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!

Italy Part 1: San Gimignano

We left early in the morning on Friday for Italy.  We drove around 11 hours and, keeping with my plan to read or listen to books set in the places we are visiting to enhance the experience, we listened to A Hero on a Bicycle, set in Florence, Italy during WWII.  It was too short of a book for that long of a drive, but it was very interesting and kept all our attention.  I brought along a couple of picture books from the library also.  A Stone Angel which is about the statue of the David by Michelangelo and Little Bo in Italy which is by Julie Andrews Edwards and is about a cat's adventures in Italy.

We drove straight to our agitourismo, which is kind of like an apartment on a farm.  We got there after dark and these types of places are usually out on long winding dirt roads.  The particular one had one spot where you had to go through a walled narrow spot.  We are a little gun shy with that since the great window disaster of 2016.  We folded in our windows and rolled through very slowly and then right in front of us was a sharp turn between two houses without much space to swing out in.  So Brian made a 47 point turn to get us through that one as well.  All was well, and we got better and better at getting through as the days went on.

Can't get your kids to all look at the camera and smile?

No problem, just tell them all to turn around!

We got settled while Brian went back out to grab pizzas and then we all went to bed.  The next morning we drove to San Gimignano which is an adorable medieval town with narrow streets and lots of scenic spots.

Houses open up right into the alleys/streets.  Some had little "gardens" like this if they were on a corner.

There were a good amount of roaming cats in this village.

Look at this alley.

Love this!  Is it too early to pick a Christmas card picture for next year?

The requested silly pose shot

My little man

Although I get tired of carrying him in the Ergo, it is a little more annoying now that he is wanting up and down all the time.  Luckily it is pretty easy to switch, but still miss those excellent, silent traveler days with Bobby.

We went into Duomo di San Gimignano with an audioguided tour.  It is know for it's frescoes that have never had to be restored, possibly due to the placement of the windows, and lack of sunlight on them.

Through the arches, you can see the frescoes.

Santa Fina's relics, including the wooden board she slept on that is cut off in this picture on your right.

The boys all take the audioguides very seriously.

At the restaurant for lunch, they had paper place mats that people had drawn on and hung on the wall.  Isaac and Hanna drew on theirs and left it to be hung on the wall.

The staff was super sweet to the kids, especially to Bobby.

We walked to the other church we wanted to see, but it was all locked up for another 45 minutes or so.  We walked around and found a nice park with old stone walls to play in.  This whole vacation was really so much more laid back, like a vacation is supposed to be, than our last few trips.  I felt like we had such a lovely time at the park, even Hannah was laughing and smiling.  

Olive trees were everywhere.

Bobby finally fell asleep on the walk up to this park.  This is the only day he napped I think on the whole trip.

We took so many more pictures because there was no hurry.

This well was fun for the kids.  The whole family dropped seeds and rocks and tried to make different sounds depending on how many were dropped and if they were synchronized.  It's a silly thing to do, but I love to see the whole family participating in the same activity peacefully.  It was just so memorable for me.

Look at this doll!  He did a great job on this trip walking and not complaining!

She's gaining on me, huh?  I think she is around 5' 6".

LOVE this picture!

And another major highlight of the day for the family as a whole was our gelato stop.

I got an olive oil container finally.

I love that you can find these religious icons all over the city.

The stone walls were so fun.

We walked back to the church, Sant' Augostino.  The minute we walked into this smaller church, Bob turns to me and asks for an audioguide.  Not this time, Buddy.

Somebody peeked!

This is gonna be my new cover pic.  Again, see how I hide their faces so I don't have to cajole them into all smiling at the same time?

Behind the altar were frescoes of St. Augustine's life.  Hannah did not care for the frescoes in the other church, but these she liked.  Maybe it was because these were more life-like and 3 dimensional than the flatter one in the other church.  Plus, these were definitely more vividly colored, but again those other ones were crazy old and had never been touched up.

We walked into the court yard and found this small chapel was starting to fill up with people.  Looked like a vigil Mass and so we joined them.  It was a tiny chapel and packed tight with people.

After Mass, we walked back towards our van and stopped at a cafe to get sandwiches to go.  I can't tell you if they were good or not, because mine was eaten while  I was upstairs putting Judah and Bobby to bed.  My kids are getting really hungry!  Brian had missed that I was waiting to eat so that I could get the exhausted kids to bed first.  I had brought enough food from home, so I didn't go hungry.