LtSebastino's photostream

When walking in Siena, you feel as if you are being led towards wider streets. And the wider streets lead into even wider streets. And then the main streets bring you down and down towards the centre, to the great Campo of Siena: an amphiteatre where the stage backdrop is formed by the great town hall. By building a new square around the town hall, rather than, as was traditional, the cathedral, the Council was saying that the most important thing in Siena was not God but the city itself.

A view of Siena from the tower of the Palazzo Pubblico.

The Palio di Siena (known locally simply as Il Palio) is a horse race held twice each year on July 2 and August 16 in Siena, in which ten horses and riders, dressed in the appropriate colours, represent ten of the seventeen Contrade, or city wards.

They race just three times round the square, lasting about 90 seconds in all, and then the winning contrada can celebrate for the rest of the year.

Watch on Youtube: Il Palio

The Contrada della Pantera is one of the seventeen contrade of Siena.

The medieval Cathedral of Siena (Duomo di Siena) lies in a piazza above the Campo, a great Gothic building filled with treasures by Pisano, Donatello and Michelangelo as well as frescoes by Pinturicchio.