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Did another day trip today into other parts of Tuscany: San Gimignano and Siena. This was a group of towns that typify the Tuscan hilltop town.

I was on my own in SG. That was fun. I was a little nervous at first given my tendencies to get lost and get hurt. The churches are – I hate to say it – par for the course: old, full of art and relics. But there was one unusual church that I photographed because I thought it was worth remembering. It was tiny, run down and only about 20 feet long by 10 feet wide. No art. Just some pews, an altar, a crucifix and a votive candle area. I took a picture from the outside since I don’t think we are supposed to take pictures inside.

Another cool thing, but something I couldn’t complete, was the Medieval Torture Museum. There were many horrors on display from the inquisition. I cannot even repeat any of them here, but it was truly sickening. I could only go to a few of the rooms before leaving. It was that disturbing.

As I walked down the side streets, I saw a door that had a very cool handle / knocker on it. It was a lion’s head holding the ring of the handle in its mouth. I took a picture of it. Then I kept walking a noticed a bunch more knockers that were really neat. So I kept taking pictures. As I was going through the streets, I found a small shop that had a bunch of different knockers for sale. I had accidentally found the blacksmith of SG. He was Franco and he was 800 years old, spoke no English at all. But we talked pointlessly with each other for a while and shook hands. I asked him if he would send me some of his work if I wrote to him and paid for it. He said yes, I think. He makes fireplace tools, door bells, knockers, pails, horseshoes. All kinds of stuff in a very small and dirty shop. It was cool.

After SG, I went to Siena. Now Siena has a bunch of cool stuff. First, they have a crazy bareback horse race in the town square twice a year. The race is a totally outrageous festival and the whole thing is dedicated to Virgin Mary (who turns out to be like Rizzo here: she rules the school). The winning rider gets like 300k euros and the neighborhood he represents gets bragging rights for the rest of the year. The neighborhood rivalries are a little odd. The neighborhoods of Siena all have names like Owl, Caterpillar, Dragon, Eagle, She-Wolf, etc. They are ostensibly geographic regions, but they have taken on the cultural significance of 50s college identity times ten. People get really worked up over this.

The second cool thing in Siena was – yes, you guessed it – saintly relics / body parts. Here in Siena there is an excess of dead saint flesh. Their patron saint – in fact the patron saint of Europe – is St. Catherine of Siena. You might think that they have a Zina-like memorial to her. But all they managed to get was her head and her right thumb. The rest of her is in Rome in a church near the Pantheon. Both the head and the thumb are on display in the cathedral of St. Domenic. The thumb is really, really tiny and so is the head. Both are totally shriveled and brown. In the main cathedral of Siena, they have the arm of John the Baptist. It’s only on display one day per year. And that day wasn’t today. So that part sucked.

Overall, this leg of the trip has exceeded expectations. Tomorrow, I leave Tuscany for Rome and points south. See you later!

Category : Travel