We arrived on time (in Italy this is not a given) to Siena on our train from Florence. We began our visit utilizing what we now know if a very common vehicle for entering Siena. An escalator. Up from the tracks to the taxi stand at the train station, which also serves as a shopping center and University of Siena building, to find taxis, but no drivers. After calling the taxi company and starting that dialog, a new taxi with a driver arrived. 15 minutes later we arrived to our outpost for the next three nights Aia Mattonata. We met our host, Mario, who greeted with “we’ve been waiting for you”. The small hotel, B&B, was fabulous. A few kilometers (metric, deal with it people) outside the walled city of Siena the view was magnificent.
Because of a small problem scheduling with the chef, the itinerary for our visit was rearranged. We decided to cancel the cooking class because we didn’t want to step off of the train, check in and then go spend a few hours cooking when we could cruise around the center city of Siena and then let someone else who had been cooking for hours feed us. We had not had cheese, wine, or salted meat for a full 15 hours so you know how that goes….not well! So we started our visit with a ride into town provided by Mario and his lovely wife Elizabetta. Elizabetta it turns out is Bonnie’s sister from another mister.
Same energy, same passion for life. We learn that Elizabetta and Mario both had careers in Business and Finance and decided to give that up to build Aia Mattonata. They purchased the land and two old buildings, what turned into the guest quarters was a shell of a building 400 years old. They bought the buildings in 2007, spent two years renovating and building and in 2009 opened up a little piece of heaven on earth. Bravo! This new life has also brought about other new passions. Elizabetta has traded Human Resources and Finance for rock n roll. Taking bass guitar lessons and jamming with two different bands. She was heading this evening to practice her licks on a Kinks song her teacher had assigned her. Mario proudly showed us video of Elizabetta rocking out an Adele tune with her band of 20 and 30 year olds. Elizabetta has seniority on the other band members, closer in age to her new sister compared to the drummer. The car ride was so much fun and interesting we didn’t want to get out, but we did.
Unless you live in the city center, private cars are not allowed to enter the walls of the city. Seeing the narrow streets you can understand the need for this type of traffic controls. Euro sized trucks (small), cabs, police and more than a few scooters are all that are allowed to buzz the tourists. So we were dropped by our hosts near a gate to the city. Siena is an old, proud, important city that is built on three hills. Hills that do not resemble any pimple we call a hill in north Texas, real hills. To help out the tourist who….cough,cough…may not have been keeping up with their cardio for a bit, the city installed escalators to take you to the top. Mucho apprecianoto….we started up a bank 6 or 7 very steep escalators, but after the first two the next three were stopped, so cardio time, then the final two were working so we arrived at the top having recovered to near normal breathing. What we learned on our last day, of course we learned it on our last day, was that they had motion detectors in front of each escalators so they did not waste energy running if there were no fat out of shape Americans to haul. You stand in front of the stopped escalator and it starts up. The lovely gent who pointed this out to me on his way down the down escalator, turned and had quite a little laugh at our expense with his family. Well played, but I figured we could afford another gelato from the steps we put in, so, win win.
We walked around taking in some sights for an hour and then headed for dinner at a top rated restaurant.
We ordered a ton of food (again we hadn’t had any of the basic Italian food groups since the night before) and a bottle of wine.
Starters
About 40 minutes later pasta
The sommelier put on quite the show, opening, pouring the sample in one glass, from the first to a second glass, then the carafe, then back to the original glass for the tasting. Quite the show…turned out to be a highlight of the service for dinner. All the food, except the big T-bone Florentine steak which was their speciality, was good. The big problem was from the starter to the pasta and steak the gaps of time were long. Not Italian normal long, but so long that our neighboring table started kidding us “haven’t they brought you any food yet?” Turns out it was a great chance to get to know our neighbors from Austin Texas. Couple of 30 year olds, Tea was just out of Medical school and Robert runs his own business and they were on a three month sabbatical. They were on the last leg of a trip that included Japan and New Zealand. Great couple they were headed to Florence from Siena and had just been to Cinque Terre. So we traded favorite hints and email addresses. Started dinner at 7:30 ended it at 11:00. Taxi back to the hotel.
Day two was a full day tour with a driver into a couple of medieval villages and two wineries. Photos from Buonconvento, Pienze and the wineries around Montalcino to follow.
The wineries were fabulous. The first one was a family farm that makes wine. We got out of the car and were greeted by a young Japanese women speaking perfect English. Kae’s story was amazing. In 2009 she was visiting Italy, liked wine and stopped by this winery for a tasting. She wasn’t happy with the stress and pace of living in Japan and fell in love with Italy and Gianluca. A short time later they were married, have two children and are living in paradise. In addition to the grapes for the wine, they raise their own pigs, chickens, grow and grind their own wheat for bread and pasta, age their own Prociutto, salami, capacola and pecorino. Gianluca’ s mother, who made us pasta with pork ragu for lunch, could not speak with Kae at first because they had no common language, so Kae learned how to speak fluent Italian, now they talk all the time.
More to follow…
Loving every minute I get to read about your trip. Thank you so much for sharing. Love the escalator story. Glad my friends are elite athletes.
Elaine, we have NEVER climbed this many steps in this amount of time. They are steep, wonky, and never ending. Once you go up, you have no choice but to go down. No handrail, but of course, and everyone in the Renaissance and Middle Ages had tiny feet, so it is a miracle that these extreme athletes have remained in one piece without incurring any injuries. I must say I am very impressed with my knee surgeon! I certainly give him the thumbs up after this trip.
Glad you are enjoying the blog. The crazy only continues!