Tuscany, Part II - Siena Countryside

April 4 thru April 11

If we thought we were in a prototypical Tuscan villa before, we have truly landed ourselves in a whole new world here in the hills outside of Siena. Our home in Simignano is straight out of the middle ages complete with a fireplace meant to roast a pig on a spit or smelt iron for some manner of weaponry. We have found ourselves on a farm villa with a horse named Taolongo * (that we call Papagiorgio), and a domesticated stray cat that we call BooBoo Chicken (that happens to be a charming version of our late cat Phoebe - whom I never connected with). Simignano is nestled in a protected woodland valley about 30 minutes west of Siena and is a place to visit if you don't want to see anyone for weeks at a time. It is also a place so quiet at night that the only thing to keep you up is the sound of your own heartbeat. Zane just said it's "peaceful."

Our main room reminded me a lot of the cabin I went to at Echo Lake when I was the kids' ages. Look at that fireplace back there!

The yard was enormous. 

If there was one major flaw to this house, it was the singular tiny window facing west out towards the yard. Sitting in the living room felt like being on a ocean freighter with one porthole to peer through. 

Zane spent a lot of time with this horse. 

Shots from the tiny hamlet of Simignano. It was no bigger than our Carl Rd back home. Incredible that it has been around for 1,000 years.

Friendliest stray cat on the planet. Bryce grew particularly attached to this little lady (we're pretty sure it's a girl as her belly grew noticeably over the course of the week)

I sense a kitty in our future.

I wouldn't let her in the house, so Nicole sat outside. 

We again are taking things slow here with ample hours dedicated to studies and hanging around the house. The weather remains chilly, which has definitely been a disappointment. We had hoped to be spending most of our time in shorts, sipping a light Chianti on lawn chairs, and talking about nothing in particular. Instead, we have spent most of our time cozying up by the fire, and still talking about nothing in particular. (According to our wine tasting host, this spring has been much cooler than normal, so it wasn't just poor planning on our part). But, just like the rest of the trip, we weren't about to let mother nature spoil our efforts to check out our surroundings.

Here are the highlights...

- Ceremonial Burning of the Math Book
Zane has consistently said that the worst part about our trip is doing school, so when given the opportunity, he jumped at the chance to make ash of his 4th grade math workbook.

- San Galgano - Sword in the Stone and a Roofless Cathedral
Scattered about the Tuscan countryside are hidden gems of medieval churches, castles, and hamlets. San Galgano is home to two historic landmarks, a roofless cathedral, and a church on a hill that contains the original "Sword in the Stone" (apparently inspired the King Arthur legend). I learned that the sword is still protected by an elderly Italian woman, as my attempt at using the protective plastic dome to take a family selfie drew a fiery rage the likes I have never seen. Good thing I don't know a lick of Italian except "Mi Scuzie" and "Grazie", neither of which helped.

The bottom left hand picture was the offending shot. The bottom right shows the 1,000yr old sword lodged in the stone. 

A re-enactment of the verbal abuse that I took. Mi Scuzie.

I had no idea the children were mocking me in the upper left picture. Grazie.

- Cooking Class
While previous cooking experiences have targetted a subset of the Long clan, this time we opted for a full family adventure - Italian style. We made Pici (thick noodles) pasta from scratch, prepped two kinds of sauces, made "salsa" for bruschetta, sampled local cheeses with jams, and finished out making Saltimbocca. Afterwards we all sat down to nosh on our creations. Yummy. Our chef instructor, Katia, was Nicole's kindred cooking spirit. Italian food is about high quality simple ingredients, just the way Nicole likes it.

Bottom pic: Bryce is not trying to eat rotten fish or anything, but rather, trying to fully appreciate the flavor of the aged cheese. The instructor told us to hold our nose while chewing and swallowing the cheese. But during the swallow, release the nose. 

That's Katia. Wonderful spirit. 

- San Gimignano 
San Gimignano is a small medieval village set on a hilltop with towers aplenty. It's a fetching little village to explore and well worth the visit after our cooking class. There were artists strewn about everywhere, and for good reason. Given the hillside perch, the buildings cascaded along sloped alleyways and opened up on terraces that overlooked the surrounding vineyards and rolling hills. If ever Disney decided to make Italyland, this is exactly what it would look like, perfectly preserved imperfections.

One of many vineyards ringing San Gimignano

This is the main pedestrian road running through town. 

The main center square.

This shot just oozes of Italy. Dried ham leg hanging from the ceiling, a row of Limoncello, colored pastas, every flavor of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Balsamic you could imagine, pestos and more. 

- Siena
Nicole has been longing to visit Siena for the past 13 years (since our last visit to Florence), and it did not disappoint. Unlike Florence's somewhat logical layout along two sides of the Orno River, Siena seems a bit haphazard and misshapen, which is quite endearing. It kind of straddles a hill and falls off in random directions. The Piazza Del Campo (the center square) is a sloped trapezoidal thing that makes it a wonderful place to layout and catch the midday sun. The Duomo del Siena, though a bit smaller than the one in Florence, has an eye catching zebra striped motif. While other cathedrals we have visited (ie St Peter's Basilica) seem like show pieces, this Duomo has a very real and complicated feel. It is truly a gathering place for locals.

Using the panorama function of the camera creates a false sense of linearity. From where I took this picture, each of the light lines splays out like rays from the sun. 

One of Nicole's dreams was to eat at a cafe on the Piazza Del Campo on a nice warm spring day. CHECK that off the list! 

