Not so Sunny Sienna

Sienna was cold and cloudy. However, I did bring my umbrella so it didn't rain. Sienna is definately picturesque, and quite a climb too! I was planning on going to musemums after lunch, when we had free time, however I was walking around with Kristina and she dragged me into some stores. I swear I was dragged!

In the month of February EVERY SINGLE STORE has 50% off of just about EVERYTHING! They try to clear it out as much as possible to fill it up with new items I'm sure to want. SO, being the money-saver that I am, I ended up buying black knee-high boots for 34.50 Euro and a silver velvet shirt with funky beading on it for going out. (Mom, rememer the silver-white skating dress? The color looks something like that on me.)

I signed up for an extra class, print-making. We buy copper plates and engrave them. Then we use a high pressure steel roller to press the ink onto the paper, so all of the ink in the little lines I carve out will be pressed onto the paper creating a positive image. Should be interesting. Now I need to figure out what I want to draw on it.

So now, what everyone really wants to see...the pictures...

View of Sienna as my class was hiking up the hills to get there.
This is San Domenico. The most interesting thing about this church is that it hold Saint Catherine's shrunken mummified head and thumb. The rest of her body is in Rome. She's a big deal too, because she's the patron saint of Italy and Sienna. (I tried to get a picture of the head, but no cameras allowed.)This is probably one of my favorite parts of Sienna right now...The Duomo. I know the front facade can fool you, but that's not the real facade! It's a picture! They must be doing restoration work. The floors of this building are absolutely AMAZING. The marble inlays just take your breath away. I tried taking a few photos of it, but flash isn't allowed, so they're pretty blurry. I got one or two decent ones. I'll put them up later in the week.This is inside of the church. (See the blurriness?) Sienese HATE Florentines. The wood post that you see here is the flag pole of the Florentines back in 1200-something. The Florentines were attacking Sienna and the Siennese won and still boast about it some 800 years later by leaving the flag poles attached to columns.My first view of the Campo and Palozzo Publico. The piazza is HUGE! The people in the picture give it some sense of scale, but its still hard to read even for me. And I was there!A pretty view of the town as Kristina and I were walking back to the bus with our boots.

I can't wait for tomorrow! We're going to a whole bunch of museums in Florence!