April 21
Siena

The first, and possibly most impressive, sight in Siena was the Piazza il Campo, a gigantic, shell-shaped social gathering place paved with red brick at the center of the old town. After parking the station wagon, Kathy and I used our two best tricks to find the piazza - we walked uphill and followed the crowds. Winding back and forth on those narrow cobblestone alleys between tall brick buildings, it was almost a revelation of the kind depicted in all those religious paintings when we turned and suddenly saw the space open up on il Campo. The brick expanse was dotted with small groups of tourists and locals, picnicking, reading guidebooks, or just soaking up the welcome (and rare) sunshine. At one point a middle-aged couple in the center of the piazza embraced and kissed. Spontaneously and simultaneously, the whole place erupted in applause, which was amplified to a roar by the acoustics of the place.

The piazza is completely enclosed by ancient, impressive buildings. On the flat part of the shell stands the Palazzo Pubblico, or town hall, with its gigantic bell tower, the second tallest in all of Italy. The buildings on the round part of the shell, at least the first floors, are occupied by dozens of trattoria, pizzeria, cafés, and other eating and drinking establishments. We chose a birraria and ordered two tall Kilkenny Strong ales, along with a pizza and a panino (hot sandwich). There's nothing like kicking back, relaxing in the sun, and taking in the local color of a storied town like Siena.

After our usual two-hour lunch, we set out to find the Duomo of Siena. Every town in Italy, it seems, has a great domed cathedral showing off its historical architects, artists, popes, and sculptors. Siena has had more than its share of these folks, and the Duomo group here proves it. We spent hours and hours exploring the black and white marble cathedral; the Baptistery, the adjacent museo, and a recently re-discovered subterranean room called the Kripta.

You know, the remarkable thing about Europe, and Italy in particular, isn't really that things are so old here, but rather the enormous length of time during which people have been around to build, destroy, build again, improve, and just touch things. The Greeks borrowed from the Egyptians and then were copied by the Romans. Roman statues eroded over time and were copied by Renaissance sculptors. White marble slabs carved with scenes from Greek mythology in the Siena Duomo had been worn down to a polished blur by millions of footsteps. The stone spiral stairs Kathy and I climbed to view the "panorama" of the Duomo group were so smooth and narrow from centuries of use, I was afraid we'd slip and bump our butts all the way down to the bottom. One of the massive bronze cathedral doors (I can't remember which cathedral) had fourteen panels in each door depicting (no surprise) scenes from the Bible carved in relief with amazing detail. One of the lower reachable frames contains a baby Jesus which had been worn down to just a shinny blob of bronze as, over hundreds of years, the faithful have kissed their fingers and then touched the carving, filing it down with their fingerprints.

A larger example of this unfathomably deep Italian history is the Kripta in Siena. None of our guidebooks mention the two little rooms beneath the floor of the Duomo Cathedral, probably because they had been buried and forgotten until 1999, when they were re-discovered while cleaning out a rubbish heap adjacent to the church. The Kripta isn't really a crypt at all, it's another whole cathedral, built and used by early Christians for centuries. The frescoed rooms were filled with rubble during the building of the present Duomo. Because these wall paintings haven't been exposed to the light, air, moisture, and preservationists, the colors and details were incredibly vibrant. While the themes were still religious, there were both Old Testament stories, on the top row of frescoes, and New Testament paintings on the bottom row. A big, ugly dome of terra cotta brick and mortar in the floor of the Kripta turned out to be the outside of the domed alter in the adjacent baptistery.

One day isn't enough to really see Siena (or Florence either for that matter), but we left early enough to drive the two hours back and get home before dark. In Chiusi again, it was cold and damp and the hearty, hot zuppa made with barley, beans, onions, celery, garlic, and spices, really hit the spot. I made a roaring fire in the fireplace while Kathy warmed the soup and made some excellent bruschetta with toasted bread, fresh tomatoes, and the spicy, green olive oil pressed in these parts. We drizzled more of the olio onto the bowls of soup and opened another bottle of Gennaro's homemade vino. After dinner, our bellies were warm and full, so we closed the door to the bedroom, with the embers still glowing in the fireplace, and went fast asleep.