Sunday, November 27, 2021: Beautiful, Old Siena
By Francesco Turchi
What I remember most about our trip to Siena was the main piazza and standing around with Mr. Knapp and his brother-in-law, who gave us a guided tour of the town. We were there with them talking about the city during our free time. We talked about the main piazza which is a famous attraction for Siena because during the summer they run the horse race known as the Paglia. From here we walked around and enjoyed the old city, a very beautiful old city with its ancient buildings and architecture. It was a very chill moment.
Then it rained and we ran to the first restaurant we saw. There we waited for the rain to stop. While we waited, we ordered some pizzas. I remember that we paid a lot of money for our food. We sat there and said, “We just got scammed.” We all looked at each other, Manfredi, Grace, Dalai, Jose, Gaia and Andrea. We knew immediately we were going to pay too much for our food when the bill came. But we were hungry and just enjoying our time together that we didn’t make a fuss about it. Even though I’m Italian, this was my first time in Siena and with CCI. When I think of the international character of our students from all over the world, I think about the fact that most of them, like me, have never seen such a beautiful city like Siena. There are big cities like Mexico City and New York, but Siena is different. They come to see all this beauty. It's a beautiful city. It's an old city but it's beautiful. Toronto is a city I’d like to visit but it’s only a couple of hundred years old. It's new compared to Siena. It's all tall buildings made of glass but it's not the same beautiful that we see in a medieval town like Siena. This is an ancient city that had a different standard of architecture. Like Lanciano. It’s an old city that continues to be a place that people live in. Like me. I live in a very old apartment block. Mr. D’Alessandro once told me that the student lounge is from the 1300s. The old town, Lanciano Vecchia, is still made up mostly of these old buildings. And they were built to last. There is such a sense of permeance in these old cities. The arched ceilings of many buildings in Lanciano were built hundreds of years ago. The bricklayer and generations of his family are no longer alive but his work remains.
Having said that, I would still love to travel abroad, to visit America and Canada. Possibly to study there or work there some day. It’s a type of experience I would love to have. Especially because I would understand the differences between the two types of cities.
