Small town Sienna

For a long time Italy wasn't a country, it was a bunch of cities that fought with each for power and influence. Sienna and Florence were two of the top contenders, and their rulers tried to out-do each other for centuries.

Like the modern day sponsors of Burj Dubai, or the Three Gorges Dam, or the Maglev Train in Shanghai, or the Space Race, huge public works that creates lots of buzz around your city-state were the way to go.  Look!  We're so rich and powerful that we have the biggest, most bad-ass cathedral in the world!  Thank you, peasants of yesteryear, for paying the taxes and providing the labor that lets us ooh and aah at the cathedrals your rulers built.  

Florence gets all the attention these days, but Sienna is the way better place to spend an afternoon.  Sure, you can't check the box on seeing Michelangelo's David or some other famous works of art, but it's way less crowded, way more charming, and the gelato is pretty damn good.

Are you into freaskish Saintly treasures?  That's another good reason to come to Sienna.  The patron Saint of Sienna, St. Catherine, is sort of celebrity in Catholic circles and her mummified head and thumb are still on display at one of the cathedrals.  It's easy to miss until your guidebook says (3): Mummified head of so and so and you're like no way!  It's really there!  I'm not sure I could spend a whole Mass with her eerily staring at me from her glass jar.

For a taste of small-town Italian life, find one of the little hole-in-the-wall trattorias and let the family in charge pick a plate of Italian cold cuts and some appetizers.  Then, wash it down with a glass (or a couple) of the house wine while you watch the locals come and go, shoot the breeze with the owners and each other, and live the small town life.  It's pretty damn charming.  Even if you love being anonymous in a huge, bustling city like New York, there's something about that small town intimacy that hits at a place really deep in our soul, where we wish we had that local bar where everyone knows everyone else (or... maybe that's just me.)

Also, in my purely personal and highly amateur opinion, Sienna won the Cathedral wars.  Sure, Florence's has more square footage, but the inside of Sienna's is breathtakingly over the top.  Their medieval square also has a nice slant to it, is located right outside the entrance to the town hall, and has a bunch of great gelato joints.  Even giving Florence some points of shopping and great art, I think Sienna squeaks by with the win.

Charming Sienna, city on a hill.

Less charming and way more creepy - the mummified head of St. Catherine of Sienna.

Her thumb

Back to charming - a little trattoria in the medieval center.

Family pride

The steep streets of Sienna

Another example of out-of-control Church architecture.

Sculptures of popes heads line the main chamber - all of them.

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The outside - looks a lot like the cathedral in Florence, doesn't it?

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The other, less fancy, church, just outside of the city walls.

The picture-perfect drive home.

Tuscan villages.

Florence

Florence, where Italy starts to really feel like Italy and centuries of wealth and influence are packed into a few city blocks downtown.

It was hot in Florence when we arrived.  Not just any hot - so hot you walk around with sweat dripping down your neck, while you fan your face and wonder why you didn't stop at those beautiful beaches just north and, hell, how cool can a 20 foot tall marble statue be?  Can it be worth the pain of walking blocks and blocks through Chinese tour groups just for that picture?

Well, maybe.  That's actually a great reason to visit Florence some other time of the year - Spring would be nice, maybe even winter.  You won't be able to sit in the cafes, but then again you probably won't be able to sit in the cafes in late July anyway.  You'd rather be in a McDonald's with killer air con.

One of our favorite parts of Florence was our hotel, actually.  I'm not much of a house-hunter-find-the-ideal-hotel kind of guy, but when a deal came on this cute little B&B on the outskirts of town (with parking, but also within walking distance of downtown), we went for it.  It was charming, with a little garden out back, a great place to have a glass of chianti, talk excitedly with wild gesticulations, and wind down at the end of the day.

Which brings me to our second favorite experience in Florence - the restaurant our hotel recommended.  It was another one of those hole-in-the-wall (the only place to eat in Italy, I've decided, after our 100% batting average with them).  It was a family affair, with hearty, home cooked food and generous pours of wine.  The Olive Garden may say you're family when you're there, but here, we really felt like family.  Turned out the guy spent some time working construction in New York before coming back with a healthy amount saved, so he bought a place and got married.  Loved his family too much to leave them for America. Now that, that is family values.  We loved the place and went back for second helpings the next night.

What about the famous museums?  Well, they're interesting, but unless you're a real art history expert its hard to truly appreciate the contents.  The museums aren't in great shape - the AC was broken, the lighting is off, and a few exhibits were closed for renovations, and the lines are ridiculous.  The statue of David is actually really cool - it's worth checking out regardless of your knowledge of art history.  Or, better yet, study up on the Italian renaissance before you go and then take a knowledgeable guide with you.

Or, just head to a small Italian town and drown yourself in incredible home-cooked food, wine and hospitality.  That's still our favorite part of Italy.

Home in Florence - classy!  The further south you head, the more and more value you get for your Euro.

The cathedral in Florence.

Candles in Florence.

The cathedral in Florence, very big, and very impressive.

Over the top decorations.

Every square inch of this thing could be its own sculpture.

Ben & Jerry's making inroads into the gelato capital of the world.

And, if you're not in the mood for gelato, there's always truckloads of tacky tourist souvenirs.

The non-touristy side of Florence.

Venice to Florence - the Italian Coast

As we headed Southwest toward Florence, and eventually Rome, we decided to take a short detour and get a glimpse of the Mediterranean - the Italian Riviera - if you will.  Of course, like most short detours, it turned out to be a very long detour, but worth every minute.

Milan and Venice are at the bottom of a wide river valley, set on a plain, which makes them great cities for industry but take away some of the charm Italy is so famous for.

Between Venice and Florence are the Apenino mountains, which are Italy's spine, at this far north, are right on the water.  Instead of the Tuscan villages we were expecting, with vineyard and olive trees, there are miles and miles of pine forests covering the hills (or are they mountains?).

To see small town Italy we got off the main highway.  The roads were small two lanes roads, winding through the hills and the few small towns on the way.   More great motorcycle roads!  They were some of the windiest roads I'd ever seen - hair raising at bits, and definitely tough for people in the back seat to deal with.

Our Tom-Tom saved us a ton of time in Europe, by the way.  I think we might have given up on our road trip without it.  The one way streets, the roundabouts... hard to believe people did road trips in Europe with paper maps back in the day.

Once you arrive on the coast the views open up into a spectacular light show as the sun reflects off the water. The little towns nestled in the coves are charming.  Life is slow, and if the sun, water and wine doesn't get you, the laid-back, siesta culture definitely will.  It's like a slow-motion version of the California coast.

This might be as close as you can get to a part of the modern world that isn't really.  Most the towns were connected with each other by horse paths until after the war, and the highway that connected them to the rest of Italy wasn't built until the 50s.  For generations, the only way to get from one of these town any where was either by horse packing up and over the mountains, or else with a ferry South towards Florence and the bigger port cities.

As tempted as we were to just stop and forget our itinerary (who needs all those art museums anyway?), we   did continue our cruise along the water towards Florence, through tunnels built almost a hundred years ago that were just wide enough for one car, stopping for gelato on the way as an excuse to spend some more time in this awesome place.  If you want to get away from the crowds and find an escape in a corner of the world that still seems a little forgotten, this is your spot.



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This is the place for twisties.

Almost at the coast...

Driving on the edge of cliffs.... a bit safer than Bolivia, though.

Towns and vineyards from another era tucked behind the mountains and the sea.

The Italian Riviera.