TBTAM Does Italy – Part 5, Road Trip to Siena

Our Italian hosts head back to Rome, leaving us on our own for a few days. Although we will miss them, we are excited about tackling this country ourselves. We decide to drive to Siena for the day.

Driving in Italy is not for the faint of heart, or for those who can’t drive stick. Thankfully, we are neither. We rent a cute Alfa Romeo, grab a map and go.

Unfortunately, few of the Italian roads have names or rte numbers, so getting anywhere is a challenge. We get lost, and find ourselves on the Autostrade to Pisa. This is actually fortunate, since we will become detoured tomorrow in this very area and will know how to get back to Florence because we were lost here today.

We decide to take rte 22, that green road up there that looks like a straight shot between Florence and Siena. We figure that the 40 kilometer or so drive will take at most 2 hours.

Boy were we ever wrong. The road, which starts out flat and straight, is soon winding its way up into the mountains. The views are breathtaking, but so are the turns. Natalie, the Carsick Kid, does beautifully, but that is because we are driving so slowly, which for some odd reason seems to annoy those in the cars behind us. We only stall on a hill twice, leaving the Italian drivers behind us laughing hysterically. Oh, well…

Panzano in Chianti

We stop in Panzano in Chianti, a small town about halfway to Siena, hoping to visit Mario Cecchini, the famous Butcher. But his shop is closed today, the young boy mopping the floors tells us. So we decide to have lunch at Oltre il Giarndino, a lovely restaurant in a stone house just a few steps away from the small town square.

We sit on a large terrace shaded by Wisteria and other vines, overlooking the valley. The ravioli ricotta e spinaci al burro e salvia (ravioli in sage butter) is the best I have ever had in my life – how do they make it so light?

A quick gelato for the kids, then back to the road. We take a wrong turn out of town, and find ourselves up amidst the vineyards. A roadside shrine provides a good spot to turn around and head back to the highway towards Siena.

As we make the turn, an old lady glares out at us from between her curtains. I can almost hear her muttering, “Touristsi…”

Siena
Siena is a medieval city built on a mountaintop in the heart of Tuscany. The heart of the city is restricted to pedestrians, giving it almost a Disneyworld kind of feel. But this is a real town populated year-round and having a vibrant shopping district, a strong arts culture, and a twice-yearly horse race around the Piazza del Campo.

We stop for a drink on this sweltering hot day. Looks like the birds in the Fonte Gaia (“Fountain of Joy”) had the same idea…

Mr TBTAM and Emily climb the Tower of the Pallazzo Publico while Nats and I tour the rooms inside. The frescoes there are amazing, and we are quite taken with Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s enormous fresco “Allegory of Good and Bad Government”, which encompasses an entire room.

We lean in close to look at the detail on the strangely prophetic Bad Government frescoe….

There is a jazz school in Siena, and they are recruiting students at the Pallazzo. I check out the brochure, but there is no course in scat singing. Too bad, I might have stayed on for that. But students of jazz are everywhere in this town.

(Double-Click player for a little Siena Street music.)

We stroll and shop, the it’s on to the Duomo, which goes on record as my favorite church in Europe.

I love everything about it – the zebra striped columns,

the floors

and the ceilings.

But the Duomo is closing, and the sun is setting. We need to get back on the road to make it to Florence before it is too dark to read the poorly lit road signs on the autostrade. So we head back down to the car, strolling a little more slowly than we should, vowing to return someday soon for a longer visit to this lovely town.

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Frescoe images from Web Gallery of Art