Italy Day 2: Siena

In preparation for this day, I had been reading aloud from our Mary Fabyan Windeat book about St. Catherine of Siena.  I am so glad we did that.  I actually didn't know some of the stories in that book about her life.  It was so great for everyone, with the exception of Bobby, to be able to look at the paintings of her life and know exactly what the story was behind it.  I cannot stress enough how helpful if you travel to read as much about the place in a story format, so as not to bore the sweet things, as you can.  I am trying to compile a list of books for each place we've been, but you know how much free time I have; so we'll see.

The first church of the day was the Basilica di San Domenico which didn't allow photography in most places either, but somehow we ended up with a couple of photos between the two of us.  It was not an amazing church itself.  It probably was once upon a time, but the frescoes on the walls were mostly gone.  This church had St. Catherine's head and a few other relics on display.  If you are very interested in seeing her head, you can try this link or googling it.  This church had a tiny, but pretty well supplied gift shop.  Genevieve, after hearing the stories about St. Catherine and seeing this church came up to me to tell me she wanted to buy somethings from the gift shop, because she wanted to choose St. Catherine of Siena for her confirmation (which is a still a year or two off) saint.  She purchased a small statue and a medal at this store.

Bobby and Judah kneeling and hugging...couldn't miss this moment!

Then we went to her house that she actually grew up in and lived out almost all of her life in.  It has been converted into a church, but they kept her cell where she slept and prayed.  The kitchen is now a hall of paintings of her life.  The original floor of the old kitchen has been preserved by having a glass floor put on top of it so no one walks on it.

This is in a open air entryway of the "house."  Another good Christmas card possibility, yes?

Her cell

The room that held her cell.

A painting of the scene when her father catches her praying and a dove, always representing the Holy Spirit, hovers over her head.

The main square of Siena

In the main square, they still have horse races.  It's that huge that they have room for a race and all the onlookers as well.

We stopped for lunch and this time I did a little drawing of Santa Caterina.

Kathedrale von Siena

Did I mention yet how amazing it was for us to see the sun and real, puffy, white clouds instead of the gray, stratus clouds that have hung over our heads since the beginning of November?  We've had maybe three days of sun in Germany since Brian's promotion ceremony.

This church was filled with tourists.  

It is famous for these floors.

Really pretty design and architecture.

The library

Then we went into the museum as well which led us upstairs as we walked to each new room which was up another giant flight of stairs.  

We eventually came to a "secret passageway" that led us up a tight, windy staircase.  It was tricky to walk up holding a toddler and even more tricky when you ran into someone coming from the other direction and had to squeeze past, and I really mean squeeze.  It led us to the top of the tower to these views...

I was a little tired at this point.

One last thing to do before heading to dinner was the baptistery, by Donatello.  It was impressive, but at this point I'd reached my maximum capacity for enjoying looking at things for the day. 

The Baptistery

Still smiling?!!!

This was our dinner.  The kids shared it with us, but we got them pizza on the way home to supplement it.  We weren't sure if they'd like it or not, but they all did.  Each liked different parts, but it was perfect because Brian and I did not need to eat that much.

Chianti was the wine of the trip for us.

Happy husband means a good end to the day.

We loved Siena as much or more than San Gimignano.  It's tough to say which was better.  I'd highly recommend a day in each!