Sienna better than Florence part 1

Moving constantly and living far away from family isn’t easy, but over the years we have been blessed with some really amazing friends who have become like family. J and C are two of these friends, so you can imagine our delight when we learned that J would be attending a conference in Vienna and C would be accompanying him! They started their Italian adventure in Rome and then joined us for a few days in Ferrara. We did a little sightseeing here with the kids and then managed to take a day to see some of the sights of Tuscany. My only visit to Florence previously was on a rainy day in December. I loved the view of the cathedral as it opens up down the road from the train station, but had heard from many people to skip Florence and see Siena instead, so we started our day there.

I think it might be my new favorite place in Italy! Siena sits on a hill, so you park near the bottom (in a garage that was easy to find) and ride escalators to the top where the cathedral is located. The cathedral, built out of greenish black and white marble, is so striking. We actually spent 10 minutes taking pictures of the backside of the church before we made our way around and realized where the front actually was!

Backside of the cathedral in Siena

Front of Siena's black and white cathedral...note the close ups below

Lion on middle left side

Look at the angry faces of these men.  The detail impressed me greatly.

Center figure nearest the bottom...holding what appears to be Sienna 

The interior is equally as impressive, with inlaid patterns in the marble floors. One of my favorite parts was an area off to the side that was full of what looked like huge books. In reality, they were musical scores that were large because the musicians had to share them. The thing that made them impressive were the beautiful pictures the monks drew to illustrate each page – in the same style as the books we read about in our history.    

Interior of Sienna's black and white church 

Lovely stained-glass window of the last supper in Sienna

Cieling/dome...believe it or not this is a flat surface.

The black and white columns make Sienna's cathedral one
of the most unique we've seen yet.

Psalters made by monks measure about 2 feet tall by about 3 feet wide

Extreme close up of the first letter of a psalter crafted by monks in the 16th century housed in Sienna's Cathedral.
Amazing detail in this letter "O."  This is not something that could be easily repeated today by hand.