Texans in Italy: Italian Road Trips, Part I

Two weeks back, while Brandy was away in Paris for along weekend with friends, Nora and I decided to get out of town. So we took a little trip to the medieval hilltown Orvieto and Siena. Orvieto is the home of a very famous cathedral (Duomo) and a nice white wine. The vivid colors of the Duomo are stunning, especially given their age (from 1330); the not so vivid color of the wine is straw, and it doesn't age as well as the Duomo, but it's nice and refreshing.

From Orvieto & Siena

the story goes, a Bohemian monk in 1260, doubted that the wine taken at Communion was really the blood of Christ. on a trip through Orvieto he saw some blood-stained cloth and believed it to be a miracle. he took it to the Pope, who thought the bloody cloth warranted building a monser of a church on the spot.

to all the Catholics out there: i don't mean to come down so hard on the Catholic church or Popes--they just did such extraordinarily strange things as recently as--well as recent as WW II. My apologies!

From Orvieto & Siena

below is a photo of the funicular (a sort of a cable car that goes up, up, up a mountain side. it's like a San Francisco trolley that goes up very steep slopes). so, i bought a ticket for me and Nora--being as cute and young as she is--was waved through by the ticket seller. but we had to go through a turnstile. i tried to slide right behind Nora, like a 15 year-old boy would try to sneak behind a friend to keep from paying a subway fare, but didn't quite make it. so i looked at the ticket salesman who waved me off in a way that said, "ah, be blatant--i know you're not sneaking through." that's when i decided to hop over the turnstile, like a pommel-horse leaper.

well, i didn't make it.

you see, the pack on my back was small but quite heavy, and it basically yanked me backwards. and i fell. about 6 feet down, backwards, flat on my back. or to be exact, the back pack made me land not-quite-flat. i sort of bent backwards.

luckily, i didn't hit my head.
unluckily, it knocked the wind out of me.
luckily, i didn't break the wine bottle in the backpack, or the ticket salesman and people nearby would have thought i cracked my head open and bleeding profusely.
unluckily, i hurt my back.
luckily, i travel with an altoids box full of medicines, painkillers included.

the impact crushed the altoids box (but, again, not the bottle of wine. crazy), but it still opened. when i regained my ability to breathe, I popped a pill or two, and Nora and I carefully walked to the funicular, zipped down the mountain, and jumped on to the train to Siena.

Here's the funicular station:

From Orvieto & Siena

On the train to Siena...

From Orvieto & Siena

Siena has, twice each year on July 2 and August 16, a barebacked horserace through its main piazza--Il Campo. It been going on since for over 800 years. Here's what it looks like when it going on:

From Orvieto & Siena

And here's a photo from our trip in almost the same vantage point:

From Orvieto & Siena

Looking over the whole piazza is the 350 foot tower (Torre del Mangia) built in the mid 1300s to thank God for ending the Black Plague that wiped out much of the city. Nora and I climbed up to enjoy the view.

From Orvieto & Siena

Nora was very brave. here's the view from the top of the tower, looking at the Cathedral (Duomo) from the 1100s.

From Orvieto & Siena

Here's the view of the tower from the piazza below.

From Orvieto & Siena

And here's the Cathedral from close up. It's incredible, with Michelangelo and Donatello sculptures, marble inlaid floors, and vivid colors.

From Orvieto & Siena

Looking at Nora through a glass of prosecco.

From Orvieto & Siena

this is the resting place of much of St. Catherine. she lived in the 1300s and helped convince the Pope (who lived in France at that time) to come back to Rome. when she died in Rome, her head and her thumb were brought back to her hometown of Siena. you read that correctly--her head and hear thumb.

the bits and pieces reside in this church.