It was my second day in Siena and the fog had finally lifted (at least for a few hours), so I decided to head toward the main square, Piazza del Campo, and climb Torre del Mangia.
Note: When the lady in the ticket office asks if you’re going to climb all the way to the top and back down, don’t say “No, I thought I’d climb to the top and then fly down.” She won’t think you’re funny.
Torre del Mangia was built from 1338 – 1348 AD to be the exact same height as the Duomo, making the statement that church and state were completely equal in Siena.
“Mangia?” you might ask. “But doesn’t that mean… eat?”
The Torre del Mangia in Piazza del Campo
Yes, yes it does. Torre del Mangia was named after its first guardian, Giovanni di Balduccio, as a sort of joke. It’s said that Giovanni spent all of his money on food.
Getting back to the point – you read the title and want to know how the heck I could possibly have gotten attacked by a pigeon. As the Japanese tourist who was climbing the stairs behind me said, after I jumped down four stairs and huddled in a ball at his feet, “Um, I don’t think pigeons attack people.”
YES, THEY DO. But let’s back up.
After you buy your ticket in the inner courtyard under the tower, you walk up about four flights of large, marble stairs (or faux-marble, but seeing as this is Italy they’re probably real marble). You enter an anti-chamber where you must store everything except your camera in free lockers on the wall, show your ticket to a guard sitting behind a glass booth and proceed up another flight of stairs and out onto a small balcony. A few feet away is the entrance to the tower.
It was December and the only other person I saw was a young, Japanese tourist wearing black-rimmed glasses and a blue & purple plaid shirt who stopped to take pictures of the square below. But I wasn’t alone. Mr. Pigeon was laying in wait on the second step from the top of the first staircase.
Each time I approached the next set of stairs, Mr. Pigeon would fly up to the next set and, I’m not sure what to call it… “scream” a bit. Maybe someone else would call it chirping, I don’t know; it certainly sounded aggressive to me. One flight of stairs at a time, never more. I thought it was funny, at first. I heard the Japanese tourist climbing up behind me but didn’t want to rush and spook the poor bird.
“Poor bird”… ha!
As I stepped onto the eighth landing I turned, expecting to see Mr. Pigeon flying up to the next one. Instead, all I saw was a set of talons flying toward my face, Mr. Pigeon’s wings outstretched as he soared down, screaming furiously, to end me.
The walls of Torre del Mangia are 9 feet thick on each side; no one was going to hear me squeal in fright during my final moments.
Except the Japanese tourist who was just cresting the landing below me. I leaped down the four stairs to cower at the feet of a very confused – and smirking! – climber.
“The pigeon…” I said, breathless, pointing up the stairs. “He… attacked me!”
And this is when he said – still smirking! – “Um, I don’t think pigeons attack people.”
I wanted to hit him.
Instead I just said, as I stood up with as much dignity as I could muster and brushed myself off, “They obviously DO attack people, because that one just attacked me!”
I slowly crept back up to the landing where the crime had taken place, the Japanese tourist now climbing right next to me, perhaps concerned for my sanity. We could hear Mr. Pigeon screaming and flapping its wings, and as we slowly advanced to the next landing we saw him: he was caught in between the window and the plexiglass cover at the interior edge of the window-sill. There was about an 8-inch opening at the top and bottom through which he must’ve entered.
Seeing him there, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, but there was no way I was sticking my hand in there to try to get him out. He flew in, he could fly out. No reason for me to get clawed to death in the process.
But then I saw it, and all of my anger melted away. Well, almost all of it.
There, hidden in a small hole in the brick on the next flight of stairs, was Mrs. Pigeon sitting on her nest.
One thought went through my head, and I turned to the Japanese tourist to say it: “SEE! He DID attack me!” But what girl doesn’t want a guy to fight to protect her? So I guess I could forgive Pigeon Charming…
(too corny? yeah, I thought so…)
The rest of the climb was uneventful. As we ascended onto the platform at the top of the 400 steps, the largest of the three bells, “Sunto” (“summary”) greeted us. And beyond her, beautiful views of Siena.
The Tuscan countryside was shining in the morning sunlight, its green, rolling hills – even in December! – interesting foliage and twisting roads enjoying a short reprieve from the fog that had consumed it for the past 24 hours.
On the way down I didn’t encounter Mr. Pigeon again – he had managed to get free of his plexiglass cage – but Mrs. Pigeon was still snug in her whole in the wall. All in all, it had been worth the “dangerous” climb to the top of Torre del Mangia to enjoy a beautiful Sienese morning.
Jessica is a travel enthusiast and entertainment executive living in Los Angeles. Her independent travels through Italy have inspired her travel blog, OneDayInItaly.com
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