Siena - Monday

Sue Anne and Bruce were the first up today. We started by bringing the wash racks out into the morning sunshine. Yesterday’s wash just didn't quite dry out overnight. The tiny washing machine here takes approximately forever to do just one load, and we had a few loads among us. As for drying, that’s done au naturel. So we needed to capitalize on all the sunshine we could find, and there’s more of that at our locale in the morning than there is later on. Weather very mild here. Very warm on our deck in the morning sun, and even in the shade it registers up in the high teens Celsius (high 60s Fahrenheit) during the day. Hard to believe that we're at about the latitude of our house in New Hampshire (43+ degrees) (and Venice is about the same as the Canadian border).

Then we headed in to town to the Coop supermarket. Tiny actually, but still super by local standards. Fun to wander. Got provisions for breakfast and dinner, and an official bottle of Chianti in a basket. They take Visa!

Breakfast of coffee (from our new espresso maker), eggs, pastry, cereal.

Then into the larger of our two cars (a diesel powered Fiat with standard transmission) and off to Siena via an extremely twisty road. About a half-hour drive. Road was well marked. GPS took a while to sync in, and it faded out in some of the narrow valleys, but it ended up taking us to the same place as the signs did. And it gave a wonderful preview of some of the twisties that awaited us around the bend.

Parked at the edge of town. Looked for the signs that in other countries would say Centre Ville or Innenstadt, or Centro here, but there were none. And we didn’t have a detailed city map. So we latched on to a young Asian couple who spoke English and had a map, and we agreed to take on the challenge together. Further conversation led to learning that they came from Edmonton! But no, they weren't from the university.

Walked up a very steep passageway. It looked like a pedestrian street, but we quickly learned that that’s not how they do it in Siena. Everybody shares the road, even if it doesn’t seem wide enough to be called ‘road.’ Cars, light trucks, scooters (lots of Vespas), bikes, and people. It all seemed to work out. Nobody got run over. But it was indeed pretty tight in places.

Digression: Lots seems to have changed in Italian driving habits since we were last here, 40 years ago. Nobody blows the horn. Nobody! All seem to be well behaved. No hand gestures. While we're on the subject, here are a few other things that have changed over the past 40 years. Most should be no surprise, except to those who don't realize what European travel used to be.

- ATMs. No need for travelers checks any more. No more going to the bank with passport or to the American Express office (only during business hours, of course). No forms to fill out. We thought it was great back in the 80s when we could write a check on our Barclay’s account with our Eurocheque card without needing travelers checks, but even that is now thankfully obsolete.

- Credit cards. They still aren’t accepted at the smallest of places, but they are getting ever closer to being ubiquitous. They were very handy today as we attacked the shops and restaurants of Siena. Strangely they seemed to be accepted in more places out here in the hinterlands than back in Venice.

- Euros. Adoption of the Euro must have put lots of currency exchange shops out of business. These used to be everywhere, able to scrutinize the finest detail of paper money from just about anywhere and turn it into most anything else at whatever today's rate might have been. No more. And it's still kind of hard to visualize the Euro as being almost a dollar and a half. They were just phasing it in when we were in Germany in 2000, and it was worth about a dollar then. It’s easier to still consider it as just a dollar, charge on Visa, and not worry about anything till the bill arrives after we get home.

- Internet. One café here in Radda, a few shops in Venice, lots of them in Siena. No need to go to the Post Office (during business hours) in hopes that there might be a weeks-old letter from home awaiting at General Delivery / Poste Restante / Postlagernd.

- Pizza. Pizza in Italy 40 years ago was nothing special. Rather nondescript stuff that sat in hunks in the sun in shop windows attracting flies. It was perfected in America. But it’s everywhere here now, and it's great!

OK. Back to today in Siena. Wow, what a place! Classic walled city on a hilltop. Steep, narrow roads and passageways. Giant city square, under which lie drainage systems engineered seven centuries ago. Super tall tower, in excess of 500 steps high. Karin and Dan ascended it and brought back pictures of the view.

Many shops. Most take Visa. Everything's free!!! Well, it seemed that way.

Great lunch at a small restaurant. Pasta, eggplant parmagiana, Caprese salad, Chianti, and mineral water—both natural and fizzy.

Siena is divided into 17 well-defined contradi (neighborhoods). Not as many as Baltimore (300 or more there), but even tighter in their social structure and lifetime allegiances. Each has its own flag and seal of course, tracing back many centuries, but what was surprising was that each of these bears the figure of an animal, many of which aren't at all native to the area. Rhinoceros, giraffe, elephant, panther, along with the more mundane snail, turtle, hedgehog, and the like. Bruce identified with the neighborhood of Bruco, whose symbol is a caterpillar! These symbols appeared on pottery, postcards, dish towels, and similar items at all the shops, and on the street signs in their neighborhood areas.

The neighborhood rivalries come to a head in July and August at Il Palio, the two annual horse races around the city square. Special blessings in the neighborhood churches, with extra good luck if the horse should deposit manure in front of the altar. Crowds in the center of the square, crowds around the edge, jockeys (generally from out of town) and horses chosen by lot, everything goes! No fatalities in over 700 years. The winning contrade gets a flag (locally called ‘the rag’) and the associated bragging rights.

Pinocchio somehow figures strongly in the legend of the place. Lots of Pinocchio objects everywhere. We bought a couple of small Christmas tree ornaments. The Pinocchio keychains struck us as particularly impractical, considering the length of the nose and its likely impact on one’s pocket. Here’s one of our little guys, alongside of a cousin whom we bought in Bavaria many years ago. The Bavarian one doesn’t have a long nose, but he will stick his tongue out at you if you press down on the top of his hat.

St. Catherine is big here too. She’s the co-patron saint of Italy, along with St. Francis of Assisi. Cathy bought a small ceramic figure of her namesake. Romulus and Remus are also favorites, Remus’s son believed to have been a founder of the city.

The other big architectural highlight of Siena, beyond the main square with its tower, is the Duomo (cathedral). The €6 admission fee was well spent. Stunning floor tile throughout, covered from November through July to help preserve it, and the most significant portions roped off completely all the time. Massive black and white striped columns, apparently a North African influence. Paintings everywhere. Enormous pulpit that Sue Anne recognized from art history classes.

More wandering. K&D both came away happy from the Bata shoe store. Other treasures of the day included ceramic house numbers for B&SA's house in NH, a Pashmina scarf for SA, postcards, art books, liqueurs, and similar mementos.

Drive back to Radda through the twisties. Dinner at our villa of cutlet, pasta, and salad, accompanied by the Chianti in a basket that we purchased this morning.

[Note 10-21: In reviewing our blog after we got home we discovered that we had posted some pictures of Radda here by mistake. That has now been fixed.]