Seeing Siena

Last night Eli, Katie, Alexandria and I took a late night stroll up to the Piazza Michelangelo. It's a great view during the day, but the experience at night is very different. We had a great time, lots pictures were taken and will be uploaded eventually. Afterwards, however, Trent, Eli, and I suffered through the worst night of trying to sleep since we arrived. Apparently groups of very loud Italians scheduled to walk by our apartment every 15 minutes from 1:00-4:00 AM. It was awful. But we still managed to rally and make the bus at 9 this morning for Siena.

After an hour long drive or so we made it and our walking tour

began. Our guide took us all around Siena, explaining about the 17 contrades (neighborhoods) of Siena and the Palio, which is a huge tournament between 10 of the houses twice a year (July 2nd and August 16th), with the main event being a horse race in town square:

Each contrade has an emblem (mostly animals), and I decided to pick one for each member of our group:

Me- Eagle

Eli- Dragon

Trent- Rhino

Alexandria- She-Wolf

Lyndsey-Giraffe

George- Snail

Alex- Porcupine

Lindsea- Wave

Erin- Seashell

Eleni- Owl

Aubrey- Panther

Kacy- Caterpillar

Katie- Unicorn

Tara- Tower

Danielle- Goose

We also saw their Duomo, which is beautiful and is filled with art (but ours is bigger). Siena is definitely a place I would like to return to sometime. Before we left we all had lunch (I had noodles with wild boar sauce, it was delicious). After that it was just a 30 minute drive to San Gimignano. I hadn't really heard much about the town, but when we got there, it was really cool. The view was incredible (pictures will be coming later), the towers were cool, and we had the greatest gelato in the world. And I'm not kidding about that last part. This gelateria, Pluripremiata, is a two time world champion gelateria. I was unaware that there was a Gelato World Championship, but I'm glad that there is and that I would like to find out how I become a judge. I was skeptical at first, but after I tried it (one scoop champagne/pink grapefruit, one scoop strawberry), I was a believer. It was sooo good. Afterwards we just wandered around for a bit then took the bus back home, everyone very very tired.

That's all for now, I'll post pictures once they're uploaded.

ae