Siena, and chefs come to our house

Another beautiful day and our plan is to see Siena.  It's not too far from the house - maybe a 45-minute drive.

We parked at the train station, since it's not possible to drive in the old part of town.  We thought we'd catch a bus up to the top of the hill - where the old walled city is located.  Instead, we took a series of escalators up.  I think there were 9 of them, and some pretty steep, but it was a great way to get to the top without waiting for the next bus.  And it's free!

Our first stop was the weekly market, where everything from undies to kitchen utensils to fresh flowers and food, and even ready-to-eat foods are for sale.

One of the meat and cheese vendors at the Siena market

Fresh produce at the market

Flowers at the market

The market closes at 1:00, so we spent an hour or so perusing the hundreds of booths.  

I could post a picture of Rick, every single day, standing next to his favorite Italian vehicle, the Ape (ah-pay), a three-wheeled truck that we've seen everywhere.  He's sure we need one on Camano Island, and I think it would be fun too!

  Although Rick loves this little truck, John, a contractor, looks a little skeptical.  How many trips to the dump, during demolition, would this take? 

While we were shopping, we happened to see a Wind (cellphone company) store nearby, and we'd been wanting to buy a SIM card, to use in one of our unlocked phones,  so we would have a working phone for local calls.  We bought a card, and some minutes. The clerk told us it would all be loaded and working in about an hour.  We should have stayed to watch him load everything, but in our rush we didn't.  It seems the clerk may have pocketed most of our money, leaving us with about 5 minutes of call time, instead of the few hours we paid for.  Too bad, but I have to say, this is the only time we were taken advantage of on the whole trip.

After the market, we headed over to Il Campo, the main square in town.  It's a beautiful square surrounded by restaurants and shops.  Every year they host the famous Palio horse race there.  The town is divided into different Contrada, or neighborhoods, and 10 of the 17 are represented in the race each year.  It's a matter of great pride in town, and the different contrada have flags, unique street lamps and colors to represent their group.

What to do, what to do?

Why not just sit down and enjoy it like everyone else?

We had a great lunch, at Caffe Nannini, at the best table on the square.  I thought maybe you'd be tired of seeing another picture of us at a restaurant, so here's one of the view we had from the table.

Restaurant on Il Campo in Siena

The view from our table

After lunch we were off to see the Duomo.  It's very grand and beautiful.

Siena's Duomo, dating back to 1215

Inside, the church is chock-full of paintings, sculpture, stained glass and inlaid-marble floors.

Ceiling of the Piccolomini library

After seeing the Duomo, we headed back through town to the escalators that would take us back down to the parking garage near the train station.  The parking garage is also connected to the Pam grocery store and a mall of other shops.  We picked up a few things at Pam and went down to get the cars.  A local gentleman also checking out at the pay parking machine told us we should have gotten a token at the Pam store, and our parking would be free.  We were too tired to go back up to the store, but parking was only 1 euro and 60 cents for each car for the 4 or 5 hours we'd been here anyway.  What a deal!

Back at the house the guys built a fire in the living room fireplace.  We had hired a chef to come in and cook us a dinner.  This is one of the things RentVillas, the agency where we rented the house, recommends. It was a real treat.  Two ladies, sisters as it turned out, came about 6:30 and started preparing our dinner.  They work with a company called the Malgeri Group, which also offers cooking classes in the area.  The food was wonderful, and we didn't have to lift a finger.  They not only prepared and served everything, but did the dishes too.  The cost was 60 euros per person, which is pretty expensive, but we all enjoyed it thoroughly.

A fire in the fireplace, and Diana Krall on the Ipad, set the tone for our fancy dinner

OK, so maybe I'll try to limit our "at the table" photos to 1 per day.  This is our chef-prepared dinner at the house.

You can't see this very well in the picture, but Marco is all duded out in his sports jacket, making the other guys look like shmucks.  We've been trying to talk them all into wearing scarves, like the Italian men do. That would have helped at our special dinner.

Our second course of chicken breast, with a light gravy-like sauce and drizzled with a balsamic reduction.

Homemade tiramisu for dessert.

