte di Belvedere (we weren't planning to go, but we spontaneously followed a sign), Boboli Gardens (likewise), nut and candied fruit torrone (marshmallow of the gods), Duomo, Brunelleschi's dome (463 steps up and down, with a gallery walk that awakened my inner acrophobe), then back to our Wimdu flat (TV! Internet!) for a few hours of World Cup soccer. We had a little neighborhood excitement in the evening: a water main broke, so no one on the block had running water. A helpful bartender in the corner pub sold us some Acqua Naturale cheap so we could brush our teeth.

Campanile. We started our second day here because, amazingly, there were no lines.

Going up

A small fraction of the Duomo exterior. The lavish pink, green, and white marble is, um, intense.

Red rooftops

More red rooftops

Rain over red rooftops

Synagogue

Somehow, looking at all those red rooftops, E managed to spy a cat.

Baptistery ceiling. Satan is chowing down on sinners in the panel to the right of Jesus's feet.

Shiny

Baptistery floor

Ponte Vecchio. The tree floating on the Arno had a mannequin in it and was part of an art installation.

Uffizi

Pool of lime Jell-o in Boboli Gardens

Modern art says "antiquity" in Boboli Gardens

Duomo entrance. Note the lute-playing angels below the clock and to the right

Looking up at Brunelleschi's dome

Duomo detail

We waited in line for almost an hour to climb the dome

It was very windy at the top. The railings were low enough to make me cling to the walls.

A copy of David in front of the Palazzo Vecchio

Ceilings in the Pallazzo Vecchio courtyard

Freiburg side trip and clouds over southern Germany

I made a quick solo 2-night side trip to Freiburg early this week to attend to important business (namely, to present a writing workshop and to stock up on Gelatine-frei gummi bears). I took a Deutsche Bahn double-decker bus, which on Sunday gave me impressive views of the ever-changing weather. This afternoon, I head back to Steinebach; for better or worse, the weather is beautifully sunny.