A Month in Tuscany: Florence and Lucca

Elaine and I had been to Florence once before and, well ... we hated it. Our impression was that of a noisy, dirty place crawling with panhandlers, cheap tourist stalls and smelly hotels. Well, I don't know what planet we were on in 2003 - but we loved Florence this time. It was one of those "high points" of our time in Italy.

Because Florence tends to be about 10C warmer than Siena, we left our travels to Florence for later in our stay. By late August and early September, Florence was magnificent. We would take the morning train from Siena, spend the day in Florence and return home in the evenings.

Chiesa della Santa Croce

The Church at Santa Croce is attractive from the outside, to be sure. But its real treasure is the astounding collection of tombs within.

Walking through the main hall of the church, one comes across tombs in every conceivable location: in the walls, in the floor. Each time I stopped to look more closely, I found myself awed by what I saw. Just think for a moment of the collection of brilliance and influence represented by these individuals.

Gallerie Uffizi

The Uffizi (offices, now, more correctly Le Gallerie degli Uffizi) was built in the mid-16th century by Cosimo I de' Medici as administrative building. Giorgio Vasari received the design commission. You might want to visit the English-language Uffizi site (regrettably, not always up).

Here are some of my feeble photos of the more widely-known pieces from the Gallerie Uffizi - take a walk.

Lucca


Lucca has a scale about like that of Siena, but a very different character. Although walled, the city plan is more regular - the streets form a giant rectangle following the lines of an earlier Roman (?) wall.

Lucca seemed like a very livable city - the shops and facilities seemed more useful (and more upscale) than those of Siena. It seems that some of the land around Lucca has a reputation for being among the most desirable in Tuscany, so it is to be expected that Lucca's shops are well-stocked with luxury items.

The "tourist sights" (the duomo and Torre) are attractive, but not unusual in any particular way.


But it is a very pleasant place. Eric felt that if we were to return to Italy, staying near Lucca might be quite nice. Florence is only an hour away, and Cinque Terre (part of the Italian Riviera) Mediterranean are close by.

A Month in Tuscany: Siena di Palio

Siena is pure Tuscany: A medieval (8th century Etruscan) city walled in stone, tiny winding cobbled streets, green wooden shutters with potted geraniums at nearly every turn. A few main gates (porte) allow people into and out of town and to this day, most can be closed to deflect marauding hordes of invaders. Nearly every day, we end up visiting Siena for something - crossing through Porta San Marco (nearest our house) gives us the feeling of being welcomed - of being comfortable.

In Siena, we walk everywhere. There are relatively few cars inside the walled city and even the Vespa traffic is manageable. Siena life centers around "il Campo" (the field) - a giant cobbled square in the center of the city. The giant torre (tower) rises above. Yes, you can climb it (we did) - not recommended for claustrophobics. At the base of the torre and serving as the main focus of the campo is the Palazzo Republico - town hall. Even today, this is where civic business is carried out.

Fringing the campo are outdoor bars, restaurants and gelaterie. There is nothing more splendid than arriving in the campo at dusk and having a late dinner. It really feels like a community - everyone is out strolling about till almost midnight. We let our kids run around in the campo while we finished our meals. Often, there are concerts, etc. in the campo.

Siena's most important church is the Duomo (pardon my poor panorama!). It was started in 12C and finished early 14C. It has a striking gothic fa硤e and its main walls are alternating layers of white and green marble (not unlike vegetable lasagna!). At the rear of the Duomo is the Battistero San Giovanni, a heavily frescoed baptistery with a remarkable 15C font.

Siena is divided into "contrade" (districts). Contrade are a cross between legitimate governmental units (like New York's boroughs?) and gang territory. People have tremendous allegiance to their own contrada, especially during the Palio (see below). Each contrada has its own flag/colors which are prominently displayed at street corners and in shops. Some memorable ones: the panthers, the giraffes, the snails, ...

During our first week here in the Siena area, we saw the famous "Palio" - a horserace race between the contrade around the campo dating back to at least the 14th century. Actually, we saw a few rehearsals and watched the final race on TV. To the Senesi, the Palio is not unlike our Super Bowl. That is, it is a BIG DEAL. I should really write a lot more about this at some point soon.

A month in Tuscany: Casa San Bernardo

We rented a house from the wonderful folks at Homebase Abroad (tell them we sent you!).

It was just 6km outside of Siena in the hills of Montebuccio (known locally as Montebucciano, the "-ino" suffix denoting its smallness and cuteness at the same time). Florence is about 45 minutes to the north of us (an easy 1 hour train ride), Rome about 3 hours to the south. "Il Chianti" (the famous wine growing region) is nearby, as are a plethora of hill towns, each more quaint than the next. Many of these destinations are chronicled here.

Our home away from home is Casa San Bernardo, an 18th century church near a small town called Montebuccio. Casa San Bernardo is really two structures connected by a breezeway. Casa San Bernardo is the original church. A small house known as Il Caminetto (the little walk?) finishes the property. It is turning out to be ideal for two families. We've taken over the old church and our friends are generally staying in Il Caminetto.

