A Postcard from inside

So few people passing through

Walls protect, keep out, and create clear boundaries–but walls also inadvertently keep people within. Upon seeing Porta Tufi, I was struck by how few people passed through. This large gate sits at the bottom of the hill–really, only the middle of a much larger hill–but the wall separates the city from the outside. The gate serves as the passageway to the outside but I was still curious as to why more people were not there. It made me think of how many people see out of the city (any city) but rarely leave the city.

As a newcomer to Siena, I still do not know everything in the walls, but I wonder if by the end of my stay I will know the outside as well? At the college that I attend there a similar topographical location to Siena- atop a hill, inside walls with the only exits being gates- but even there people rarely venture out of the gates. Will I get to know the hillsides placed on post cards of the Tuscan hillside, representative of Siena? The ones that people buy to show that they were there, even though they physically never were? Will I ever become less than a tourist?