So Much To Love
There is a curious challenge in planning a two week vacation. Even though two weeks seems luxurious (compared to one) it’s still incredibly limited when it comes to Italy. We were at the official halfway point when we hopped a regional train to Siena for what was designed to be a bit of a respite, sandwiched between Florence and Rome. It’s a just-right-sized town. If Florence is 78rpms and Rome 45rpms, then Siena is decidedly 33rpms. The train ride was almost the identical amount of time as was Rome to Florence, but seemed slower moving and more relaxed. T booked a lovely hotel in a villa, a short five minute walk from the Campo which is where the world famous Palio horserace is run (which I mentioned in a previous entry “Humble Beginnings” and explains my fondness from my first trip there in 1979.) There was a stone terrace and an amazing view of the Tuscan countryside in stark contrast to our hotel in Florence.
Siena is a city with a population of 53,000 and the old town is as charming as some of the smaller towns in the surrounding area like Volterra, Arezzo, Montalcino, Montepulciano and San Gimignano (the last three being mandatory stops on any Tuscan wine tour!) When I suggested to one particular friend the intention of spending a few days in Siena, he expressed skepticism on its culinary pedigree, so I reached out preemptively to the hotel for “traditional, non touristy” restaurant suggestions. To my delight, a kind woman named Ginevra gave me an incredibly long list of her favorite spots. (As fate would have it, the two places we chose were some of our most memorable meals of the entire trip.) After a quick taxi ride from the train station, situated right outside the Medieval wall, we dropped our bags, marveled at the great view, and were off to explore. Our first stop was a lunch spot that was on Ginerva’s list, called Alimentari Du’ Cose da Berna. Technically, I believe it’s better known as a bakery, but they specialize in serving just about anything you could imagine on focaccia. Add an afternoon glass of local red and it’s off to do some exploring.
The Duomo in Siena is like a miniature sibling to one in Florence. Both boast the attractive alternating of black and white marble with Siena’s having the added touch of an inlaid marble, mosaic floor. It’s stunning in every respect, blending Italian Gothic, Classical and Romanesque architectural elements as is common for churches built, renovated and expanded over decades. The combination ticket/pass also included access to the Baptistry of San Giovanni (with a font with sculptures and bronze reliefs by Ghiberti and Donatello, two Renaissance masters,) and the Museo dell ‘Opera. The Museo, founded in 1869, is one of the oldest private museums in Italy. With works by Sienese masters, it is a combination of painting, sculpture, magnificent stained glass, tapestries and more. As we arrived at the top floor, we noticed the lone guard with a walkie talkie and a queue of people waiting to get the go ahead to scale a very narrow staircase to an observation area called “the Facciatone.” I am a bit skittish of heights and the sheer amount of time it took to get to the top should have been enough of a clue as to how high we actually were. Inching my way to the edge, clutching the rail with all of my being, the view was amazing looking across at the dome, tiled rooftops and tower.
We crammed a lot into an afternoon and walked a fair distance, so with a 7:30 dinner reservation we wandered back to the hotel to relax. I’m not one to pass up an opportunity to have a glass of chilled white wine on the terrace as the sun started to drop in the sky, this was no exception. The restaurant proved a bit more challenging to find than Google maps would have led us to believe. La Compagnia dei Vinattieri’s entrance was through a fairly nondescript door and down a set of stairs. (A more marked entrance was secretly on a side street as we discovered when we left.) It was as if we entered a grotto with the dining areas separated by archways detailed with bricks and a thick, wood-beamed ceiling. It turned into a meaty night with us splitting a pappardelle ragu for our primi and lamb for T and rabbit for me as the secondi. The wine list boasts a thousand bottles and I went with something I knew well, a reliably delicious 2020 Fontodi Chianti Classico. (The estate is about twenty five miles away from Siena and I must visit it next time around.) Even at this “swankier” restaurant, it was cheaper than the price in my local wine shop. To complete the evening, there was a semolina pudding and a vin santo. We couldn’t help but take the long way back to the hotel and slept like logs.
The Siena exhibition “The Rise of Painting 1300-1350” at the Met featured some of the finest examples of Sienese painting by Duccio, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini and whet our appetites for day two, centered around a visit to the Pinacoteca Nazionale. Characterizing this distinct style is to recognize the precision of rendering, with gilded, gold backgrounds and an overall jewel-like quality. These are objects you could stare at for hours, discovering more and more with each passing minute. In contrast to every museum we’d visited in Italy to this point, the Pinacoteca was eerily empty. No guards, no visitors, just us. It wasn’t until about half way through we heard a rowdy group of Italian, elementary school children a few galleries behind us. For the most part, we had a comfortable two gallery buffer zone between us, but the soundtrack of excited, young minds on a field trip breathed life and livened the experience in a way the clip clopping of our own footsteps wouldn’t have. The remainder of the day was filled with popping in and out of a few, imposing, rather unspectacular churches that stood on hills dotted around town (Chiesa di Santa Maria in Provenzano and Basilica San Francesco.) Thérèse exercises great patience joining me as I follow my art historical musings, so stopping into any church (or shop for that matter) is well within our loosely organized schedule. She would say “Never too busy to say a prayer or light a devotional candle.”
Our final meal was at La Taverna di San Giuseppe for the early, 7pm seating. The rustic looking restaurant was packed and T was especially charmed with a tiny chair next to the table, designed for women to put their purses on (or so it seemed.) We’d waited until our last night to have Siena's most famous pasta, Pici, a hand-rolled pasta similar to spaghetti but thicker and longer, with a wild boar ragu. T had chicken and I ate pork ribs as our secondi and we finished the meal with a semifredo, another first for the trip. As an enoteca with a curious cellar of old, rare bottles and an extensive wine list, I again chose an old favorite, the Fèlsina Berandenga 2021 Chianti Classico Riserva. This is a winemaker I have championed from my earliest days of enjoying wine. I recommend it often as their basic chianti, at an incredibly reasonable price, is consistently excellent vintage after vintage. (Their high end wines, like the “Rancia,” “Fontalloro” and “Maestro Rare” are well worth the splurge.) With our time in Siena coming to a close, we took our final walk around town. It was so quiet and empty in the Campo and the piazza in front of the Duomo, it was if we had the town all to ourselves. The sheer tranquility will be how I fondly remember this leg of our vacation.