Added 18 November 2008. Pictures and stories from our trip to Italy, from November 1 to 14.
The next day, we did succeed in going on a Siena/San Gimignano bus tour.
View of Tuscany from Florence
It was quite a big group for this one and, it turned out, a trilingual one: All information was provided in English, French, and Spanish. I felt exhausted for the tour guide.
Siena used to be as big and important a city as Florence, but it was conquered during long-ago wars, and now is a small tourist town, with much of its historical buildings preserved. As well, cars are banned from its interior.
Our visit there occurred entirely in bright sunshine. We were divided into three groups. Jean and I decided to join the smallest, which was French/Spanish. Each group had a local guide. She took us around sights in the town, explaining some of the history and traditions, such as this big horse competition that occurs each year, and how the city is divided into cantons that compete with each other.
The highlight of the tour was the church. Originally intended to be the biggest church in Italy, full construction was rendered impossible by the Plague, which wiped out so much of the population it was impossible to complete the full original plan. Instead, some years later, they decided to redesign the whole thing to follow the latest fashions in both style (Gothic) and doctrine (less emphasis on Mary).
Big Siena church (that was supposed to be even bigger)
Inside, we were certainly struck by the columns, which looked (and apparently were) inspired by the mosques of the time.
Mosque-influenced interior of the church in Siena
Also featured were the elaborately etched designs in the floor. Some were covered up to protect them, but enough were available to get the impression. We also saw people working on restoring them.
A Library on the side featured amazing frescoes.
And some of the statues by the altar were done by a young Michelangelo.
The next stop was the church museum, where items featured in the church before its redesign are displayed. This part of the visit got a little long for those less interested in the pilgrim's progress stories.
Finally, we were led to the beautiful town square, Il Campo. All Italian cities have these cool squares, but this was certainly one of the nicest.
We did take a break from admiring it to have lunch in a cool little nearby restaurant. And we got back to our group in time.
Next was a bus trip to San Gimignano, a town I did and do have a heck of a time pronouncing, but which is a "typical" Tuscanny town, except that it's perhaps more overrun with tourists than most! After the amazingly sunny morning, it unfortunately started to rain shortly after we arrived here, but we could still appreciate the "old world" atmosphere of the place.
San Gimignano in the rain, which also illustrates the great prevalence of umbrellas in Italy
We
took shelter in a couple of food joints: had coffee and an almond/raisin cake
typical of the region in one cafe (pictured at left), then had what was supposed
to be Italy's very best gelato in another. Could be, you know. Certainly I haven't
had much gelato better than that bittersweet chocolate/hazelnut combo.
Then it was back to the bus (a little close to the deadline, in our case) and back to Florence.
For our last meal there, we decided to return to the Osteria Congrega, and it was quite fine again. We both started with different types of ravioli, then Jean had osso bucco, while I (still a bit off red meat) just went with chicken.
While I'm on the food subject (yet again), a word about breakfast. The Florence hotel also had the typical, just fine breakfast buffet, with the fruit salad, cheese, good bread (everywhere in Italy, there was nothing but good bread), croissant (almost as good as the French ones), prosciutto, etc. But we had a coffee problem. The first day we apparently ate in the wrong (not upgraded) breakfast room, which had only a pathetic coffee machine that made just terrible cafe lattes. The second day we were directed to our upgraded breakfast room, in which people served us coffee. But still, a request for cafe latte resulted in the bad machine coffee, only that it was delivered to us. I saw other people getting good coffee in a pot, though. So the next day, I made sure. We want café, I said. Just café. No latte. And that's what we got. Just a pot of coffee. No milk, no sugar.
Now, this was actually OK for me, but Jean is not a “coffee with no milk or sugar” guy. On day four, we finally achieved success. Cafe. Plus steamed milk. Each in their own carafe, making a delicious blend. And then it was time to check out.
We had earlier bought a couple of train tickets for this day: one getting us to Pisa, the other to Vernazza in Cinque Terra, from Pisa. Neither of these offered reserved seats, so we had to validate them before getting on the train. We found the validation machine just fine. I pulled out tickets, saw "Pisa" on there, handed that over, and Jean inserted them in the validation machine. And then... We realized they were the wrong ones. We had validated Pisa to Vernazza instead of Florence to Pisa.
So we spent most of the rest of our waiting time getting help from train customer support with that errort. And they were very helpful, signing off the wrongly validated ticket, and doing so in time for us to make our train. (Though it wouldn't be the end of validation difficulties on this trip.) While waiting, we also heard rumbles of a pending train strike...
Anyway, once the train got us to Pisa, we checked our luggage, then found the Tourist Information to get a map and the walking path to the famous tower. That was pretty straightforward, and wound through a bunch of street vendors.
Then we got to the tower. It really does lean quite a bit. Five degrees doesn't sound like that much, but it's quite noticeable. When you're taking pictures, though, it's hard not to "straighten" it, thereby making the ground look crooked. What we hadn't quite realized was how attractive in itself the tower is, all in white, with all the ornate workings on it. Also perhaps not that well-known is that it's surrounded by other attractive buildings, such as the church and the baptistery. These were closed for lunch, so we couldn't go in to visit them, but there was enough to see on the outside.
Pisa was a worthwhile stop, with several beautiful buildings to look at
The photos also reveal that the sky was changing rapidly at this time. We'd started with yet another sunny morning, but the clouds were moving in, and when it started to sprinkle, we decided that was a good time for lunch. And indeed it was, as it poured then! But happily, it was pretty much spent by the time we were done, so we were able to walk back without getting soaked. And to re-validate our ticket and make our way to Vernazza, Cinque Terra.
The Cinque Terra (this means “five villages”) is a remote chunk of the Italian Riviera, on the way to France. Previously an ignored region, it's become increasingly popular with tourists over the last few years. But this is not an area of museums, large churches, and grand piazzas. It's just little towns, mostly car-free in their interior, connected by hiking trails, trains, and (in summer only) shuttle buses.
We had booked room in Vernazza, which is the fourth of the five villages. We were surprised how many people were at the tiny train station when we arrived. This is November; not peek season, not swimming weather. Anyway.
From the train station, it was a short walk to our “hotel” (really just an apartment building), but once inside, it seemed a much longer walk up the many stairs to our attic with its shared bathroom. The final set of stairs were particularly narrow and twisting—a definite challenge with suitcases. But everything was bright clean, there were fresh towels, and we had a nice view of the water from our window.
Our attic room in Vernazza
We
didn't do too much else that day other than get our Cinque Terra passes (it's
a park, so you do need to pay to use it), find out it wasn't possible to buy
tickets to Rome from the local train station, and walk around Vernazza, which
isn't big at all, but is full of character. And cats—lots of cats.
At our restaurant, we were seated beside another couple who immediately struck up a conversation. They were Americans who had travelled quite a bit, and were now on their second trip to Italy, but their first to these parts. Like us, they had just arrived and were staying three nights. And they were thrilled with Obama's victory earlier in the week!
In terms of food, Cinque Terra is a real seafood town (later in the week, we'll notice that the fish for sale at the market is literally still flopping around! Now that's fresh!), which is great with us. We share an amazing seafood risotto to start (we knew it would be good, as our new American friends let us taste theirs first!), then we each have anchovies—nothing like the sad little salty fish we get here—each done different ways. We enjoy a bottle of Cinque Terra white wine with the meal. (The area has many vineyards.) And for a change, we actually have room for dessert. Jean's is especially interesting: an almond cake with a side of the local sweet white wine. And then we have a grappa. So we ended up a little drunk, but happy.
