That's Amore! Rick Steves' Best of Italy in 17 Days

We learned so much about Siena that really stuck with us. We started this morning with stained glass demonstration. It was so interesting to see the many steps that go into making these ornate stained glass windows. The shop is owned by two brothers who do the glass as well as ceramics. They have a little shop in town that they sell their ceramics at. After that, we went on a tour of the Duomo. We learned about the hospital across the street which has always been larger than the city needs. They used it for the sick and the orphaned and even travelers just passing though that needed a place to stay. Siena was not bombed during wwii because they painted a red cross on the Duomo. The Duomo was just beautiful. The outside façade had similar multi-colored marble that looked similar to Florence’s. in fact, they were building the churches at the same time. When the citizens of Siena found out that Florence’s was bigger, they decided to expand the church. They built an outer façade and then were never able to complete it due to the black plague that took 60% of the town’s population (from 50,000 to 20,000). The inside is very unique, with horizontal black stripes that go all around the walls and columns. The ceilings are painted and the floors are covered in 56 separate panels of inlaid marble. They are only uncovered for a few weeks a year, and we were lucky enough to be able to see them. I included lots of pictures of the floors, since they are so beautiful and rare.