Tuscany Day 3

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Fifteen minutes south of Stomennano is the town of Siena. Siena is the home of the Palio , which lucky for us was taking place the same week we were in Tuscany. We all loaded up and went to Siena. The place was packed, it took us 45 minutes to find a parking space and I’ll tell you the parking was tight, especially with a nine person van! We parked at the Soccer Stadium thinking it was away from the crowds but I think everyone else had the same idea. As we drove around we had inches to spare, I had my head out one window and Bob’s was hanging out the other window as we squeezed through the lot!

After finally parking we headed into to the Piazza del Campo where the race took place. They had already had the preliminaries in the morning. The entire square was covered with a foot of dirt and all the restaurants on the square were open. We had asked about going to the Palio but the tickets sell out months in advance. We could have watched from the center of the piazza but that would require staying there for the entire race, 2 - 4 hours. The only way you can leave is if you pass out.

Anyway we wandered through town. This was one of my favorite towns in Tuscany. It was easy to get around, lots of shops and food and friendly people. It was however very crowded because of the event. We wandered the streets, toured the Duomo and had a great lunch at the Osteria Le Logge . This place had great food and wide selection of wines. We ventured away from the house wine list and had a couple Brunellos, excellent.

After lunch we wandered back towards the Piazza della Liberta, which is back towards the car. It seemed like a simple task to navigate back towards the stadium but I didn’t pay attention to the elevation lines on the map and almost got fired as navigator. I took a straight line from the Duomo towards the Piazza but didn’t notice that we had to climb down and back out of a ravine, it was good exercise, but no one agreed with me.

Anyway the reason for heading to the Piazza della Liberta is that we wanted to taste some regional wines without having to trek from winery to winery. At the Piazza is a wine purveyor, Restorante Enoteca Millevini, that carries a wide range of local wines. We had a few bottles that were very good but I can’t remember their names.

We left Siena back to the villa for dinner. We had arranged for the villa to cook us dinner and serve us in the big dining room. This was a great experience. We had a five course meal paired with wine and a white gloved waiter and more silverware than anyone should own (I had to refer to my Emily Post training)

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