Dan is in Siena....Siena is in Dan!

This is the song that my friend Caitlin made up…don’t know why, but it was really funny, so I titled this blog by the song…and sadly, Caitlin’s friend called her last minute to say she was visiting her, so Caitlin wasn’t even able to join us. So it was Elyse, her friend from school, Tina, and I who ventured off to Siena to visit their friend Dan.

So after arriving in Siena, we asked the bus driver if this one stop was our stop, and he said yes. So we get off, and can’t seem to find Dan, which meant that, no in fact, we had gotten off at the wrong point. We walked around for about 15 minutes, following signs to the center of town, and eventually Dan finds us. It was a little scary because it was about 8 o’clock at night and we were carrying a bunch of bags, but we finally made it to Dan’s apartment safely. By then we were also starving, so we went out to a wonderful dinner and then walked around town for a while, enjoying the beautiful weather.

The next morning, we decided to- you guessed it- visit more churches! (I mean, what else do you do in Europe, especially Italy?!?) We went to St. Catherine’s and then headed to San Domenico’s, where there was actually St. Catherine’s head and finger that had been preserved….very strange, but kinda cool at the same time. We walked around a ton- just looking at all different views of the city, including going up to the abandoned palace on the top outskirts of the city. Eventually we decided to head back to the main piazza, the del Campo, where literally EVERYONE congregates. Of course, we got some gelato and just people watched for a bit. It was really good weather, so it was great just sitting and eating…yummm!!!

In July and August, there are two horse races in Siena, called the Palio. They occur in the del Campo. See the city is split up into 17 contrade (districts) and each one gets one horse. The horse that wins gives the whole contrada pride and celebrations for the whole rest of the year. The horses race three times around the outside of the piazza three times. There’s tons of gambling and it’s just crazy! It’s really cool too, cuz this has been going on for hundreds of years.

So after our delicious gelato, we went to the duomo, which was actually really cool. The floor is all engraved marble, and they only let certain parts of it be shown at a time. It was really similar coloring and build to that of the duomo in Florence. By then, however, it was about time to catch our bus home. Siena was great- especially the weather when we were there- but I did miss Perugia!