Pisa, Lucca, and Siena 06/30/07

This past weekend I went to Pisa, Lucca, and Siena- Three very amazing towns.

On Saturday, we went to Pisa to climb the leaning tower. I was surprised how much it leans, it was actually more than I imagined. After walking around a little bit, we headed to a small nearby town called Lucca, since there is little else to do in Pisa other than look at the tower and surrounding buildings.
Lucca was enclosed in tall thick walls during medevial times to barricade it from attacks from the outside world. Now, instead of taking them down, they turned the top of the walls into a bike path with grassy areas to sit and relax. It's cool because while you bike you get a good view of outside and inside the city. We then walked around and up a tall tower to enjoy more scenery from above and enjoy a refreshing cool breeze. 

On Sunday, we went to Siena. I liked the city because they had statues of Remus and Romulus suckling a she-wolf everywhere, which I thought was cool, but I have no idea why. Siena is neat beause it has 17 contrades, or districts that people live in, each with its own name, flag, and animals. Flags line the buildings to indicate where the boundaries are, and it was nice to see city and contrade pride since residents were wearing their flags everywhere.

Today, Monday, there is the Palio, an intense horse race between the 10 of 17 districts in the main plaza area. The city goes crazy preparing for this race, so that was also exciting to see. I didn't get to see the Palio, but maybe someday I will. However, I bought 3 flags: the turtle, the noble caterpillar, and the snail. The noble caterpillar design reminded me of Brasil. Now of course there are much mightier and traditional animals, but I thought it was nice that they choose such overlooked creatures to represent them. Like how can a caterpillar or snail beat a double headed phoenix? Its possible in the Palio!