After dinner we all went back to the Duomo to go to mass (in Italian) and following mass there was a Eucharist prossession(?) around the Duomo and through the streets to San Lorenzo. Once the mass of people got to San Lorenzo there was a benediction and prayer. The whole experience though not the easiest to understand (it being all in Italian) was really cool! I didn't take pictures of it but Dr. Carter did and he said he would share them later. That was pretty much my thursady.Friday June 4th was another adventure, three of us took a bus to Sienna for the day and the bus ride was really short and very pretty! We got to Sienna around 11am and went to San Domenico and looked around inside the church (no pictures).
The church was very large but simply beautiful, the head of St. Catherine of Sienna is in the church. After that we walked down some really steep roads to get to St. Catherine's house and sanctuary, which had some amazing decorations! We then walked up a very steep road (that seems to be all Sienna roads...steep!) to get to the Piazza del Campo, it's the main square. There was a lot of people around there and a lot of restaurants so we stopped for some food. Once again didn't care that much for the service at the restaurant and some of my food was waaay to salty but otherwise a decent meal.After lunch we walked to the Palazzo Pubblico which is just off of the Piazza, this place is the old town hall building in Sienna. There are some very lovely decorations inside including Lorenzetti's Allegories of Good and Bad Government. The bad government one was in really bad shape but the good government one looked really nice! They won't let you take pictures there either, sad. :( After the Palazzo we headed up some streets to get to the Duomo of Sienna. That church is probably one of my favorites so far this trip (and I have gone to a LOT of churches!) there were inlaid marble floors, marble busts of all the popes, a fabulous pulpit done by someone that I have studied before, and a lot of other pretty things. The pictures below are from the Duomo.
After the Duomo we were getting kinda tired and we had gone to all the major things in Sienna and the steep roads were not worth just wandering aimlessly so we went back to the bus station to go back to Florence.It took us a while to figure out where we bought our bus tickets but we got our tickets and found our bus (which was a double decker!!). A few minutes after we got on our bus we left Sienna but didn't get very far before the bus just pulled over to the side of the road and people started getting off (to clarify this was supposed to be a direct Sienna to Florence bus with no stops) so we were highly confused. Finally we just followed the crowd and were moved to another smaller bus across the road. We still have no idea what is going on and we are not all fitting on this bus because there are less seats, and I am one of the people without a seat. Finally someone on that bus that spoke English told me that there was another bus behind the one I was on that was also going to Florence and that the air had stopped working on the original bus which was why they had us jump ship. So at this point I go to the other bus which was really nice because there were like only 7 other people on the bus with me and a lot of them were American. But the bus finally did make it to Florence in only a few minutes longer than it was originally supposed to take!
I didn't do a whole lot else yesterday because my feet hurt so much, they are the main thing that is slowing me down. Today I was originally planning on going to Venice with a few people but with my feet hurting and the cost of just getting to Venice I decided to stay in Florence and relax and do some homework today. I think I made the right decision. It would have been nice to see Venice but I just don't think it would be worth it in the long run. I am still planning on going to Pisa and Lucca tomorrow afternoon though! Ciao!!
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