My apartment sits right above the Piazza del Campo, the huge open-air public square that serves as the civic and social center of the city. The piazza’s been called Siena’s living room, and for good reason, since at nearly all hours, I can see in the piazza high-school kids, families, old couples, tour groups, dog walkers, late-night revelers, and often my very own students (sometimes as revelers). It’s common to sit down on the piazza’s brick slope, to eat lunch, to talk with friends, to drink some wine (there are no open-container laws here). Even today, partly cloudy and somewhat cold at 5:30pm, I see amid the many people cutting through the piazza groups of twos and threes sitting all around, most in front of the small temporary wooden building set up recently in a corner of the piazza to sell the Easter dessert of struffoli (fried dough balls, four for a Euro).
The Campo, as the piazza is called, is shaped like a huge half-circle (or ‘open fan’ or conch shell, depending on our guidebook). Six-story medieval buildings surround the piazza’s curved top. At the top of the curve sits the famous Fonte Gaia (Fountain of Joy), a rectangular white marble fountain adorned with bas-reliefs, a favorite of the both the tourists and the many pigeons in the square. The brick-faced semi-circle slopes down and there, at the piazza’s straight-edge, sits the huge Palazzo Pubblico building (the old city hall, now a museum) and the tall, thin tower topped by a bell, which tolls on the half hour (even at night). In the early morning, the piazza is empty and quiet, lit by gauzy light from rows of beautiful faux-medieval lights. It comes to life around 7am, as city workers begin sweeping up confetti, pizza boxes, bottles and other late-night remains.
French doors in my living room and bedroom open onto a long balcony, an ideal spot to watch folks come and go throughout the day. A big german shepherd patrols the adjacent balcony in the late morning, barking at passing dogs but friendly, even 
shy, when I approached (very carefully) to say hi. Businesses fill the ground floor of the piazza along the curved top, mostly open air restaurants with the occasional souvenir store, bank, pharmacy and, just below me, a shoe store. On a recent unseasonably warm Saturday, temporary souvenir stands, dripping with tshirts, banners, bobble heads, and other schlock, sprung up at the edge of the piazza, a sad signal of what’s soon to come.
This past Sunday, the piazza became the finish line for a marathon (San Gimignano to Siena), with an announcer barking into his microphone most of the morning. Come spring (I hear) most weekends the piazza will host one event or another, from an Easter bazaar and the occasional produce market to concerts and films. The largest event is the summer, though, July 2 and Aug 16, the Palio horse race, when the piazza is filled with sand and becomes a track (three times around) and visitors stuff the inside of the piazza to watch one of the most anticipated (and dangerous) events of the Siena year. Unfortunately, we’ll be back in Portland by then, and my apartment will be rented (at over 10x what I pay for a whole month) so dozens of people can cram the balcony for one of the best views of the race.