Siena Scenes

We walked about the old city for an hour so, stopping by the Piazza del Campo for a bit. Alas, the city was over-run with high school field trips, Italian mostly , but also from as far away as Spain and the Netherlands. As is nearly always the case, everywhere but France, the kids were not paying the least attention to the city, the artifacts, the buildings, the art.... We tired of all this and were soon ready to move on.

Us, there

In a music center of some sort

Sic transit, Gloria: now an investment bank

Restaurant over-reach

Policeman telling tourists it is not permitted to sit on the Piazza; his back turned
to the 25,000 high school students who are lounging in every manner in the
Piazza

Famous scene

Part of the Piazza

You can still ride in and hitch up in Siena

Moving on

Parking has always been an issue for us at Siena, but here we at last found a
place that was secure and also within 600m (they said) of the city's portal and
escalator, right nearly straight up to the Duomo; the site is reputed to be quite
noisy, but we did not find it so; other campers included French, Netherlandish
and Italian

Siena Duomo

Next stop was old friend Siena, where we wanted to see the cathedral again and just walk around the town and the great piazza. There's plenty more in Siena, but we'd done most of it in 2011 or 2013. The cathedral, the floor, the Piccolomini Library, the Pisano sculpture, the chapel of Bernini figures, all make this a most special place. Apologies for duplicates of previous posts/pix: it's that good.

The nave portion of the great, ancient marble floor was uncovered; and I took pix
of nearly everything that would fit in my lens

Ditto the great Piccolomini Library, here one of the eight large
panels depicting the life of favorite son Pius II

Ceiling thereof all by Team Pinturicchio; some of the best

It is a library after all

Another panel

Unusual dorsal view of the Three Graces; the middle Grace
usually gets so little attention

Back to the floor; the Battle of Romano

Massacre of Innocents

Crossing view

Pisano pulpit; one of the greatest

View astern

Interior cupola

Up closer

Up closest

Pisano pulpit Hell

In a side chapel, exquisite Bernini St. Jerome

Ditto Mary Magdalene, showing lots of leg

Artsy-fartsy view

The massive stern window; not a rose, but, most unusually, the Last Supper

Still processing this one

Another of the floor Sybils; don't ask me why the Roman Catholic world was so
intrigued by them in the Renaissance

A minor Michaelangelo lost amidst all the other brilliance

Complete floor plan poster, showing all the marble inlay figures

Antico Arezzo

There are many things to see in Arezzo...Francesa's Legend of the True Cross fresco cycle, a Petrarch house, a Cimabuie crucifix at the San Domenico church, Vasari's house, and more. We were there for the monthly antiques show, however, having seen all the rest. (See http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2017/11/arezzo-2017.html for previous visits). Not that we are buying--just there are so many curiosities and interesting things at such markets.  We stayed at the local sosta and ventured into town both Saturday and Sunday, the latter by way of the re-discovered scala mobili (escalator) we had enjoyed in 2011. It's a gorgeous town, well mixing the Renaissance and the contemporary.

The antiques fair was founded way back in 1968 (AD), a good year

The public library, with ties to Petrarch, the Medici

Meanwhile, in Sorrento, grand-daughter Penelope in one of the more artful shots ever

The San Domenico church; last time we were there we
bought Girl Scout cookies from the porch

This time, however, it was mostly the Cimabuie crucifix

 

Along the scala mobili

Cathedral; and market

On the big piazza

Blacksmith demonstration (and sale of ironware)

The market begins in the big piazza and then radiates through many streets and
alleys

Quite a show