Siena

The rest of the day we had set aside for exploring Siena. It was only about a half an hour away, and we'd driven by it several times by now, even driven right along the city wall the day we'd gotten lost getting home from Asciano.

The rotaries just outside the city walls were now a familiar part of our way home, and we no longer had to navigate with the funny directions that only really make sense in person: "ok, we're going to take a left, so take a right onto the circle, and get off, so take a right, not here... not here... but the next right... HERE..."

Today was the day we were finally going to get to explore inside the city wall!



My first impression was that it seemed like a... cozier... city than Florence. I can't say why, exactly- all history aside, that's just how it felt.

It may be the city walls, which were a soft "burnt Siena" colored brick (hm... that Crayola color name makes so much more sense now!), as opposed to the more finished (and more expensive) stone masonry of the Florentine wall.

Florence:


Siena:


Also note how built-up it is outside the city wall in Florence, in comparison to Siena.

It may be the majestic boulevards and parks we drove along and through to enter Florence proper which we didn't find on our approach to Siena.

It may also be that one of the first things we saw in Florence was the stone lion "guarding" massive, regal fortress-like walls.


In Siena, we met no such guards, but the street we entered on led to a great church- very majestic, but friendly and inviting:


The city streets themselves gave an entirely different impression. In Florence the facades seemed more finished and "urban", and the streets where divided into sidewalks, parking spots and streets, despite the fact that they weren't any wider than those in Siena. On the Sienese streets pedestrians and vehicles shared one space. They weren't quite as narrow as those in the much smaller town of Asciano, but they shared something of their character.

Florence:


Siena:


Asciano:


In my mind Rome is kind of like NYC- huge and bustling and chaotic and cosmopolitan. Florence, I'd say is like Boston in comparison- more comprehensible in scale, but also with a very formidable- cultured, stately and influential- history and presence. There seems to be a sense of a similar shift in scale between Florence and Siena. Maybe it's more like the differences between Zuerich and Bern that Christian Hanus always talked so much about- that Bern is so much more hospitable, etc. Of course, Hanus is such a die-hard patriot of Bern! It was always fun to listen to him go on and on about the virtues of his hometown!

Maybe it's like comparing Manhattan and Brooklyn, or the Upper East Side and the West Village... wow- I just managed to compare two entire CITIES to boroughs or neighborhoods in NYC- Saul Steinberg's New Yorker's view of the world, here I come! :\

All these comparisons, of course, are nothing more than first impressions. I'm sure AM is cringing, and I will be too, someday when I get to visit both of these cities again, which I really hope I get to do! I don't think we spent more than 4 hours in either city, so it's tough for me to make a more inclusive, informed commentary at this point.