Uno Per Settimana

Siena vista

This is meant to say "once a week" but who knows. My Italian is best when I look up all the words and write them down. I keep trying though and everyone is nice about figuring out what the gestures and the hodgepodge words( including some in Spnaish and French to which I resort when I don't know the Italian equivalent) mean to convey.

The latest word I may need is "bedbugs"! As of yesterday when a red spot appeared on my face and other smaller ones appeared on my body, I was mystified when I had been anywhere to get bug bites. Today my shoulders and across the top of breasts have many spots which look especially like the Internet photos of bedbugs. With my proclivity for allergic reactions, of course mine are the worse of the three of us and we can only assume we were bitten at this very cute place we stayed in Siena on Friday night.

The past week was very routine...we've definitely gotten this down to a science. Mostly Rider and I do the household chores, stroll on the property and Rider plays in the large grey tub Betsy bought to use for a swimming pool on our patio. We put in about four inches of water, take off his diaper and he is content to play 30 or more minutes at a time.   Then we empty the water on the parched grass and flowers. It's now hot here during the day and cools off at night but still not one drop of rain since arrival.

Betsy continues to paint a lot during the day and has already completed 12 pictures. It's fascinating to see how all the painters have progressed in their crafts since beginning. Naturally each came with different amounts of experience and skills and have grown proportionally. As an outsider, it appears that taking the time to paint as much as possible leads to the most progress. The instructor is Russian and is an MFA professor at BU and Betsy thinks he's quite good. What luxury to have the time and the instruction to perfect one's passion.

Betsy's paintings

I'm definitely jealous and hope to find some time to try watercoloring. I did do one small thing this week but it was fairly pitiful so I'll enlist Betsy to give me a lesson!

San Gimignano

Friday was a field trip day that proved to be more than anticipated. Betsy, Rider and I followed the group in our car and we started out for San Gimignano with a following visit to Siena. We made it as far as the entrance to the A1 and got ourselves in the "easy pass" lane, had to back up and get in the regular lane by which time the other two vehicles were long gone. This still could have been salvaged but we weren't sure of the route and didn't have our map out so we made a 50% decision and peeled off in the direction of Bologna instead of Florence and couldn't turn around for many kilometers. That time did give us a chance to set up the GPS for the destination of San Gimignano and to try to text the director, Mark. Now to complicate matters, Betsy had to explain to me how to work the GPS and text message while driving insanely fast on the autostrade as other cars flashed lights indicating to move to the slower lane.(again mostly short Italian men driving Mercedes, BMW, or Audi in a reckless fashion ). By the time we navigated ourselves to San Gimignano and parked, Rider had completed his nap and I had acquired a raging headache. I do have to say the headache was probably a symptom of an allergy attack that had commenced earlier in the week complete with runny nose, aches, sore teeth and chest congestion. Probable cause....sleeping in the immediate vicinity of many feathered animals.

San Gimignano is an ancient walled city ( site dates from the 12th century as a pligrim's shelter and the walls from the 13th) that is designated by World Heritage as a landmark and looks like a Disney set except that it is completely overrun with tourist shops and other tourist attractions. The class was there primarily to see the religious art so we knew that we could intercept them at one of the two main churches which we did. Hooray...lost but found.

Piazza

Piazza near church

 Rider was just along for the (stroller) ride so he was content to be wheeled around and check out the many dogs and children we spied. After the church tours, free time sent us straight to the gelato shop where Betsy had cheesecake and I had coconut and we both shared small bites with Rider.Later I found we had picked my buddy, Rick S's, favorite gelato shop on Piazza del Cisterna where the gelato maker Sergio was a member of the team that won the official Gelato World Cup. I can attest that my coconut was blue ribbon. Yum!

Always strollin'

It was a case of dessert before lunch as we met at noon and had wild boar(cinghiale) and pecorino cheese sandwiches washed down with the local wine, Vernaccia di San Gimignano.
I learned that pecorino cheese starts at the consistency of cream cheese which is what we had on our sandwiches and is allowed to age until it is dried out much like aged parmesan. In the cheese shop the various stages were wrapped in differing hues of papers with the black foil reserved for the aged pecorino. The sandwich was quite tasty and Betsy and I both remarked how much Paul would have enjoyed not only seeing the wares in the shop marked by two wild boar heads flanking the door but tasting the goods as well. After quite a wait while Mark retrieved the van (we had parked close to the gate...yet another concession to a baby but only costing about 3 Euros more for the time we were there), we were off to Siena. The drive ,as did the drive down to San G,demonstrated that Tuscany is not all geographically alike. The terrain down that morning and over to Siena appeared much more like I think of as Toscana.
More open valleys with the patchwork of yellow and shades of green.    

