Broken Glass Can Shine Brightly

Today's adventure was a day trip to Siena which is roughly halfway between Firenze and Roma. The boast of the town is the old walled in city with three notable churches, a main square and a few museums. I started out at Il Campo which is more of a semi-circle than a square. It was so built to continually play with the shifts in light and shadow. The center piece is the huge campanile at the semi-circle's center. According to my book, the one free church would be closed from 12-3pm so I headed out to enjoy the holy space. Once again my book is off a bit and the church didn't close up while I was there after 12pm. It was easy to hang around as this church had some of the most beautiful stained glass I think I've ever seen. It literally brought tears to my eyes. And not just one window, but one gargantuan one and a huge circular one. I wish I had pictures, but this was a no photo zone.

Fortunately I found some online. I sat and stared at the two pieces for a good 15 minutes straight. It was hard to leave here too much like trying not to stare at Michelangelo's David. While I sat there, I was reminded of the lyrics from a song sung by Tara Ward (music architect at Church of the Beloved while I interned in Lynnwood, WA).
Praise, praise to you Lord
for I never realized
broken glass could shine so brightly.
I was inspired to light a candle here before I left.
[Enjoy the rest of the lyrics and music at the album's web page.]

Following my inspiration, I stopped in at a nearby gelato shop to sample one of the waffle-gelato combinations Hannah (met her in Napoli) suggested I must try. It was quite tasty, but my waffle had large chunks of what I think was sugar. The gelato was superb. I opted for the fruit version so I had mandarin, strawberry, banana and blackberry/raspberry. With renewed energy I headed to the San Francesco church. Apparently this has been converted to a school. Teens and young adults were swarming about and signs posted mentioned language classes. It used to be a duomo and convent complex originally. I moved on to the duomo where for a E10 pass I could visit the duomo, baptistry, crypt, museum and see the panoramic view from high atop the tallest part of the duomo. The two most interesting parts were the baptistry for it's neat fresco on baptism and the climb to the view up top. The first level is at 61 steps up a tiny one person wide spiral staircase. If that wasn't enough, the second level is up another 71 spiral steps for a total of 132. The views were amazing and I met a young couple from Oregon with their little girl about 6-8 months. Thanks to them for taking this lovely picture of me.

Having felt like I had seen and done all there was to see and do in Siena, I purchased my bus ticket back to Firenze from underneath the piazza. It seemed strange at first going down to get my ticket, but it does provide one less ugly building up top.

As we bounced and crashed (the road was atrociously rough) our way back to Firenze, I noticed a sign for Volterra. Permit me a moment of insanity. For those of you who've read the second book in the Twilight Saga--New Moon--you will recognize this name as the city in Italy where the main characters converge to confront the ruling vampire family. I thought the name and the location in the movie were random. Oh no! It's a real city. I had heard a guy and girl in Roma talking about going there to satisfy her addiction to see it. I never planned on going, but when I saw the sign and realized it was not but 35km away...well I had to reconsider. Later that night I looked up transit to the city to discover it would have been very tricky to get there with the busses available--i.e. I would have had to get up really early and make a major effort to go. Seeing as I was not wedded to this idea, my moment of insanity began to abate and fade. Phew. That was a close one.