We loved going around and finding the small neighborhood emblems throughout the town. 

This woman was playing a beautiful harpsichord sort of instrument.

The stripes are not just an outside thing.

There was a beautiful annex room with ancient music text

Like all Tuscan towns, Siena was teeming with cool back alleys and details from yesteryear.

- Chianti Wine Road
Nicole and I left the kids for the day to drive the famous SP222, the Chianti Wine Road. This road zigs and zags over and around hill after hill of vines, olives, and quaint tuscan villages. It struck me just how vast the Chianti region is for growing grapes. As we crested one ridge, it would open up to another valley of grapes, before climbing again disappearing to another land of vines. It would be like mashing up Napa, Sonoma, Livermore, Paso Robles, and all those random vineyards in the Sierra foothills. Our destination on the top end of the road was Greve in Chianti ** (Sonoma's Sister City), with a couple of pit stops on the way there and back.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Autumn was doing her best impression of a nagging parent, desperately trying to get the boys to study and stay off the screens. Fortunately the weather was grand, giving an outlet for outdoor activities. Thank goodness for Autumn (and the technology that binds us together).

One hour stop at Monteriggioni, a military fortress built 30km north of Siena as an outpost to fend off the attacks from Florence. Siena and Florence weren't terribly friendly neighbors for most of their existence. 

Nicole was about to crush a poor dude that was only out for a stroll eating an apple. 

A wonderful lunch in Greve. Something I wish we had in the States more often... $6 - 1/2L jugs of wine to share. 

One of countless vineyards. Had to resist stopping every 5 minutes to take pictures otherwise we would never get home.

I particularly loved the Hee-Haw image of the elderly folks looking out the window on to the cafe below. Nicole had a different image in mind. See below....

Needed a couple of Cappuccinos to burn off the 1/2L of wine.

- Hidden Cloister
One of the many advantages of a one year trip is the ability to move at a slower pace and visit the second and third tier sites. On this cold and rainy morning, we took the boys to a small village with a medieval Cloister (Chiostro dell'Abbazia di Torri). So remote and random is this place that, upon arrival, we had to call a local villager to let us in.

- Wine Tasting at Treccianno
You can't get all the way to the birthplace of wine without taking a pause to do a little wine tasting. Our previous wine country road trip was a little too full of driving Italian roads to comfortably consume, so we opted to visit the local winery about 7 minutes from our home. Worst case scenario, we stumble home... Nicole and I spent a splendid two hours getting a private tour and tasting their delicious wines. We're really not winos (even though we partake with some frequency), and it is with some embarrassment that we found out that Chianti is not a varietal of grape. All the Chianti Classico that is made in this region is really just 100% Sangiovese grapes. We also found out that the soil is so rich in nutrients that they actually plant weeds (actually beautiful yellow and purple flowers) every other row to starve the vines of their food.

While the wine was delicious, we came away having purchased a bottle of Vin Santo (a sweet desert type wine) and Cantuccini (a type of biscotti) that when combined, is delicious!

Random Thoughts and Observations:
- Tuscan bread is not terribly appetizing, at least not as a standalone meal. Whereas we could nosh on a hunk of Semifreddies Sourdough with perhaps a hint of butter, Tuscan bread is made without salt, and is, as our cooking teacher says, a vehicle for eating other things. Centuries ago, salt was currency, so putting it in bread was ill-advised.

- ‎Italians eat Italian food. Outside of perhaps the most urban and touristy areas of the big cities, it is nearly impossible to find any kind of international restaurants (ie Thai, Indian, Mexican, Chinese, etc). And the one Chinese restaurant we found was full of other Chinese tourists. When we asked the host at the winery if she ate non-italian food, she said "Of course! During the winter months I may eat more pork in Olive oil, and during the summer months I will eat more fresh vegetables with a bit of cheese and Olive oil. Only the young people eat the pizza." I think she missed our point. This is yet another reason we are so spoiled in California - every night we can dine in a different part of the world.

- ‎Our host, Giulio, is such a wonderful soul.

- ‎Understandably so, Tuscany is chock full of artists doing their best to capture the beauty of this place. It has inspired me to pick up the pencil again.

- ‎Everything in Tuscany, and for that matter, most of Italy, seems to be built haphazardly, organically, and out of necessity. I have spent entirely too many hours just staring at the rock and mortar walls that lie beneath the flaking stucco facades. The walls are assembled with whatever rock, brick, wood, or broken clay pot that they had on hand, and whispers of faint windows and doorways long filled in are strewn about everywhere. It's lovely.

- ‎Where you might get Castle fatigue in Scotland, or Temple fatigue in Angkor, or Street Market fatigue in Southeast Asia, Tuscany has an overabundance of eye catching skinny cobbled roads lined by medieval rock walled buildings that subtly curve out of sight. At some point, you just take a passive glance, then continue on. But only after taking yet another picture because dang, they're cute scenes you just don't see in the states.

*  Taolongo was injured in last years Palio, the infamous no holds barred horse race in the Siena square that pits neighborhood against neighborhood. Papagiorgio is comfortably living out the rest of his life well fed and well loved by the kind Airbnb host, Giulio.

** We have definitely grown used to a smoke free world in the states. If only our European friends would join in the fun. We sat down to a lovely outdoor lunch in Greve, only to have two different groups sit down and light up on either side. It sort of spoiled the mood and we ended up wrapping up our meal inside.

All for now... Next Stop: Venice!