The church itself is built of massively thick stonework with few windows. This has the wonderful advantage of keeping our rooms cool even in the hottest of days. Small hallways and tiny staircases, also made of stone, connect the various rooms. All of the stonework had a minor disadvantage: Our 1-year-old (at the time) was still learning to sleep (quietly!) through the night. When he awoke, everyone in the church heard him!

Il Caminetto is a rustic structure of sand-color irregular rock with rough mortar. Inside, wood beams and painted plaster complete the perfection. Two frescoes, hand-painted by a friend of the owner's adorn the living and dining rooms of Il Caminetto.

Casa San Bernardo also has a wonderful pool which has been great on the hot days. Contrary to what we heard before coming, the weather is very lovely - not terribly unlike Northern California - warm (sometimes hot) days with cool, foggy nights. It does get warmer here and there are occasional rainstorms in the late afternoon, but all-in-all, very, very pleasant. As our stay entered early September, we noticed a definite change to "fall weather." The days became cooler and distinctly more windy.

Our views were magnificent. Castello Belcaro, a small (!) 17th century castle is on the next hill. We look at it each time we eat out on our vine-covered patio (we ended up eating nearly every meal there). Siena, while not immediately visible, is just on the other side of the castle. During the celebrations before and just after the Siena di Palio (more on this later), we could hear people singing the Palio songs - the sounds wafting in over the hills.

The land just around the church is covered with olive trees. Each November, the caretaker gathers the olives and presses olive oil for the owner and her guests (like us!). A beautiful fig tree hung just over the edge of the hill - our nanny made all sorts of wonderful things (including fig pie). Not immediately on the property was a small vineyard.

The place really "feels like Tuscany." You could not possibly be anywhere else. The construction, the views, the olive and cypress trees everywhere - the lights and smells are unmistakable.

Kidnapped in Venice

Venice was beautiful that May. While torrential rains flooded the rest of Europe, Venice was balmy with few tourists and puffy clouds here and there. My wife and I were crossing Piazza San Marco, discussing our plans for our three day stay in Venice. "We'll have to go to Murano", I said, "after all the Venetian glass we've bought, we should see where they make it." Hardly did I utter these words than someone gently grasped my elbow and in a low, heavily-accented voice told us that he could get us to Murano. Turning around we saw a burly gray-haired Italian, rather like a latter day Rossano Brazzi, heading off across the Piazza. We ran to catch up with him and he turned to us, never slowing his march towards the sea, and told us his son was traveling in the United States and asked if we were enjoying our trip. Before we could stop and consider what was going on he had ushered us to a waiting motorboat. He handed us in explaining that our trip to Murano and our tour there were free but we would have to catch public transport back to Venice.


With that he was off, walking quickly back into the Piazza without a backward glance.

The motorboat driver in the meantime had revved the engine and was backing out into the canal. My wife and I exchanged worried glances as we roared across the lagoon. The words kidnapping and kneecapping kept running through my head.

The nondescript driver never looked at us or said a word. A few minutes later the motorboat slowed and turned up a wide canal. I saw the words "Canale dell'Arsenale" and then just a lot of laundry drying from the windows of rather rundown looking apartments.

Emerging from the canal we moved out across the lagoon. The sky had gotten cloudy and the water was choppy. We were not in particularly high spirits. After a while we came to an island with ugly concrete retaining walls. We turned up a large canal and moved past shipyards and freight docks. The buildings looked even more deteriorated, just rusty sheet metal with crumbling jetties.

Suddenly the motorboat slowed and the driver steered toward an unmarked jetty, cut the engine, and tied up the boat. A rather smarmy looking Italian incongruously dressed like a Pocono lounge singer greeted us profusely and chattered away about how glad they were that we had agreed to come. He further explained that the tour started with a demonstration of how the artisans created their unique glass masterpieces. Unfortunately, they were all on strike.

Nevertheless the glass factory had managed to round up one of the lowly workers to demonstrate. We were then ushered into a cavernous warehouse made of sheet metal on the outside and trash on the inside.

The workman dipped a long metal tube into a furnace and brought out a glob of molten glass at the end of it. He rolled the end of the tube along the edge of an anvil and then, putting the other end of the tube to his mouth, he blew air into the glob of glass.

With long tongs he pulled the glass off the end of the tube, shaped the lip of the glass, rolled it some more on the anvil, and ecco! a vase! Well, this was truly worth the stress of being kidnapped and dropped off in beautiful downtown nowhere!

The worker took another glob of molten glass from the furnace and put it on the anvil. With skillful tweaks of the tongs he pulled parts of the glass like taffy. Within a minute he had a beautiful glass steed with arching neck and prancing hooves.

The lounge singer lookalike returned at this point to escort us to the showroom. We moved from the decrepit warehouse to a wonderland of room after room filled with glass treasures. Incredible crystal and glass creations, from paperweights to chandeliers, were displayed in beautiful surroundings with attentive (read: vulturous) salespeople.

