When you’re famous everybody wants a piece of you. Italy Part 3

So the other day we went to this picturesque little Tuscan town called Siena that was very old. How old? Well to give you an idea, much of the town pre dated the Rolling Stones. A funny little Italian girl in 3-foot cork soled shoes took us on a 3-hour walking tour of Siena. We lasted an hour before my wife got distracted by shoe shops and I got distracted by beer. The tour started in a big church and because it was the start I was still paying attention. The lady balanced on cork told us about a young Italian woman called Saint Catherin who came from the town back in the 12 or 1300’s. She was a saint because she was mates with the Pope and didn’t used to eat much and rather than sleep she used to whip herself to make up for the sins of the common folk. Anyway she died in Rome but the townsfolk of Siena wanted her remains in their church so the head honchos in Rome sent them her thumb and her head and you can see them on display in the church. The head is in a little box covered in wax and the dried out thumb is on a little silver stick.
The lady didn’t know why there was a thumb and a head I suspect when the people of Siena asked for Catherin’s remains, the priests in Rome sent them a thumb. But the town got really pissed off and complained that you cant build a decent shrine with a fricken thumb and they demanded more. So a few days later a courier delivered a box with Catherin’s head in it.
After the church we walked down a street to see another church. It was next to a
Mc Donald’s. I explained to Dick and Sue the middle aged American tourists, that inside that particular McDonalds there was a glass cabinet with the desiccated thumb of the original Saint Ronald. They didn’t see the humor.