Siena is a quaint medieval Italian town. It used to give Florence a run for the money as far as trade, size and zebra-striped churches. But then something happened* (The plague? Unification of Italy? The Autostrada built near Florence?) that left it small and stuck in the middle ages. Therefore it is a nice place to get away from the throngs of tourists in Florence. One of the main reasons that we are going is to see the Eucharistic Miracle of the consecrated hosts that have remained intact since the 1700s. I haven't found any info on that in Rick Steve's book - Eucharistic miracles aren't high on Lutherans' lists. I should be on the web trying to find more info about the church. But I sit here wasting time, blogging. My parents visited Siena a couple of years ago and happened to wander into the church while they were having exposition and benediction of those hosts. That would be nice if things worked out like that for us.What are some other things we will see in Siena? Ummm, I don't remember. I gave Todd the book to look it over. I suppose I should review it too. We will see Carlotta, the chatty, helpful daughter of the hotel owner, San Domenico Church, the Cathedral/Duomo pictured above, pieces of St. Catherine of Siena (her head and finger are at a church here, her body and other nine fingers are at a church in Rome), the main plaza Il Campo, which holds horse races yearly to see which neighborhood get bragging rights, sweeping views of the Tuscan countryside and very little parking spots.
*I did my homework. Siena was once a huge trade center on the main north/south route, with 60,000 people and bigger than Paris. Then in 1348 the plague wiped out 1/3 of the population and Florence allied with Spain to conquer Siena. Siena blamed the plague on having a secular statue of Venus in its plaza, so they cut up the statue and buried it around Florence. It didn't work, Florence bloomed and currently has 420,000 people while Siena remains at 60,000.
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