The prices were easily double what we had seen in Venetian stores in smaller variety and quantity. Prices went into the thousands of dollars for many of the vases and chandeliers. After my wife and I determined that neither the prices nor the style would fit in with our California decor, we made our escape.

But where were we? We went from sumptuous showroom to storage yard where 5 foot high piles of broken glass had been separated into all colors of the rainbow, ready to be melted again.

Following a path strewn with glass shards we came to a sadly hanging low wooden gate and exited onto a quiet street. The time: noonish. Location: God only knew where ... and wasn't telling.

We walked for quite a while through neighborhoods with large front yards filled with flowers, lily ponds, shrines. Finally we came to the edge of the island. No people!

Walking another block we saw a restaurant - still no people around. Upon entering the restaurant we found all the people. Evidently this was the local place on the island to eat (if not the only place). It was filled with workmen, clerks, and a lot of good smells, and much laughter. The pasta was great, and the red table wine hit the spot for two escaped kidnappees.

Leaving the restaurant we saw a sign for the traghetto half a block farther. A few people were standing huddled in the lee of a rather inadequate shelter. The wind began gusting, the drizzle to fall as we stood in the rain waiting for our ride back to civilization.

A Rainy Hike in the Cinque Terre, Italy

In the fall of '06 my husband Les and I decided to spend a few days on the Ligurian coast of Italy to see what all the fuss is that others have made about this part of the country. We only allowed ourselves three days there, and the first was spent recuperating from our long flight from California. We managed to do a little exploring that first day in our base town of Levanto, about three-quarters of the way down this section of the Italian coast, and we of course were able to squeeze in a pizza and some wine at a local trattoria before collapsing for the night.

The next day we did the tourist thing and spent the day in Portofino. Unfortunately, as it was Sunday, half of the population of Europe also seemed to have had the same idea, and we were less than thrilled with the Disneyland-like atmospheres of what appeared to have once been a quaint Italian fishing village.

On our final day we took a train down the coast a little ways (15 minutes) to a town called Corniglia. It's one of the Cinque Terre—five coastal fishing villages that hug the rocky cliffs of southern Liguria. The five towns are very small and are connected by a frequently running train, a narrow, winding, rickety road, and a hiking trail that looks better suited to mountain goats than humans in some areas. Our plan was to take the train down to Corniglia (the middle village), then hike up to Vernazza, the next town north, and take the train back to Levanto from there.

The rain began as the train pulled up in Levanto to start us on our journey. Luckily, Les had gone back to retrieve our umbrellas from the hotel when we first arrived at the train station and had found out we had half an hour to wait for the next train. When we got off the train in Corniglia we looked around for the village and couldn't seem to see anything. We noticed people walking north and started to follow them towards this sheer cliff that housed the train tunnel we had just come through. Then I saw it. What looked like a colorful parade of caterpillars zig-zagging up the cliff was really the people from the train (under their umbrellas) walking up the steps that led up to Corniglia (very high up on top of the cliff). We were huffing and puffing when we finally reached the top, but it was worth it -- a peaceful village that dates back from Roman times.

After a wonderful lunch of seafood pasta in an outdoor restaurant (under dripping umbrellas, of course), we hemmed and hawed about whether or not to take the 90-minute hike up to Vernazza or wimp out and take the train instead, seeing as how it was still pouring rain. The skies cleared up enough to lull us into a false sense of security and we chose the hiking path. The clearing only lasted long enough to get us far enough to be committed to the hike, then it began to rain again. We looked back longingly at Corniglia, too far behind us now to make turning around seem worthwhile. Through the mist we could also just barely make out the village of Manorola, the next one south of Corniglia.

The hike was really spectacular along the cliff edge and though the woods and olive terraces. The path seemed almost paved at parts, due to the natural occurrence of granite and marble in the area (Michelangelo acquired his marble from this area). In many places the path was so narrow we had to go sideways, and there were no guardrails to keep us from plummeting to the beach many meters below. It was a little scary at times.


I must say I was quite relieved when we came to a signpost announcing our arrival at Vernazza, or so I thought. The path sign in Corniglia had indicated that the hike to Vernazza would take one and a half hours, and we'd only been walking for about 45 minutes. But I figured that they allowed for people to stop and enjoy the scenery, assuming no one would be foolhardy enough to make the trip in the pouring rain.

It turned out that the Vernazza sign was really only indicating that we were in fact still on the path to Vernazza. We hadn't actually arrived there yet. As it was, we hiked another 45 minutes, and stepped around a corner to see the village spread out just below us almost exactly an hour and a half after we had left Corniglia.We were in fact getting exhausted from all the climbing up and over the many hillsides that by the time we got down into the village we wanted nothing more than to collapse and have a drink. We found a Gelataria instead and had ice cream cones sitting on a stone bench under an overhang in the rain. They were wonderful.

The rain finally stopped and we met up with some special friends (Bill Womack and Linda Robertson of Spotted Antelope Multimedia, producers of Wandering Italy) who were staying in Vernazza, and had a wonderful dinner, then took the train back to Levanto and slept very well.