Beautiful Tuscan view

Rider and Mimi enjoy bella Italia

Every sight is lovely
Trying to find a place to park outside the walls in Siena was a challenge and necessitated a later start than we planned. With several of our group scheduled to take a train on to Rome for the weekend, it was decided to allow free time and plan to return later to Siena forMark's guided art tour. Betsy and I opted for letting Rider play in the park grass near our car and then head to check-in for night's accommodations.

                                                      

In a Siena park
With GPS, we found the check-in for the hotel and got directions on how to actually get to L'Aja B&B. It was within 6 minutes of the city and had beautiful grounds with lovely casitas. 

Bedbug haven ?

Rider's first McDonald's experience

beautiful flowers everywhere

What a view!
There was a delicious breakfast the next morning but in between there was no working air conditioning, no way to open the window fully, lots of street noise, a small dog that yipped all night and, apparently, bedbugs! Combine that with no baby crib so Rider sleeping between us and it adds up to two grouchy adults on Saturday morning as we set our sights and GPS for Volterra.

                                            

Art in Volterra

Volterra is another one of the walled cities in the region and known primarily as the site of Etruscan civilization dating back about 2000 years, presaging Roman civilization of course. Because it was market day, we chose to park close to the market and approach the portal along a scenic route. Luckily, we did find a parking place near the market which is located right beside the Roman Theatre.

Roman Theatre at Volterra

Volterra feels extremely different than San Gimignano. We saw few tourists and many locals shopping, eating and enjoying the perfect weather. The market was mostly clothing so we traipsed through rapidly and entered Porta Fiorentina. With a reasonable climb, we reached a panorama point above the Roman Theatre (built in 10AD) which gave us a sense of how spacious the original Etruscan city had been. In the distance, one could see some of the original walls of the Etruscan age.

                

Volterra baptistry

Religious art

Illuminated hymnals

We visited the obligatory Museum of Scared Art, the Bapistry and an exhibit of Volterra's own leaning tower constructed in alabaster for which the town is also famous before strolling to
to the Etruscan Museum (if you reach the district prison, you've gone too far). I was getting exited because I really wanted to see this particular museum! Unfortunately, our timing was a bit off and Rider was hungry. At least he didn't have an explosion diaper as he did at many of the other famous spots.

The museum itself is a step back in time.  

Etruscan Museum
Mostly it's filled with funerary urns that were fascinating. Evidently ( not much was translated into English so I must speculate and verify later), the dead body was cremated and the remains placed into a vessel that was typically 18 or inches wide by 30 inches long. The sides were reliefs with a lot of animals depicted while the top was carved with a likeness of the person usually reclining as if at a feast. Presumably the likenesses were prepared ahead of the death as each was unique as to that Person. Everything was just sitting out and available for touching though I guess one can not harm a piece of stone that's already withstood a lot in 2000 years.Some were of alabaster but most looked to be made from the "tuff" which is a local volcanic stone. While I perused, Betsy took Rider in the garden while he played among the priceless artifacts.          

Rider touching priceless Etruscan art but not breaking it

Thankfully, even he couldn't harm these things!

We had pushed our luck by then so we headed to a pastry shop and had hot panini, expresso and cannoli. Rider thought the bread from the fromaggio panini suited him best.
        

Lunch time

It would have been nice to have sampled the regional fare but he needed a pronto lunch and a subsequent nap. We didn't spot Edward or Bella in this town famous for its' association with the Twilight books/movies! We did buy three postcards though and will send them to three Twilight fans...wonder who that could be.

Our retreat was through the market and back to the car, Rider strapped into the car seat and we were off to Capitignano. We did stumble into another walled city literally ( we drove through the middle of it as the GPS had a hiccup in our routing )and will have to consult the map to even know which city we accidentally visited! There was more fabulous scenery to observe on the 2 hour drive home and quietness as he slept the entire distance. Lots of places to buy vino and olive oil but no time to stop. Downside of traveling with the baby, one can not always be spontaneous when you are at the mercy of their schedule.

Another unknown walled city

So we were home well before sunset and in time for Betsy to paint, I strolled Rider and made a quick dinner after I put him to bed. A full week indeed.