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Published: April 2nd 2005
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today's adventure. haven't left my city for a while. time to step out.
Take a train to Siena, city on hill, characterized by steep streets and known for Piazza del Campo, originally used to race horses. This piazza, almost oval, is lined by restaurants and outdoor cafes, and absolutely crowded with gelato-licking tourists. Siena feels like a smaller Florence in architecture and energy. I walk randomly through the streets, through smaller walkways, under many arches, streets rising and falling. I come to the piazza al duomo, which feels oddly empty and void of energy (whereas that of the Firenze is always popular with tourists and horse carriages, small markets and portrait painters.
The façade of the Siena Duomo is beautifully carved, every corner of white marble horses, kings and angels. Because the Pope is deathly ill, tourists are asked not to take pictures nor even to talk once inside the Duomo, which today is being reserved for prayer only. Although it seems that everyone heads to the NO PHOTO rule, we still all enter with intentions to sight-see and raise our heads high, and eye’s slit narrow to gaze at the highly decorated walls, vault ceilings and marble floors.
Attention is given to every corner, with black and white stripes on walls and columns, and all other parts not decorated by frescoes, oil paintings and stained glass, is a rich blue with gold stars. The arched ceiling of the nave (the central, widest part of the cross) is lined with I believe are sculpted portraits of the popes and or main priests. The floors are decorated with very large, detailed designs of biblical scenes in 4 or 5 tones of marble (I’ve seen this use of marble on the floor no where else).
I treat myself to a gelato, probably one of the best I’ve had. Creamy and rich. The woman makes my cone twice, because the first was not perfect. I tell them, giggling and bit ashamed, that I’d eat it anyway…. noce (walnut) e cioccolato. Looks huge, and I wonder now if I can manage it all. Who could every wonder such a thing?….!
I find the bus to San Gimignano…and for some reason what I thought a 20 minute ride became 70 minutes. On the way, I see Sgimignano from a distance (teasing me that I’d already missed my stop…) because it, as well
as Siena, sits atop a hill, characterized by its medieval wall and towers…enough to make anyone laps into romantic imagery of knights and maidens and noble wars.
So at 4pm I arrive. The medieval city truly has become a tourist hot-spot, but those like me who are drawn to the architecture walk with the heads up not straight ahead. I enter one of the few portals (large, arched doorways) into the city. I walk the small streets, passed the groups of tourist that generally remain on the main streets. I ask about the abundance of wood products for sale and find out that the abundance of products connects to the abundance of unused wood after the olives are harvested from the trees. I splurge and buy a beautiful wood board, used for cutting cheese, bread, serving olives soaked in oil and herbs. I am delighted to have this token. I also notice that San Gimignano is known for its production of Vernaccia and Chianti. I’ll buy some on the way out, as right now I’m headed towards the two towers…solid blocks of stone, around which continuously glide birds. Everything is a very old stone, and windows decorated with carved
stone, and terraces with ornate iron. Vines and flowers creeping up the sides of buildings seem to have been growing for a hundred years in the nutrient-rich sun shine so close to the clouds.
I walk into a few art galleries with modern or impressionist artwork. No tourists around. I stumble upon an small old church and settle on the steps in front. A group of boys are playing soccer in the shade, and a family feeds their baby on the steps of an old, covered well. I follow no map, no preplanned agenda. I choose a street because of its smell, or an the welcome feeling of an open door lit by the warm but fading sun. I look out upon the hills surrounding this ancient city. A farmer is burning old bushes and the smoke is rising. Laundry is hung out the windows of the houses. Ochres, whites, yellows, browns, greens. Those post cards you see, of the landscape of Tuscany. that's real. but what you don't know is how it smells in the hills, of wood burning in the stoves of old, stone-walled, houses in the evenings, and the laundry catches the wind like the new-growing
leaves on trees, the cherry blossoms already open and bright and cheerful, the sound of the train as it weaves around hills, sometimes going directly right through the heart of them. Right through the heart of them.
A beautiful day.
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