Celebrating the 4th at the Lizza

Siena, Italy, Saturday July 4th, 1914 [Visit to Church of Osservanza and play at Teatro della Lizza]
As usual had breakfast in bed and studied Italian – the only time I find to give to it. Then Helen came in and asked me if I wanted to go to the leather shops with the O’s [Oudesluys] and herself so I went while they bargained for lessons. I ordered myself a pretty card case for 9 lire.

Then Helen and I wandered around the queer old streets till lunch time. Brought 3 kinds of soap. Did not lie down after lunch as I should have done but wrote a number of the contrade post-cards to send off.

At five o’clock we went out to the church of Osservanza, outside the gates. We had two carriages – going. Helen, Hortense O., and I had one and Mrs. O., Mrs. Clement and Mrs. Geuneret had the other. Coming back Mrs. G. took Helen’s place. It was a beautiful ride with lovely wild flowers. Saw the large and small St. John’s wort and the wild scabiosa. The church was interesting and we went into the sacristy and into the vaults where Hortense ?? on two rings when the monk was out of sight. The Della Robbia was really beautiful. The only one I have enjoyed and so were some of the old illuminated pages in the old parchment books.

At dinner the O’s, Helen and I decided to go to the Teatro della Lizza* to celebrate the 4th – An Englishman at the table said he was going to celebrate the 4th and we told him it was good of him and had lots of fun over it. We went over at 8.40 and bought seats – “Posti distiniti” – for 60 centimes each – Entrance being 1 lira. We had a great time getting in for we went the wrong way and the few people there were in the theatre, talked and pointed – and we finally understood we had to go out and around a corridor. Our seats were just chairs fastened to a long board to hold them in place. 2 rows in front were separate cushioned chairs 2 lira each where the English people were. A boy came around and we hired cushions at 10 centimes each. The play was “The Dollar Princess” – but we did not discover who the heroine was. It didn’t begin until 9.20 and was in 3 sets with long waits between, so it was 12.15 before it was over. We were stiff from sitting so long on our hard chairs – though we stood up a couple of times between the acts. We enjoyed our outing but decided we didn’t want to go any more.

*existed 1859-1942.