Siena, Italy

My first inkling that the world was crazy was in a box of crayons. "Burnt Sienna. But what's sienna?? Why not red-brown??" Cue: grumbling nine year old. Still, it quickly became one my favourite colours because I found it more calming than blue. Not long after I learned of a town in Italy named Siena from a black and white photograph. It was of the Il Palio, the famous race where horses representing each contrade, or neighbourhood, run around a tiny track. But is Siena sienna? I thought then.

All. Over.

You know that feeling when you watch the sun set? That's how I feel whenever I see the colour sienna. So imagine my state walking through the colour itself in a city designed to take your breath away (no, really, the hills) Yep, basically high and up, up to the sky. Which can explain the other two colours I was drawn to in Siena, blue and white.

Lifted from its earth, then reaching for the heavens with its medieval art and architecture, I could've written one word to describe this city: ecclesiastical. Somehow, our western craziness -- consumerism, corporations, unchecked capitalism -- hasn't thrashed it's way into Siena all that much. Are the locals also soothed by the colour that surrounds them? Or is the dirt beneath them rich with something else? Or perhaps, both. In 2001, astoundingly well preserved frescos of Christ were discovered after 700 years beneath the cathedral.

Next time someone tells me to go eat dirt*, I'm going to ask them to take me to Siena first :D

* Not like this happens often!

Length of Stay

Five days

Docking Index

      

Seven anchors. I can only drop so many anchors in a city without a natural source of water. If heat waves in Europe continue as they have been, we all know how crazy people can get without water :/