Sienna: Truffles and Towers

My 3-night stay in Sienna was my first real solo project. As I got off the train in Sienna station and walked into the dusk looking for the bus stop and wondering how I was going to find my hotel, I had the panicky yet excited feeling that this was a make-it-or-break-it moment. It was sink or swim for young Ann in the wide, lonely ocean.

And I am happy to say- it went swimmingly!

On the streets of Sienna

Once safely in the hotel, somewhat flustered after a 30-minute walk around the city feeling awkward and lost but filled with a deep determination find my lodgings on my own, I breathed a triumphant and relieved sigh. The hotel Alma Domus is a small but cozy affair run by Dominican sisters and attached to the house of Saint Catherine of Sienna, and I felt secure and sheltered in the austere room lined with religious art. I rallied my spirits, showered and got prettied up and went out to enjoy my first ever meal for one at a restaurant. Goat cheese fondue served in a little ceramic dish over a tealight candle, a mini bottle of Chianti Classic, picci pasta and chocolate-pastry cake with limonchello made for one of the best meals of my short life. While sipping wine and watching the moon hang large and luminous over the Tower of Mangia, a single thought rose in my mind: “This trip was such a good idea!!”

On the train, I made friends with a cheerful Italian named Feliccio who told me, “Sienna will-a become your new love; you will leave-a your gheart in Sienna.” Despite his incoherent English he was quite correct- it may be too early in my journey to leave my heart anywhere, but I cannot deny that Sienna was absolutely lovely and suited me to a T.

Whereas Cinque Terre seemed to exist almost entirely for tourists, and was comprised of sleepy little towns filled with souvenir shops and restaurant with names in English, Sienna is a place where Italians actually live and work. Granted it is a major tourist town, but I was able to have some experience of Italian culture especially when walking the streets of Sienna in the morning as people are going to work and in the evening as the locals take their evening walk. The city itself is a medieval town almost entirely preserved with a labyrinth of narrow cobblestone streets. Tall brick buildings shield the streets from the daylight, giving the town an intimate and mysterious atmosphere. The history of the city and the accomplishments of its past citizens give it atmosphere enough, but what I really loved about this place was the local color. These people are fiercely proud not only of their heritage, but also of their culture as it is today. They take pride in their food, their wine, their neighborhoods, their land, their personal appearance, and their whole way of life. The city is well kept, the restaurants are excellent and inexpensive, and the citizens friendly and accommodating.

Enjoying the sun under the olive trees

I was itching to see the countryside as well, my Americanized imagination conjuring up scenes from Under the Tuscan Sun, so I booked a wine tour of Tuscany my second day there. The tour group was led by an animated slim Italian woman in heels with wild curly hair and a thick accent. Our group was like something out of a movie- an America family with two kids in sneakers and t-shirts, two Japanese couples with no less than five cameras between them, an old French woman with a cane and her grandson in tow, a hearty Australian couple in sunglasses and a quiet young British couple. I guess that makes me the independent American student free-spiriting it through Europe. After I somehow managed to get lost in a tiny city with about two streets, much to the chagrin of the tour guide (who was on a strict schedule and, being Italian, naturally resented this fact) I became instead the air-headed blonde girl the Australians took under their wing. Luckily the whole silly-blonde-girl-delaying-the-tour-by-fifteen-minutes episode was eclipsed by the old-French-lady-disappearing-into-a-forbidden-coffee shop incident and I was no longer persona non grata on the tour.

An actor impersonating Dante in a square in San Gimignano
-what a treat to hear Dante in the original Italian!

The trip out to the medieval city of San Gimignano gave me all the views I could ever want of undulating hills covered in vineyards and punctuated by stands of tall evergreens. The Chianti valley is just oozing with fertility and wellbeing and beauty. In San Gimignano, over which Dante presided as magistrate for many years, there are over thirty towers (there used to be over sixty) built by the nobility in medieval times to showcase their wealth and power. This makes the tiny city into a mass of competing slender towers in various designs, each one striving, like the families who built them, for dominance. To my active imagination, the towers and the landscape tell a story of a remarkable people. It’s easy to believe that some of the greatest politicians, artists and visionaries of Western Civilization came out of Tuscany; people like Dante and the Medici and Leonardo Da Vinci. In this land where beauty is so pervasive the imagination has endless fuel for inspiration, and the raw fertility of the land leads to wealth and plenty. Spiritedness and a taste for finery are the natural result of the tremendous wealth and beauty available in a place like this. The people are like their famed Chianti wine- fiery but refined.

The winemaker teaching me the proper tasting method

Which leads me to my experience with wine tasting! In a small family vineyard in a courtyard surrounded by neat hedges and flower beds I sampled the violet-scented, ruby colored Chianti for which Tuscany is known. A dark-haired wine owner in an apron explained to us in animated yet authoritative Italenglish the proper procedure for tasting wine, and led us through a sampling of some of his finest custom-made wines. The Americans and Australians were especially enthralled by this performance, and by his explanation of the winemaking process that had been passed down in his family for hundreds of years. I enjoyed myself quite a bit between watching the interactions between all the various nationalities as more and more wine was consumed and losing myself in the smell and taste of the best wine I’ve ever come across. As time wore on I, as the single blonde American girl, became the favorite of the winemaker and his brother and was referred to as “the Princess.” Seeing as this scored me free wine and heart-shaped cookies, as well as a special toast, I decided I was OK with it. The group stumbled back to the tour bus laden with bottles of delicious wine in red and gold bags, and it’s safe to say that a good time was had by all.

Me on the Duomo Panorama

I could go on for pages about Tuscany, what I learned and what I still want to discover, the past and the present, but let me just end with a description of the food. Because it. Was. Incredible. Picci is the characteristic pasta of the region, and is thick and chewy. I had mine served in a creamy brown sauce with sausage and mushrooms, topped with basil and Parmesan cheese. Bruschetta are thick pieces of toasted bread served with a variety of cold and warm toppings such as goats cheese, salami, chicken liver pate, and simple tomatoes tossed with olive oil and basil. Speaking of olive oil, it’s all made locally and is thick and golden and often infused with lemon, basil, rosemary, or even truffles. The tiramisu is soft and rich, dusted with coca powder and drizzled in chocolate sauce- and served in generous rectangular portions that fill a salad plate. Pastries are varied and numerous, flavored with amaretto, hazelnut, ricotta, coffee and citrus and dusted in powedered sugar. Panforte is a dense, chewy yet soft taffy-like substance that comes in flat round cakes and is made of honey, studded with almonds and streaked with chocolate. It absolutely melts in your mouth and is sometimes surprisingly spicy. And, finally, Chianti wine: crimson in color, it smells like flowers and slides smooth and hot over the tongue, is aged in oak barrels for a minimum of two years. I don’t know anything about wine but after tasting the special grape blends of the jocular Italian winemaker I am sure that my taste in wines has been forever changed. One of the many things which I am sure will be changed about me after this trip has run its course!

I’m currently in Rome, and after six days in this vast and sometimes frustrating city I am flying to Barcelona tomorrow. As long as I can keep posting about one place before I leave the next I feel like I’m doing pretty well! Happy Easter everyone, Ciao!