Siena and Assisi

We made it! Due to the rail strike, the two hour trip to Siena took us a bit over five hours. Having mastered the rail system, we had to figure out the inter-city busses. And we had to follow our own instincts over against the advice of helpful Italian ticket agents. But we made it.

Il Campo, the main square in Siena, is not square, but like an amphitheater

Siena is a beautiful city in which all the buildings (at least in the old, Medieval portion) date from the 1300s and are made of the same local brick that is the color (according to the Rick Steves travel guidebook) that the big box of Crayola crayons calls “Burnt Siena.” About right. Il Campo, the town square, is unique, and dominated by a high tower above the old city hall (which is now a museum).

It's all the color of Burnt Siena!

But dominating that, and everything else, is the Duomo (cathedral) which is even more grand than that of Florence. It took more than 200 years just to complete the mosaics in the floors! Above, looking down on us, are more that 170 popes, from St. Peter into the 12th century (although, despite the labels under their busts, all these popes seem to have shared just a half-dozen or so faces). The frescos on the walls were breathtaking.

All of the popes look alike.

A combination ticket allowed us to visit the Duomo as well as the baptistry (interestingly tucked under the wrong [east] end of the Duomo because of a lack of flat land for building in this hilly place). Also included was the museum (many 700 year old treasures) plus a chance to climb to the top of a wall that was erected in a project to expand the cathedral -- a project that was abandoned after the Black Death wiped out a third of the city’s population. And finally, the ticket allowed us into the crypt, where remains of even earlier frescos and foundations of a Roman temple have been recently uncovered. Fascinating!

Exterior of the Duomo -- like the popes on the inside, the churches all start to look alike on the outside.

It was much easier to get out of Siena than into it, because the strike was only one day. The shortest path from Siena to Assisi is a bus, but it only runs once a day after 5 p.m. So we bought tickets on the train back to Florence (a beautiful ride through countryside and villages in early morning light), and then, after a brief layover for a cup of cappuccino, a direct train to Assisi. This took much longer, but we arrived in Assisi by 2 p.m. instead of 7 p.m., and had time to see most of the sites.

Assisi

Thanks to getting on the wrong bus, we first drove through the newer part of Assisi. This showed us that tourism brought about by Saint Francis (who took a vow of extreme poverty) has brought great wealth to the modern residents (most of whom have taken no such vow). Our walk through the old city on the hill included the old Roman amphitheater, the church of Saint Rufino (a local tossed to the lions by the Romans), church of Saint Clare (including her tomb, which evokes those of Mao or Lenin), the church Sopra di Minerva (built over a Roman temple to the goddess Minerva, with floor drains for the blood of animal sacrifices still visible in the floor either side of the altar.

St. Rufino meets the lion in stone outside of his church

Finally we reached the Basilica di San Francesco -- a massive monument to a man who led a simple life among the poor. We began in the crypt with the tomb (he wasn’t actually buried here for more than 600 years because the Franciscans were afraid relic hunters would steal parts of the body), the lower basilica (amazing frescos), the cloister (advanced teaching center for Franciscans from around the world), and the upper basilica (even more amazing frescos, except those that were damaged in the 1997 earthquake).

Font in St. Rufino's church where St. Francis and St. Clare were both baptized

The whole old town and city walls are extraordinarily well preserved, and may be the best example of a Medieval walled town we’ve seen anywhere. Even though we aren’t especially enamored of saints and religious souvenirs, we were glad we saw Assisi. After much walking on the confusing, narrow, winding streets -- and with the help of a kind woman who spoke little English, but who nevertheless walked blocks out of her way to lead us where we needed to go -- we found our hotel for the night.

Basilica of Saint Francis

The hotel manager spoke almost no English (odd, with so many tourists here from around the world during the regular season), and closed up shop as soon as we checked in (we were apparently the only guests for the night in this, the off season). We came and went with our keys to both outer and inner doors, finding a restaurant near the central piazza where we had, perhaps, the best of many fine meals in Italy.

They claim that St. Francis invented the concept of the nativity scene. This one, outside of his basilica, is life sized. The guy on the far right, by the light, is not a shepherd.