Carpe (dimidius) Diem - Seize The (half) Day

It was sort of perfect that we scheduled Siena for 2 nights in the middle of our Italy trip. At this point, we had been in Italy a full week. We were tired from walking 7-12 hours a day. So we spent half of our first full day in Siena sleeping. This was the first and only day that we slacked, but it was so needed. Even though we had only been in Siena for one night, we had seen a lot of it.

Then we woke up and seized the half day. OK, maybe not so much seized, but we made the most of it. Here are some of the things we saw: Sex in the City was playing at this tiny little theater. We didn't watch the movie (yet), but I took this picture for Parima. I love little meat and cheese shops like this. There were very few chain stores in Italy, and not one single Starbucks. The stores had different names, so I imagine they were owned by a person and not a chain or corporation, which was nice to see.

We went to the Duomo and bought a multi-ticket which gets you into the Duomo, Cripta, Oratorio di S. Bernardino, Battisero, and Meuseo Dell'Opera for the price of a ticket plus one Euro (I think it was 8 Euro total, not sure). Since we got a late start on the day, we went to the Duomo and Cripta only.

The Duomo looked a little like a Dr. Seuss creation. The marble columns were black and white, very different than all the other architecture we'd seen. The pavement is the biggest masterpiece of the Duomo. It consists of various historic illustrations. You can read more here. We went to the Cripta, but couldn't take pictures there. Then we went back to the Campo for some lunch and drink. I got a sampler of bruschetta which consisted of bread with 4 different toppings. One of them was lardo. As much as I wanted to like it, I just couldn't. It's lardo, man. One of the toppings was a chopped anchovy and olive tapenade. It was too fishy and I couldn't finish it. I was a little hungry after lunch, so I got a gelato. I would have gotten a gelato anyway. Its just so good when it touches your lips.

Dinner, we found this cute little restaurant and some really great melanzane (eggplant) and carpacio di tonno (tuna carpacio). It was all drizzled in olive oil.

The actual dinner was not as good, but we still enjoyed it. I won't bore you all with the details.We walked through the Campo again one last time. There was a concert going on. If you look at the picture above, on the left side in the center, you can see a lit-up doorway. The concert was in there. It was alcohol free.