Siena: Giving respite to weary pilgrims from time immemorial

When you step into Siena's Piazza del Duomo, your eyes are naturally drawn to the brilliant black and white Cathedral that dominates the square. It is magnificent, and if you ever visit Siena I definitely recommend taking the full tour. But across the piazza from the Duomo is another building, older and just as significant to Siena's history and culture: the Santa Maria della Scala hospital complex. Legend has it that this hospital was started in 898 by a cobbler, though official documents don't appear until later (in fact it was one of Europe's first hospitals). The buildings and the operations of the hospital developed over hundreds of years, and it was ahead of its time--both in health practices and in its care for the sick and needy. In addition to patients, the hospital took care of orphans, poor people, and pilgrims traveling through to Rome. Today it is a fascinating museum and one more reminder of how special the Senese people are.

To me, Siena is an oasis of peace, love and beauty in this ugly, complicated world. I feel like I could stay there, turn off the news and simply forget about the outside world.

Of course that's not completely true. They aren't cut off from the modern world. Covid still happened, and other global things still impact the city. But overall, during my month there I had a sense of being in a little bubble, where nothing existed but community, tradition, and of course incredible Italian food.

The people:
On my first day in Siena, I had dinner at a little restaurant on the main restaurant drag. I was served the most delicious meal and dessert by a very nice waitress. So on another day I returned with a friend--and was surprised that a different wait staff remembered me--not even the one who had served me! After that, we said hi whenever I saw them outside (the restaurants all have outside tables), and of course I returned again for more food!

Also on the same street is a little running store, which of course I had to go into. The owner does not speak any English so I had to use my feeble Italian skills to talk to him. I needed new shoes since I was just starting to run again after my broken ankle. He had my model. We had a conversation about my ankle and the shoes and he gave me a

discount. For the rest of my month, he waved and said hi every time he saw me, and asked me how my ankle was.

And then there was my AirBnb host, Alessandro. If there ever was a person who embodies Siena, it is him. He has it all: kindness and compassion for his guests, deep loyalty and love for his community, passion for his contrada and the Palio. I was very lucky to be his guest during my time there, and was so happy that he included me. He gave me my own fazzoletto for the Palio, took me on his scooter for a tour of the countryside, and answered my endless questions.

The people are so lovely--next time I need to make a point to meet more of them.

The highlights:
- I already did a blog post about the Palio; if you haven't read that, do!
- The full tour of the Duomo, including the rooftop tour
- the Santa Maria della Scala museum--see blog post about that if you haven't
- running on the fortezza
- day trips to Florence (and Pisa, I suppose...lol)
- hiking part of the Via Francegina and visiting Monteriggioni
- breakfast in my favourite cafe, outdoors, with a view of the countryside

Teaching myself how to be free
Remember a few blog posts ago where I talked about my "stress response"? I said, "I want so much to be able to just be happy without constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe that just takes more time?"

Or maybe it simply takes a dose of Siena.