Traditions and Towers

It's official: We're having a heat wave. They call it AFA and it's apparently from Africa? What I do know, is it's unbelievably hot and humid, and it gets worse when you go to places like Siena and Pisa. . . which is what I did Friday and Today! 


Get Ready for LOTS of Pictures! (and a VERY long post...sorry!)


Okay, so yesterday we got up ridiculously early to catch the 7 AM bus to Siena, which is about an hour away from Florence.  Siena is beautiful. It's a smaller city -- it seems like the suburbs of Florence -- and its a more classical Italian town, very clean and just had a good feeling about it. 
A Street of Siena

Going up the stairs to their Duomo

The front of their Duomo, with a close up on the statues coming out at you on the side. It was really cool being able to look at this Duomo and be able to understand it a bit better, because of class. Now I'm conscious of the different cities' patron saint and such and understand how it's expressed! 

Far Away view of the Duomo

We chose yesterday to go, because Il Palio was yesterday. Il Palio is this tradition that dates back to the 13th century where the contrada compete in a horse race in the town square. So they make a dirt race track in the town square and have a race for the Palio banner. Seats in the bleachers are at least 250 Euro and hundreds flock to the center of the square (which is free) where you stand for hours, because you are essentially in the center of the track, to see a 90 second race. Look up pictures. . . it's unheard of. Oh, and the Jockeys ride bareback. INTENSE!
Palio Poster:

So we got there (kinda exhausted, but excited) and found the Duomo, which was beautiful.  and then found Il Campo, which is their town center and where the race is held.  One of the "dress rehearsal" races was at 9 AM, so we got there around 8:30 and waited. 
Il Campo

Fans, and some of the flags of the contrada

Then, the horses and jockeys came out =)

The heads of the Contradas, I think? they looked important

Then a CANON went off, but it didn't signify the beginning of the race, but soon they were off!

It was so COOL! Then, having read a few people's experiences at Il Palio and having nothing else to do, I said, let's follow a horse! So we went out and found the nearest horse and followed in a procession of yellow flag wearers behind it. We apparently became fans of Nobile Contrada dell'Aquila --  the Eagle. 

Okay, so every Contrada has a RIDICULOUS, but AWESOME mascot. We had the Eagle, but other ones include a unicorn, giraffe, snail, rhino, goose, sea shell and porcupine to name a few. And every neighborhood boasted of flags and even light fixtures of their mascot.
Contrada Capitana dell'onda 's street (they are a wave . . but really a dolphin . .. but really a fish-serpent)

Me representing with my Aquila flag/scarf/cape

They actually do a lot of things, like bless the horse in a church and have feasts and so on, but not being locals, we basically just wandered. I knew for sure that there would be a parade, but that wasn't till fourish, so we tried to find some food.  We ended up cutting through Il Campo and stumbled upon this procession:

Why yes, they are in medieval costumes with drums and giant . . . . weapon things! Completely random, but so cool! We then took a lloooooong Italian lunch and had Gniocchi (SO GOOD) and I was absolutely craving diet coke, so we leisurely ate and stayed out of the blazing hot sun as long as possible.  After that, we wandered a bit more -- it was nice, Il Palio is definitely a competition that is taken seriously, but it seemed all in good humor and were willing to have tourists like us have fun too! They really have a strong sense of community, and I really enjoyed that.  We did have a little 3 year old yell at us for our flag, but it was all in fun =) We then sat down at the Duomo to await the parade. For this part, each contrada has a procession, with a drummer, two flag tossers, weapon bearers, a knight, and more flag bearers. . . it was awesome. 

Why yes, that IS a crossbow!

dell'Aquila!

The back of dell'Onda's knight . . . all of their costumes were AMAZING, but dell'Onda's were the best

Basically, it was an incredibly cool experience. The flag tossing got the same after a while, but it was still fun =) I can't even imagine how hot these people were. . . especially the knights who were in all metal! The heat certainly wore us out, and we didn't want to stand in the hot sun forever to wait for a 90 second race, so we went back to the bus, and came back, had some delicious pizza in an AIR CONDITIONED restaurant and crashed. It was such a unique experience though, and I definitely want to spend time in Siena. Maybe not as much this trip, but perhaps another. 





After our long day yesterday, today we wanted a break. We needed to go to Pisa for class, and I really didn't want to go during the week, so we were like, alright, go to Pisa in the morning, see the tower, and come back so we can relax. Good plan. So, we took a train to Pisa, where it was about 60% humidity and 90 degrees and dragged ourselves to the tower. Although, Pisa is a pretty nice town.  It seems like a small, less interesting Florence, to be quite honest. But, it's Duomo is pretty outstanding. . . and by outstanding, I mean HUGE.
Baptistry, Duomo, Bell Tower

Did you know that the leaning tower is a bell tower? Because I was certainly ignorant. Seeing the leaning tower is actually incredibly awesome in person. 

Everything was very white and faded though. . . I liked Siena and Florence's better. But the Baptistry was HUGE and the Duomo is shaped like a cross, and is immense.

It was still an outstanding sight to see. Being hot and tired, we decided just to see one monument, which was a monument off to the side of the Duomo buildings. It was an art gallery/ tomb it seemed like? It was bombed in 1944, and has been mostly restored. It's simple, but beautiful.
The Inner Courtyard 

A Sculpture from a tomb that I thought was particularly striking

We then tried to find this museum that has an excavation of a Roman ship, but it just wasn't to be, so we grabbed lunch and headed home. Oh, by the way, the trains aren't air conditioned either! AUGH! Now I'm taking some time to relax and just let my body rest. (the piano player is really helping. . . I love piano music) I'm going to eat some fruit from our favorite fruit vendor (he threw in three extra peaches, and another quarter of a water melon for free!) and go to bed early! We're going to the beach tomorrow to celebrate 4th of July and then going to have some burgers =) 


Happy Fourth Everyone!