Siena

This is Il Campo. In July, the fill up Il Campo with sand and race horses.

Siena is about 45 miles outside of Florence, where we are staying. Florence is more of a renaissance city while its rival, Siena, is more medival. The Siena cathedral was designed and completed between 1215 and 1263, so it is a Gothic style church. The interior and exterior have white and black marble in alternating stripes because black and white are the symbolic colors of Siena. In 1339, plans to more than double the size of the church were begun and then abandoned when the black plague killed off all the workers. We were only able to see Siena for half of a day.

 This is the Cathedral of Siena, or Duomo (DWO-moh), which means "House of God"

This is the interior of the church, which also has the alternating stripes.

Here are the ruins of the expansion of the church.

This is the bell tower, or Campanile, of the Duomo. It is attached to the church; in Florence the Campanile is not attached.

Buona Befana!

Today is Epiphany, a national holiday in Italy. Epiphany is 12 days after Christmas in which children wake up to candy in their stockings. In a way, it's the second stage of Christmas; on Christmas, they don't have the stocking part--just the presents under the tree. The candy in the stockings is left by an old woman who looks like a witch named "Befana."  The story is that the 3 magi (wise men) went to an old woman's house and asked for directions to where the baby Jesus was. The woman's name was Befana. She didn't know where he was but she offered her home for them to stay for the night. She kept a clean house.  The next morning, filled with gratitude, they asked her to come along with them to find Jesus. She said no because she had too much housework. Later, she changed her mind, but she couldn't catch up with them. She spent the rest of her life searching for the baby Jesus. So, they have a big parade in which everyone is in medieval costumes and Befana is leading the parade, giving candy to all the children.  Because she couldn't find the Christ child, she now gives gifts to all children because she sees Jesus in every child. We were at the Palazzo Vecchio earlier today with the students to see the sculptures, and then we went back to see the parade.


Cellini's Perseus and Medusa. It shows Perseus, having just defeated Medusa, holding up her head in triumph and standing on her decapitated body.

This is a smaller copy of Michelangelo's David.  The original is in the Accademia.  They removed the original David when it was getting damaged from being outside.

This is the beginning of the parade. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get a picture of Befana.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (and a couple of boats) A summary of our trip to Venice

Hi! While we were staying on the island of Murano, I didn't have acccess to the internet, but now that we are in Firenze (Florence), I can finally start to post our trip to Venezia (Venice) and Ravenna.  We left San Diego at 5:00 am, on the plane at about 7:00am to Detroit. Next, a plane from Detroit to Amsterdam and waited 5 hours for the plane to Florence. We arrived in Florence at noon their time (Italy is 9 hours ahead of San Diego). We took a taxi to the hotel we'll stay in when my mom teaches her class, dropped off 2 bags there, walked halfway to the train station with our other bags, but couldn't go any further--the cobblestone streets made it hard to wheel heavy bags.  We wondered how people in wheelchairs get around!  So we took a taxi to the train station at Santa Maria Novella, and then took the train to Venice. The trip took about 2 1/2 hours.  But then we came out of the train station and below is the first thing we see: the Grand Canal, which is the main street of Venice.  There was a huge Michael Kors poster over the Church of San Simeone Profeta. Ugh!!!  Why did there have to be an advertisement to ruin this?  But otherwise, it was so beautiful and amazing.

So we think, "Let's walk  to our ferry that takes us to Murano (that's where our hotel is). It's not very far, and, we'd get to know the town better." We had two maps with directions.  The shops were all lit up and people were laughing and we wanted to be a part of it somehow.  This turned out to be a BIG MISTAKE.  Venice is incredibly complicated.  Sometimes the streets where people walk (calle) change names for no apparent reason!  And Venice's big streets are all canals.  Which means that the only way to get across is by ponte or bridge.  Which are made of stone usually.  Which have no ramps. Except the first one we went over, so we thought others would have ramps too.  BUT THEY DIDN'T. And then it started to rain and the steps became very slippery.  People were rushing by.  The funny part is, it had seemed like a good idea before the rain started. We were taking pictures, looking at all the shops, having a good time.  But soon things got worse.  Everywhere we went, left and right, there was a canal. You couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a canal. Venice has no cars; the only way people get around is by boat. We had thought that if we get tired, we could just take a water taxi to the ferry stop. WRONG. We came to learn that they only follow certain routes, and the only one we could've taken was from the canal in front of the train station; there were no other stops on our way to Fondamente Nuove, where we were supposed to take the Vaporetto, or water bus, to Murano. Plus, it started to get dark and things began to close down on the smaller streets in the residential neighborhoods after 6:30. So add about 100 lbs. of luggage, on our backs and wheeled, a city we don't know, bridges everywhere, a frigid climate, tons of rain, and in the areas where the people live, there was no sign of human contact!  Everyone seemed to be inside their warm homes when we were on the northern part of Venice to get to the vaporetto.  Luckily, a miracle came and a nice couple who spoke no English walked us to the ferry without crossing many bridges. But it was not over yet. We also got lost on Murano!  But we only had to go over two bridges, a small one and then Ponte Longo, which is the largest bridge on Murano. So, by the time we get to the hotel, it's late, we're tired, we're sore, and we're hungry. Our hotel was a small bed and breakfast and our room was UP three flights of stairs!  No ascensore, or elevator, in the old hotels.  But at least there was a bed to sleep in! My mom told me that we had been traveling for exactly 24 hours. So, beause of that, we have gained confidence in ourselves because we thought that NOTHING could be worse than THAT NIGHT. 

Beautiful, but dangerous!

This is a glass sculpture on the Island of Murano.  They make beautiful glass there, all mouth-blown.  This was taken the next morning.

This is more of the glasswork in the shops at Murano.  I loved the tiny fish inside the glass bags and fishbowls.

This is the island of Burano, seen from the Vaporetto.  The houses and buildings are all painted bright colors.  Burano is known for lace making.

This is a gondola in Venice.

Venice is famous for masks.  They were in all the shops!

I love this sculpture of tropical birds in glass!










This is a huge glass chandelier in another shop.

This was taken inside the Basilica of San Marco.  It is covered with golden mosaics.  The remains of St. Mark, who wrote the Gospel of Mark, are supposed to be there.  It was first built in 832, and then built into this church in 1094.

This is the glass sculpture on Murano at night.

This is by Jacobello Alberegno, done in 1360.  It shows God the Father holding the Lamb of God on his lap.  This was at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.  There are symbols of the four gospel writers in the corners: Matthew is the angel, Luke is the ox, Mark is the lion (there are lions all over Venice), and John is the eagle. 

This is a painting of Jesus climbing onto the cross.

This is a polyptych which probably went behind an altar.  God the Father is at the top and Mary is below, being told that she will have Jesus.  The dove is the Holy Spirit and the face of Jesus is above the dove.

This is a pieta, or when Mary is holding the body of the dead Jesus.  It is by Lorenzo Lotto and shows Mary fainting with grief and held by John.

This is an Annunciation by Antonello da Messina, around 1475.  It shows Mary reading because people believed she was wise.

A view from the Canale della Giudecca

Another glass sculpture in the streets of Murano.  This one was so delicate and had hummingbirds on the leaves.  It is amazing that it is all in glass.

We thought this was so funny.  It is a sandwich machine in one of the train stations.  It means, "Enough carrots!  Today, ham!"