We had nice wine served throughout the meal.  One of our favorite antipastis was peccorino and gorgonzola cheeses served with fig jam or honey.  There were 4 or 5 other things served with this course too.  They also made a wonderful creamy risotto with white truffles and cucumbers.  There was also a pasta course.  Homemade tiramisu and then limoncello were served to finish the meal.

We were stuffed, and promised we'd try to fix some of this great meal at home.  Come si dice in Italiano? (How do you say in Italian) - I would like to have dinner at YOUR house?  

Settling in and our first excursion

Our house in Tuscany, surrounded by olive trees and grape vines

No "wheels up" today.  I forgot we needed a day to get situated.  We stayed at the house to do some laundry, and get settled.  The Coop supermercato closes at 12:30 on Sundays, so we needed to get our shopping list made and head out.

It's great that we have a washing machine at the house, but it takes an hour-and-a-half to do a load, and then there isn't a dryer, so clothes take many hours to dry on the drying rack.  It's an all-day process for the 8 of us.

The grape vines and supports work well for laundry too

There are always at least 4 of us going shopping.  Good thing, because we have about a ton of food and beverages by the time we're done.  Amazingly, the money we spend on all of this is about the equivalent of one lunch for the group at a restaurant.

We were exhausted by our few days in Rome, and our attempt to see as much as we could in those few days, so a laid-back day at the house was enjoyed by all.

Dinner was much like last night.  Chef Ricardo, prep staff, clean-up crew.  We had turkey cutlets, potatoes, salad, and chocolate and cake for dessert.

Our kitchen, our favorite beverage, our dessert!

Today is Monday, and our first excursion in Tuscany.  We decided on Volterra, since it looked like that was the longest drive, and since we'd had a day to rest up for it.  The drive, which should have taken an hour or so, actually took almost 2 hours by the time we were parked.  We did get lost on the way, but only once!

We were ready for lunch by the time we got to Volterra.  "Wheels up at 9:00"  actually turned out to be departure at 9:30.  We ate at a place recommended by David Wagner, of Italia Roadrunners, called Il Sacco Fiorentino, which was very good.  Nice house wine.  Italian beer is turning out to be a favorite with some of the group too.

Volterra's main square, with the city hall building from the 1200's

On the edge of town are the ruins of a Roman theater, which are pretty fascinating.  They fell out of use hundreds of years ago, and people started tossing their garbage over the wall, into the theater.  After 800 years of this, the stage, the amphitheater, and all of the outbuildings were completely buried under the garbage.  In the 1950's an archaeology buff, working at the local school, started investigating where the theater would have been, and excavation began.  It's a very interesting place.

Roman ruins over the city wall in Volterra

The stage of the Roman theater

The shopkeepers and people working at the churches and museums take a few hours for lunch each day, at least in the small towns.  Of course, we Americani want to hit the ground running after lunch.  It's disappointing when the cathedral isn't open, or the cute shops aren't open.  There were several small churches and chapels in town that were open though, and they were beautiful.  We didn't feel like we'd missed much.  The few shops that were open sold a few things to our group.  Oh, and Volterra is known for alabaster, so there are many opportunities to purchase things carved from it around town.  We all bought something to remember our visit.

Volterra has also become famous as the setting for one of the Twilight movies.  We didn't see any vampires, but we know they were there somewhere.

On the way back, we stopped in Monteriggioni, a small walled hill town that was fun to see.  They had some ramparts built along part of the town walls, so we paid to climb up and see the view.

Marco on the ramparts

Our trip home was uneventful, but we needed to stop at the Coop again for provisions.  All eight of us invaded the little store.  I wonder whether they'll be happy or sad when they realize we're gone at the end of the week.

Dinner was leftover chicken, with some additional chicken, potatoes, salad.  Good, cheap wine.  John picked out some profiteroles at the Coop for dessert.

Arrivederci Roma

We're headed out of Rome today.  The Termini station isn't far from our hotel, but we decided to pay for taxis to take us, and all of our luggage, to the station.  Our goal was to catch the 8:58 train from Rome to Chiusi, where we'd pick up our cars.

