Off to Siena

Okay….I met Shona at the Termini train station at 6:30 yesterday morning, and we were off to Siena. We had hoped to also go to San Gimignano, but the timing didn’t work, so we just stayed in Siena. (We had to change trains to get to Siena, and we would have to take another to St. G.) Our first stop was San Domenico, “an enormous, severe, and vaguely unattractive pile of bricks” per Fodor. We were really looking for Casa di St. Catherine, who was chosen in 1378 as Siena's ambassador to Pope Gregory XI in Avignon. She was responsible for having the papal seat returned to Rome from Avignon with her scholarly letter writing campaign. We did find her Casa, which is the home she grew up now, several small chapels. We stopped for lunch of a slice of pizza sitting in the Campo, “arguably the most beautiful piazza in all Italy”, “crafted like a sloping scallop shell”. The focal point is the Fonte Gaia, a ”poor replica” of Jacopo della Quercia’s masterpiece fountain. It didn’t look that bad to me, EXCEPT for all of the pigeons enjoying the Fonte!
Our next stop was the Duomo,another incredible cathedral filled with Tuscan art…and people!(It is in picture from a distance.) Our last stop was the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala, where sick people were cared for from 800 to the 1990’s! Now it is really a museum, but there were scenes to show the hospital parts of it, so I found this really most interesting. There are frescoes of the history of the hospital and its role in the town. I had trouble getting the image of lying in hospital bed looking up 20’ at some very elaborate paintings. We headed back to the bus, which would take us to the train, and we had no idea what the schedule was.
We got to the train station easily, and had to wait for the train to Chiusi where we changed for Rome. Our train had to stop for about fifteen minutes, so we missed the Rome train, but luckily another one bound for Naples was due in seventeen minutes. When it arrived, it was a very long train; that was the good news! The bad news was that it was packed, apparently with many returning from their holidays in Florence and that area. We walked through every car and found no seats; they were all six person compartments. I did have visions of us standing for the two hour trip, but we found a car with three people in with a huge suitcase blocking the way, and they said we could sit there. They spoke no English, but were pleasant; it made an interesting end to a fun day!
Today I met with Shona for a walk over to the Colosseum and a gelato before she headed off to Croatia. It was probably about 93*, so we headed for the shade whenever possible. I just came back from a “serious” run to the grocery store. The Simply market is closed for vacation-like most everything around! Luckily the DOC, another market just up the street, was open, so I could get what I needed-mostly replacement stuff, which went into the grocery cart. How spoiled we are that we can hop in our cars, go to the grocery store, and bring them home!
By the way, I just realized that you could post comments, or I would have responded sooner! Thanks.