We sadly left lovely Cinque Terre and started on our adventure to Tuscany. Our first stop was the quaint, little town of Lucca.
Lucca has a most impressive wall surrounding the town even though it has not been in a war since 1430. (Maybe that's why?) The wall seems to keep out the stress of the modern world, as well as a lot of traffic. The locals are very protective of their wall, which they enjoy like a community roof garden.
You can easily walk around the 2.5 mile city wall or rent bicycles which a lot of people do.
We had a nice relaxing time here strolling around the town and enjoying it's many squares with cute shops and cafes. The center of town is Piazza San Michele that was a forum in Roman times.
It is dominated by the Church of San Michele with the archangel Michael standing above ready to flap his wings.
We got a nice, simple lunch of small, focaccia sandwiches with our soon becoming-favorite beverage, fresh squeezed orange juice.
We splurged on dessert with these cute little fruit tarts for .60 each, so cheap for a mouthful of delight.
We were quite pleased with our little visit to Lucca and soon we were on our way to Siena. We were eager to get to Siena because this is where Lauren lived when she took an art class in the summer of 2009 and she LOVED Siena. She was there during the Palio and she lived in the porcupine contrade, or neighborhood. So, we have heard all about Siena and we were already in love with the place before we even got there. Our first night there, we got together with local tour guide, Anna Lisa, who oriented us to the town and got a group photo of all of us with our guide, Anna, who also lives in Siena.
She began our tour explaining the 17 contrades and the Palio horse race that takes place in Il Campo, the main square and heart of the city.
To our surprise, we ended up in the forest contrade, who's symbol is the rhino. We soon started seeing rhinos everywhere.
The contrade hosted a dinner for us in their societa, or social club.
Next door to the societa is the contrade's church where they bless the horse before the Palio.
There was contrade and Palio paraphernalia everywhere.
Each summer in July and August, Siena hosts a horse race called the Palio di Siena with 10 of the contrades competing. This race dates back to 1633 so it a quite the tradition and a world-wide known horse race. They bring dirt into Il Campo and take about a week to prepare the race track for the race. There are parades, colorful banners, lamps, wall plaques and much merrymaking. The jockeys ride bareback and go around the track 3 times for about 90 minutes of racing. The winning contrade goes crazy and parties continue for weeks afterwards. In the forest contrade, we were able to visit their church, fountain, and historical museum. The dinner they provided for us was incredible.
People volunteer at the societa so our food was all prepared by volunteers. This was a Saturday night so locals were also here hanging out watching soccer and visiting with one another.
We were served a first course of antipasto of bruschetta, cheese, prosciutto, and salami.
Second course was a common type of spaghetti that originated in Siena called pici or fat spaghetti. It was very filling and this was only the second course...
Third course was meat and potatoes that was like a stewed meat with a lot of flavorings and they gave us good sized portions. It was very delicious but most of us were just really stuffed at this point, but they weren't done...
Dessert was a homemade ice cream treat with vanilla ice cream in the middle and chocolate and nuts on the outside. They brought it wrapped in foil and it looked like a baked potato...as if we needed more carbs at this point. I was so full I could only take a couple bites.
To top off our meal, they brought us some almond biscotti and after-dinner liquor called vinsanto, a dessert wine. You dip your biscotti into the liquor for a very nice finale to our meal and it tastes so good! Then you say, "la viva e bella" which means "life is good". (sort of like a toast) The vinsanto was a little stronger and thicker than the sciacchettra in Cinque Terre but you can also dip with sciacchettra, too.
And of course, for the whole meal we had wine from the contrade to help ourselves to.
At the end of our meal, Anna insisted that the cooks who prepared our meal come out so we could applaud them. Remember, they were just volunteers for the societa. Excellent job!
The next morning we toured the Duomo with the same local guide, Anna Lisa.
With Il Campo being the heart of Siena, the Duomo is the soul. The white-and-dark-green striped church, sitting on an artificial platform atop Siena's highest point, is visible for miles around.
The Duomo was build in Siena's heyday (1250-1350). The inside is very busy looking with it's striped, marble columns.
Famous statues inside the Duomo include Donatello's St. John the Baptist in rags from 1457. Donatello, an aging Florentine sculptor, came to Siena to build bronze doors for the church, similar to Ghiberti's in Florence. He didn't complete the project but instead finished this bronze statue of John the Baptist.
Also, Michelangelo has a statue here of St. Paul.
He was commissioned to complete 15 statues, but his heart was never in it and he completed only one. The others were completed by his students. (his is on the lower righthand side)
We also went into the Piccolomini Library located in the church where brilliantly frescoed paintings captured the spirit of the 1400's. These are originals that have never been restored and looked amazing.
There were also intricately decorated music scores and a Roman copy of a Greek original statue called the Three Graces.
After we left the church, our tour guide took us to a family-run stained glass window business. One of the brothers who runs the business, Maximo, gave a demonstration of how they make stained glass windows.
They get orders from all over the world including the U.S. for a stained glass window made by them.
Bruce volunteered to cut some glass so he could get a feel for what it's like in this business.
Afterwards, we went to their shop where they sell lots of beautiful pieces of jewelry, pottery and other artistic items.
The rest of our day, Bruce and I just wandered Siena, mostly hung out at Il Campo.
Siena is one of the few towns in Italy where their central square does not revolve around a church. Il Campo is the central square but instead the City Tower is the City Hall. Medieval Siena was a proud republic, and this tall tower is the exclamation point of its "declaration of independence".
We could have hung out here all day and nearly did with a relaxing two-hour lunch of, none-other than our favorite - pizza
and this time we ordered some bruschetto
Like St. Mark's Square, there was a lot of people watching, delicious food and beverage, and resting in the warmth of the sun. A perfect way to spend the afternoon. We topped it off with our favorite affogato.
We were really getting into a routine at this point. In the mornings, we would find a bar, which is different than an American bar. An Italian bar is where you get a caffe or coffee drink which is usually an espresso or cappuccino. People stand at the bar and drink their coffee and leave their cup there when they leave.
There are usually pastry items, as well, and tables and chairs to sit down. Sometimes we would go to a bar and order something just so we could use their restrooms.
And sometimes the bar would have alcohol if you wanted a little more in your coffee.
We got use to our little routine of going to a bar for a little pick-me-up in the mornings. Unlike Starbucks, our coffees were served in tiny little cups. Small, but significant.
The grand finale of our stay in Siena was going over to Anna's apartment for aperitivo or drinks and appetizers. And she put out quite the spread for us.
She made my favorite Italian Spritz drinks and served us all.
Being the educator that she is, Anna labeled all the food items she laid out for us and made sure she chose local items from her beloved Tuscany home.
I contributed a Sienese fruitcake that is very popular here and I knew many people in our group wanted to try it and everybody loved it.
I bought it at a deli-type shop we passed that offered several different versions.
We all enjoyed hanging out at Anna's apartment which also had a very nice deck with a view.
Anna lives in the Lupa contrade (who won both the July and August Palio this year) and she had many photos of the Palio.
She also had one of her painted wooden window shutters above her couch.
I can see why Anna's loves living here and why Lauren fell in love with this place. It is a very special hill town and we would have loved to stay longer but our two days in Siena were coming to a close. It was time for us to move on and see what else laid ahead on our Italian adventure.
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