Wednesday 22 Sept - But There's Only One "N" In This One

We're on a road trip today. The most hours of togetherness of the tour.

We left Rome and traveled for a little over an hour, pulling into Orvieto, a lovely little hill town. The cathedral there looks like it's a pop-up book illustration. The mosaics on the upper facade glint in the sun from miles away, like a cd hanging from a rearview mirror.



I can't take a picture from a vantage point showing most of the building, so here's a picture of a postcard. Professionals usually get it right, which is why they sell the postcards, right?




Up close you see the real reason for the church in the Middle Ages: a teaching tool to scare the bejeezus out of the populace. The vast majority could not read, so putting the pictures on the walls telling of Bible stories was the norm. This church has it on the outside as well, as if telling the locals, "Get IN here, or this is going to happen to you." Lots of Last Judgment gothic gore abounds.

Enjoy:

Souls of the damned


We will not only take your soul, we will eat your face!


Cute lil' skeleton!


From Orvieto we drove another two hours to Tuscany and into Siena. Driving in is very picturesque with the rooftops of the houses cascading gently down the hillside.

One of the ladies asked, "How did the city get its name?" There is more than one theory actually. The area was originally settled by an Estruscan tribe around 600BC named the Saina. There is also a legend that the city was founded Senius, the son of Remus (as in Romulus & Remus who were suckled by a she-wolf and founded Rome.)

She then wanted to know what the connection is to crayons. It's in reference to the color of the ever-present roof tiles, made from the clay deposits in this area. Why they have the extra "N' in there, I don't know. But Crayola doesn't always get it right. I remember when they had a crayon named "Flesh" - it certainly didn't look like mine, and I'm caucasian.


The city of Siena was a banking city by trade, and was eclipsed by Florence. Their powerhouse period lasted for only about 90 years, and thereafter it declined. Their Cathedral is striking, built in striped black and white marble, to in honor of the family coats of two prominent Sienese families. It looks like it's wearing kneesocks.


Pulpit, sculpted marble, by Nicola Pisano, completed in 1268.

On to Florence!