July 31, 2019 Wednesday trip to Siena
We took a bus to Siena to see two 1001 paintings that
weren’t available when we visited in 2016.
The bus ride is about 3 hours. We
booked tickets for the 10:30 bus from the Tiburtina bus station to Siena, and
the 17:10 bus back home. The 649 bus would take us from right outside our door
directly to the Tiburtina bus station in just under an hour. I of course had already gone to the Tiburtina
station to check out where we had to go, and where to catch the 649 when we
came home. The 649 also gets us to the
Termini bus/train station, so we used it a lot.
The bus ride to Siena was long, but the bus was air conditioned and had
wifi, so it was all good. We arrived at
Piazza Gramsci in Siena by about 13:20.
This Piazza is just outside of the central tourist area of Siena. We then walked about 15 min to the ticket
office for the Duomo complex where we had to buy tickets for the Oratory of San
Bernardino. The Pinacoteca with the 1001
painting we came to see is only about a 5 min walk from the ticket office, so
that was our first stop.
The Siena Pinacoteca’s collection is mainly late medieval
and Renaissance paintings from Italian artists, this means mostly religious
paintings. The collection also includes
works from many artists from Siena. Just
like all the museums in Rome that have similar collections, I think we were the
only people in the place. Surprise, I
didn’t take too many photos. We went
right for the painting we wanted to see.
The painting was behind glass, so the photo is very bad. Lucky for you I have a good copy.
The walk to the Oratory of San Bernardino with the second
1001 painting was about 15 min, so we were off.
We were in Siena in November of 2016.
I didn’t check the opening times, the Oratory is only open from March 1
to October 31. That is why we didn’t see
our 1001 painting. The collection at the
Oratory is similar to the Pinacoteca’s, and of course we were the only people
there again. We got to see our painting,
“St. George and the Dragon” as soon as we got there. The place is small so we were not there very
long. I may have taken a photo of almost
every painting in the place.
St. Catherine of Siena’s body is at the church Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. We’ve been there on previous trips, so we
have probably seen her body. Minerva is
the church that has the Bernini statue of an elephant out front. You won’t remember, but I’ve previously posted
two photos of me standing next to the tail end of the elephant with the comment
that “Ray meets a Republican in Rome. I’ve added the 2016 photo to this album. Amazingly her head is at the Basilica of San Domenico in Siena.
It seems like relics of saints may get passed around like
souvenirs. The Basilica wasn’t very far
from the Oratory, but we would have had to go downhill and then back up another
hill, so we didn’t go. We also didn’t go
back to the Duomo to see two sculptures by Bernini. We didn’t want to be rushed, so we walked
back to the same bus stop where we arrived at to wait for our bus back to Rome. We went into a small café to get a something
to eat and drink. We picked out our
sandwiches and sat down to eat. About
two minutes later the server started setting up a small buffet table with all
kinds of goodies. They probably do this
every afternoon for the going home crowd. We were a bit disappointed that we
hadn’t gotten there just a little bit later to take advantage of the
selection.
I of course was just a little anxious to
make sure we got the right bus. There is
no actual bus station just spaces for buses to park, but there was guy selling
tickets. He told me where our bus would
park when it arrived, and he was right.
The trip home was no problem, just long.
Just to confirm what you already know, we are crazy. We were in buses from our apartment to Siena
and back for about eight hours to see two paintings. Our painting count was now up to 703, and we
were going to see one more in Palermo next week.
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