Siena

Siena has been one of my favorite Italian cities that we have visited this semester. It is a very unique city because it openly celebrates and adapts the historical traditions to this day. They have 17 Contradas which are historical districts of the city. They are very prideful and this is apparent everywhere; there are Contrada flags hanging all over the town marking the boundaries. As a group we went into the Goose Contrada Museum which is almost a sacred place for Contrada members only. It was really impressive because we got to see the historical costumes and the banners won in the Palio. This last weekend a few of us were in Siena for St. Catherine's Day celebration which I will talk about when I post pictures of last weekend. I really appreciated Siena's mentality that they can continue traditions and community pride but at the same time updating the traditions to the modern age. Siena is a pretty neat and interesting place. Do some research about Siena about the Contradas and the Palio if you want to know why I'm so interested in Siena.