We purchased tickets, without much confusion, at ticket machines in the station, then headed out to find the track we'd be leaving from.  The ticket didn't have any info about that, but a girl standing near the machine told us the track number.  We argued later about whether she was an employee of the station or a gypsy.  She didn't ask us for money, but she didn't look very official either.

We were glad we'd taken a cab over to the station, since the walk out to our track was pretty long.  As we were standing, pondering which direction to go, a gentleman approached us and asked if we needed help.  I asked if he worked there, and he said yes.  He reminded us to validate our tickets at the machine, and pointed us in the direction of the track we needed (wrong track, as it turned out.)  We thanked him, and then he held out his hand, asking for money for a coffee.  No way, I said.

We got to our train, and got situated for the 1-1/2 hour ride out to Chiusi, in Tuscany.  The scenery outside of Rome wasn't very pretty - graffiti on the walls of plain, ugly buildings - but once we got well out of the city it started to get scenic.  We sped past green, rolling hills, with a glimpse of a hill town or monastery or winery every once in a while.  Get used to it, kids.  From now on it's just cute, cute, cute, quaint, quaint, quaint, and pretty, pretty, pretty.

On the train.  Mark is always smiling, even when he's sleeping.

Trying to find the car rental agency was a bit of a challenge, but we'd allowed enough time before they closed at 1:00.  We got directions from a policeman in town, and picked up our two station wagons.  We'd left some of the group at the station with the luggage, so went back to pick them up.

We headed up the road to our little village - Badia Agnano - near Arezzo.  More cute, quaint and pretty along the roads.

We knew we couldn't check into our villa until 4, so we looked for a place to stop for lunch.  We'll try the Autogrill one day, but hoped to find something more unique for our first lunch in Tuscany.

We pulled off the road and headed to the village of Monte San Savino.  Walking around the village, we couldn't see any possibility for lunch.  Rick asked a young man walking with his wife if there was a place to eat, and he pointed to what looked like a butcher shop - Le Delizie di Aldo.  He said they had seating downstairs, and it was a good place.

It was a great place!  We were seated downstairs, in a charming cave-like room, and there were hams hanging on the walls - real ones, not decorating props.

Real hams on the wall behind us

Our waitress, Christina, tried to tell us about the menu in halting English. She helped us to understand what she could - meat of moo being one of our favorite translations.   Finally she ran upstairs and came back with her Ipad, where she'd plugged in the translation of what she was trying to tell us.  They had a typical Tuscan tasting menu, she said, which was a good way to try the meat that they specialized in at their shop.  We all had it, plus wine and dessert.  All great.  We bought some ham to take to the house with us.  We'd go back there, for sure, if we were in San Savino again.

You may have noticed our celebrity traveler - Nick Cage.  He's been happily accompanying our group all along, and has been welcomed with open arms by the Italians we've met (at least the females, and even they sometimes wonder why, out of all the handsome men in the world, we're drawn to Nick.  Who can explain that magnetism he has?)

Everyone loves Nick

We arrived at our rental villa, Podere della Fraternita, at just about official check-in time - 4 p.m.. Our landladies were here, along with Roberto, the husband of one of the ladies.  The house was remodeled a few years ago, and was beautiful, comfortable and up-to-date as far as the bathrooms, laundry and kitchen were concerned.  There is a view of the surrounding hills, dotted with lights at night.  What did I tell you?  Cute, cute, cute.

After checking in and getting instructions, mostly in Italian (!), one of the cars headed out to the nearest supermercato - Coop - for provisions.  What did Ben Franklin say?  Thirst is a terrible thing?  Or was it, God loves us and that's why he gave us beer?  Either way, we made sure there would be no thirst or hunger at our place for a few days.

Chef Ricardo (Rick), along with a great prep staff, put a good dinner on the table.  Chicken thighs, cooked with tomatoes, served with ravioli and ribbon pasta.  Salad.  Chocolate and some kind of pastry for dessert. We are never without biscotti here either.  They're appropriate for any meal.
The kitchen is too small for the large clean-up crew that is always insistent on taking care of the after-dinner chores.

To bed late, in spite of the fact that our plan is "wheels up" at 8:00 tomorrow morning.  Mark is retired from Boeing, and we love the jetliner inference.  I don't think we really have our wheels up at the right time, but it's the thought that counts.