Siena, a sporty city.

Li'l old Siena, with its public squares and gothic church, turns out to be quite a sporting town. We stumbled upon "Planet Basket" yesterday, not just a sports bar, but a basketball bar. They had old wool jerseys from Italian teams 30 years back, pictures from the 1960 Olympics in Rome, and group photos of Siena's local team. And cheap beer.

Last night, distant shouting drew us in the direction of the stadium, where Siena was playing Milan in front of a shouting, chanting, drumming sold-out crowd.

This morning, as we stumbled out of our hotel, numbered runners kept picking their way through the crowd on the main street outside the Piazza del Campo (the central square in town). There was a massive race, beginning and ending a couple hundred yards from our hotel.

So much sport! Not what I would expect from the wine-drinking, chain-smoking, fashionably-dressed Italians.