7/30 -- Florence and Siena

Jourdan got up early and ran this morning; not the first time he’s done that this trip but this morning might have been the coolest, as he was able to run through a WW2 barricade, Fort Belvedere.  I am in a place in my career as a forced-by-injury-to-be-a-former runner where I can be mostly happy and only slightly jealous of people who run, but hearing about seeing his pictures of this amazing route tipped me further to the jealous side.  Somehow “I got up early and did a standing pilates routine in the apartment” is just not as cool.

At any rate, we had tickets for 8:15 at Uffizzi Gallery (considered to have the best collection of Italian art), and before that we had to pack and move our luggage to a storage place, so it was a rushed morning.  Owen had butt sweat before 8 am and given how it had soured his mood the day before I was worried it was a bad omen.  But the museum was incredible.  There were works by all of the artists whose names inspired Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which in turn inspired me to sing Partners in Kryme's T-U-R-T-L-E Power from memory, because apparently my brain preferentially remembers novelty rap songs from 30 years ago), and many, many more.  Russell in particular enjoyed a room dedicated to Medusa, and several other figures from Greek/Roman mythology.

After the museum we had tickets to climb the dome (Copa) of the Duomo.  Florence's cathedral is the third largest in the world, and the ceiling of the dome is covered in art.  Our tour guide from the bike tour had told us that this was one of the first depictions of demons in cathedral art, and it was very cool to see it up close.  We also got to go outside of the top (in total it was 463 stairs; not easy but from now on I’m rating everything on a scale of 0 to Cinque-Terra-hike-from-Corneglia-to-Maranola and this was low on that scale).  The views of Tuscany from up there were breathtaking.

After the Duomo, we grabbed lunch then our bags and then went to the train station to head to Siena.  In both Venice and Monterroso, I felt like I definitely would have loved to stay longer; in Florence I felt like I needed to stay longer.  There is so much more I would have liked to see.  But, our travel reservations didn’t allow for that, so I guess we’ll have to come back someday.  What a hardship.

I was thinking Siena was a small, rural town in Tuscany, and the houses and farms/vineyards we passed on the train ride here were exactly how I pictured Tuscany in my head.  But then we arrived and across the street from the train station is a very modern-appearing shopping mall.  We took a bus into town and then had about a 15 minute walk to our apartment.  We were charmed by the town immediately; it reminded us of Florence but smaller (and in fact is thought of as Florence’s baby brother, even though the two republics were at war with each other historically); super cute shops lining a central, car-free-except-for-residents-and-taxis area.  And the center plaza (Il Campo) — wow, wow, wow.  Rick Steve’s book called it the best square in all of Italy and we could see why.

We settled in at our place (a quirky top-floor-with-no-lift apartment that had air conditioning in the kitchen but nowhere else but with a PHENOMENAL view), and then headed to dinner at Osteria La Sosta do Violante.  Easily the best food we’ve had on our trip.  The menu was meat-heavy so Jourdan and I both had the only vegetarian option on it that wasn’t plain spaghetti, kataifi pasta filled with eggplant and carrots and topped with tomato sauce, and then a side of grilled zucchini with basil.  Ah-mazing.  Then for dessert we had crema fruttata and chocolate lava cake.  Everything was so, so good.  (I had also had the house white wine, vermentino, which I loved.  I’ve been trying to get the house wine each night — vino della casa bianco or vina della casa rosso —  because I figure it will be local, and it’s always good, but usually it doesn’t say what kind of grape it is so it was nice to know what I was drinking.)

After dinner we went to Il Campo and walked around a bit.  We planned to do a City Walk, but it was 9:30 and the kids were tired so we opted to just head home.


Climbing to the top of the Florence Duomo


The view from the top of the Duomo



The streets of Siena




Best meal ever!




Il Campo; the kids are in front of the Fountain of Joy


The view from our apartment, including San Domenico




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