Last of the hilltowns: Siena

Siena was also very beautiful.  I think I one of the reasons I love Seattle is because of its varying geographic features, from the Puget Sound to its surrounding Olympic Mountains.  Siena's geographic features may have not been as dramatic, but it sits in the middle of three mountains and it makes you (or at least me) really aware of the changing geography, especially when you walk through some of these narrow streets.  I won't talk a lot about this city, but I'll just say that in terms of size and scale it is really similar to Florence (as also goes with its culture and arts).  In fact, when Florence was building its Duomo, which was going to be the greatest in Italy, Sienna also made great attempts to make a church larger than theirs.  Although this church did not finish completion, you can see remnants of it in the city, and I actually found them more interesting than the Duomo in Florence.

Here is what I mean about topography - the change of the street level was pretty dramatic.  

I don't know if there is a terminology for this kind of building, but I am calling it a "pocket church".  As we have our "pocket parks" in Seattle, I consider this to be a "pocket church" because it is a small void that was cut out of a street that we happened to walk by. 

 The arched passageway that leads to the Piazza del Campo (Square of the fields)

 Above is the town hall that sits in the Piazza del Campo.  Most town halls have a tower like this one that overlooks the city.  And most of them, as you walk in, has a central courtyard, open to rain, snow, etc.

View of Siena from a level inside the town hall.  The landscape is just amazing.

Here's a panorama of Palazzo del Campo.  I am standing in front of the town hall looking the other way.  The space was shaped sort of like a semi circle.  The palazza is at its lowest point where I'm standing and gradually slopes up in all directions to the buildings on the other side, like a shell.  

This is the Cathedral of Siena.  The geography here was pretty intense here too; I had to stitch these images together so that you could see the whole facade.  The stairs to the left are also pretty steep and leads you up to the other side of the church. 

Here are the remnants of the much larger church Siena was planning to build.  There were some structural and construction errors that led to this unfinished piece.  The red bricks is what got built over the remains; some of it became transformed into a building (I forget what it is being used for) but it makes for a pretty interesting space.  The image to the right shows the contrast between the unfinished marble and the bricks that were put in later. 

 This church has one of the most decadent facades that I've ever seen.  There's something like 4 or 5 columns lined up against each other in the entryways to create such a depth.  I'm actually glad that we weren't asked to draw this facade, because that would just be crazy.  The detailing is just overwhelming. 

(Interior of the Church of Siena) As an afterthought, I don't think too much highly of this building.  I understand that the horizontal pattern in the columns is a special technique of stonework, but it really jut made me dizzy and again, too much detail.  It was also really dark and hard to take pictures, despite being such a huge space. 

Last picture as we're leaving Siena.  All of these hill towns really take advantage of these rolling hills.  The landscape of Italy really gives me a kind of romantic, almost nostalgic feeling as we drive by them in the bus.  Perhaps it is because of all those old films I've seen, or it is just my imagination.