The Italy Series: Siena Cathedral

  We stayed in Siena for two nights, mostly treating it as a rest period after our whirlwind Rome.  This meant that we averaged about four scoops of gelatto each, per day.  We also simply found ourselves wandering around, poking into tiny shops and parks and wandering down medieval streets lined with green-shuttered windows and flower boxes.

One thing I noticed was that every semi-touristy store sold these black and white striped pasta bow-ties and I couldn't really figure why.  Siena was, as noted previously, a rather sienna-colored city after all...  Maybe it was some sort of local specialty?  Or something?

And then, we went to Siena's cathedral...

Stripes!  Stripes everywhere!  I'd never seen anything like it.

We liked these 400-some-odd busts of Popes lining the arcade

But, I mean, beyond the stripes, the cathedral had other really gorgeous things going for it.  I think I'd have to say that, overall, it ended up being my favorite cathedral of the entire trip--which is saying a lot since we, you know, saw the mother of them all.

For example, it had these really beautiful and intricate floors made of a rainbow of marbles:

We saw the beautiful Piccolomini Library, just off the nave, that had a gorgeous ceiling and some of the first Renaissance paintings that really used perspective.

And, perhaps the giveaway, the cathedral had a Bernini chapel with more (Bernini!) sculpture and the loveliest dome I've ever seen (and we've seen a lot of domes).

Just a really gorgeous place, Siena...

Siena Cathedral