Siena

This week we went to Siena on Wednesday. Siena is a small city south of Florence. We were supposed to go there in 2018, but we never made it there. We decided that we could take a day trip to make up for that. 

The train ride from Florence to Siena was a little more than an hour and a half. We got to Siena around 10:30am. Siena is on the side of a mountain, and the train station is only about halfway up. Because of that, we had to take 11 escalators to get out of the station. When we got to the top, my parents got coffees and my sister and I got pastries. We walked to Piazza del Campo, which is the main Piazza in Siena. The piazza is a semi circle surrounded by restaurants and souvenir stores.

When we walked by the souvenir stores I noticed a bunch of flags I’d never seen before. I asked my dad about it and he said that they were for all the neighborhoods in Siena. I decided that I was going to have to get one of the flags before we left. There are 17 different neighborhoods and most of them have good looking flags. In the end I ended up getting the flag for the neighborhood Torre. The flag had a maroon background with a sun that had an elephant in it. We never went through Torre, but I picked this flag because I thought it looked the best. I liked the simple design and the colors. 

My dad also told me that the neighborhoods participate in a horse race in Piazza del Campo called Il Palio. The race takes place twice a year, once in June and once in August. Since there are 17 different neighborhoods in Siena, one race has 8 neighborhoods and the other has 9. They cover the roads around the piazza with sand and the racers go around the whole thing 3 times. The winner of the race gets a silk banner for their neighborhood. My dad actually went to one of the races when he was in Siena once. He said that the piazza was packed with people, and it was really crazy. 

After we saw Piazza del Campo we went to the Duomo. The Duomo in Siena was built to rival the Duomo in Florence. It’s made out of alternating stripes of black and white marble on the inside and the outside. Along the top of the walls in the church were lots of busts of important religious figures. There were a lot of side chapels that were all heavily decorated. There were also some stained glass windows I liked because of how vibrant the colors were.

After the Duomo we wandered around for a while. We eventually ended up on a different mountain peak that gave us a great view of the city. The Duomo and The Torre del Mangia, which is in Piazza del Campo, stood above all the other buildings. We got gelato while we were on the other side of the city. I got dark chocolate and stracciatella, and I think it was the best dark chocolate gelato I’ve had all trip.

While we were wandering we noticed plaques on the buildings that showed what neighborhoods we were in. We also saw a poster that had a map that shows where all of the neighborhoods are. We wandered mostly in the neighborhoods Bruco and Giraffa. 

We wandered for an hour or two and then we went back to the train station. We got some pizza for the ride back to Florence since it was around dinner time. Someday I would like to go back to Siena to watch Il Palio. I’ve seen some videos of it and it looks really cool. This trip to Siena was our last day trip in Italy, and it was a good one. I can’t believe that next week we’ll be in Spain!

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