Siena, Sunday 25 May, Day 32

Today we decided to take it easy. And a beautiful Sunday morning in Siena to take it easy in.  Within a few hundred metres we came upon a group of children heading off for their Confirmation by the look of them, all dressed in white robes, each clutching a white lilly, symbol of Saint Catherine patron saint of Siena. After a lot of shuffling and reorganizing, they set off in procession to the church over the road.

A very nice sight to start the day.

We headed on into town to visit the Siena_Cathedral. The Baptistry is well worth it, particularly liked the Last Judgement panel, where all the dammed are being shuffled off into the jaws of a huge beast whose head follows the line of the arch of the roof. Also very interesting is the crypt, which seems to be what is left of an earlier church built on the same spot. The builders had knocked arches and run pillars through the lovely murals of the earlier church without any compunction.

The other thing striking about the Cathedral is the construction work abandoned in the mid 1300's a combination of the impact of the Black Death, management by committee, changes in Siena's fortunes, and the realisation that there were some serious structural issues with the design. The original ambition was to build the largest church in the world. The East wall stands as a sort of monument to the vanity of human wishes.

Home for a siesta, caught the end of the Giro, then out to dinner where once again we had cause to be thankful for the great kindness of the local people.

Tomorrow Rome.