revwaltp: November 9, 2022

First off, if you ever decide to come to Siena, you really don’t need to be here for 4 days; 2 or 3 is definitely enough. In fact, in one full day you can see everything there is to see and on top of that the food is….just ok. There are a ton of bakeries and patisseries, and they are fantastic. Now, if you want to shop for decent priced Italian clothes, accessories, etc…, this is the place to come and you’ve got tons of options. There are boutique clothing stores for EVERYTHING!

Here are my shop pictures - patisseries and boutique clothing:

The cookies in the plastic bag are called Cavallucci’s, which translates to “little horses” and is of Sienese origin, most likely related to their Palio event each summer. I haven’t had one yet, but I’m looking forward to trying one tomorrow morning. They are made of flour, honey, anise, walnuts, candied fruit, and coriander.

Today, I toured the Basilica of San Domenico, which houses the reliquary of St Catherine of Siena’s head. I’ll talk about her in a minute. Here are some pictures:

This is the church from a distance that I took last night.

There were signs that had a slash through a camera, meaning no photos. However, that often meant in other churches and places, no flash photography. However, here it meant no pictures at all. I took a few anyway….shhhh.

In the center of this altarpiece is St. Catherine’s reliquary and her head. It is covered in a clay mask with only her teeth showing.

Here is the cloister where St. Catherine lived and the sanctuary of St. Catherine.

So, here’s the story about the young woman who became St. Catherine. Born in 1347, at the age of 7, Catherine had her first of many visions, with Jesus on the throne, surrounded by saints. When she became a teenager, she took a vow of chastity for Christ and devoted herself to prayer and worship. Her family wanted to marry her off and to thwart their plans she cut her hair off, scalded herself, and became a nun. After becoming a nun she had a vision of being married to Christ with him placing the wedding ring upon her finger. Now, this ring wasn’t just an ordinary wedding ring…no, it was made of Christ’s own foreskin! For the rest of her life, she said that she could see the ring upon her finger. She said that she received the sign of the stigmata at the age of 28, when five red rays shot out of a crucifix she had been praying to and pierced her hands, feet, and heart. She was also seen levitating by others during prayer, and a priest attested to an event in which the bread of holy communion flew from his own hand and went straight into her mouth. She died while in Rome at the age of 33. Her hometown wanted to bring her back to Siena, but the church would not allow it, so several traveled to Rome to smuggle her body home. Upon arriving, knowing that they would not be able to get past the guards with her entire body, they decided to cut off her head and placed it in a bag. The guards caught them anyway, but upon inspecting the bag only found rose petals and let them pass. When they returned to Siena, the rose petals materialized back into Catherine’s head. Believe what you will. However, she was a fierce and loyal servant of God, was considered the Pope’s pastor, and was renowned for her wisdom. In fact, having traveled to Avignon, France in her late 20’s, convinced the Pope to return the Papacy to Rome. Much of this information was taken from www.atlasobscura.com. I love how my journeys this year have brought me back around several times to things that happened in one place which then had an historical significance somewhere else - from ancient days to more modern times. We are all connected in so many ways!!!!!!!!

Now, speaking of strange and weird connections. Earlier today, I stopped back at my apartment and a young couple was waiting outside the door. They had also rented an apartment but were having difficulty reaching the host. I’d also had the same issue and had waited an hour or more for him to respond. They were from London and we got to talking about London and where I’d been. I invited them up to my own apartment to await his response. While they waited, we got to talking about traveling and such. I told them a little bit about being a pastor and my own Sabbatical project which they were very interested in and then introduced myself, apologizing that I hadn’t done it earlier. They looked at each other, which seemed odd at the time, and then introduced themselves as (not kidding) Mary and Joseph! I practically spat out the water I had just taken. Seriously!?!? Jospeh, who said that he’d always gone by Joseph until he met Mary and then started going by Joe instead because it was just too weird, said, “Oh, it gets worse. My last name is Christian! So, we are Mary and Joseph Christian!” We all laughed a lot, then talked about church more than traveling. They are Catholics, non-practicing, but think their names are kind of fun. Our host then contacted them and they thanked me for my hospitality. I thanked them for the great story!

Here are some pictures of food from today:

I tried to understand what the barista said this pastry was, but even after three times, I still didn’t quite get it. So, I still don’t know. However, it was very similar to the Bomba de Nada I had in Spain.