Siena!

A few weeks ago, I was in Italy for work (lovely. Also not how that sentence makes it sound.) and managed to tack on a few days for holiday afterwards. One morning, in the height of a spring that made sense of all the songs and gallantry about the joy of La Primavera, there was a bus ride over the hills and through the grasslands, scattered with blossom and early wisteria, to Siena.

First there was the red brick walls, the curling streets that circle round the piazza and the Palazzo Publico that has too tall a tower and catches the sun to much to photograph. (Like the cathedral at nearby Florence.) Then there were the 14th century angels with real gold haloes in the main council chamber

And the Greek deities, with Pallas Athena’s owl as a bat, and personifications of Good Government scattered amongst a huge St Christopher, and what appeared to be a very early game of Cluedo.

Then a giddy couple of hours in the liquorice all sorts cathedral. Don’t you love it?!

And if that’s not enough, there’s the library – with giant manuscripts, a floor tiles in the Sienese crescent, and of course a fresco cycle on the walls. Just in the cathedral, casually.

And finally after lots of resting time in a deconsecrated cloisters, eating the last portions of ribollita and drinking lots of cool water, there was a walk to the other side of town and a vast Dominican church that was ringing its bells for the last of the day and was practically empty inside.