Hill Towns of Tuscany

March 11, 2012August 12, 2024Leave a comment

On Saturday the 3rd, the school offered a guided tour of a small selection of nearby hill towns. I’d hoped that there would also be food and wine involved, but the two other students and I who went along were left to our own devices with regard to comestibles. Still, it was a great tour; the guide, Riccardo, drove us by car through the softly rolling hills and alarmingly green fields, and walked us through the main sights of each town.

We began in Cortona:

Most Italian towns have monuments to the fallen soldiers of both World Wars. Cortona’s is my favorite:

Walking the back streets and through the marketplace:

Cortona also has an early Franciscan church, but the real eye-catcher is the church of Santa Margherita, about fifteen minutes’ walk up a very steep hill:

(Obligatory pipe organ photo:)

Our next destination was Montepulciano, famous for red wine.

Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is so named because it was traditionally produced by the town’s wealthy nobility. These noble families would produce and age their own wines in the cellars beneath their palaces (many of which are still used for this same purpose in modern times).

When you’re buying Italian wines such as Vino Nobile, Brunello, or Chianti Classico, always look for the DOCG label! This is usually a pink or green sticker around or along the neck of the bottle, and is an indication not only of quality, but that the wine producers adhere to certain traditional procedures, such as the type of grapes (and methods of cultivation and harvest) and the length and method of aging.

The well in the town’s largest piazza is topped with griffins (the symbol of Montepulciano) and lions (symbol of the Medici family—note also the Medici coat of arms). Montepulciano was an ally of Florence, itself ruled (at various times) by the Medici.

The Palazzo Pubblico and the Duomo in the main square:

Walking the ancient streets, surrounded by buildings at least five hundred years old:

Our last stop was Pienza, a small but elaborately-planned city whose Renaissance-era reconstruction was largely orchestrated by Pope Pio II. It’s very, very small, with a trapezoid-shaped piazzal del Duomo and streets all named things like “Via del Giglio” (Lily street) and “Via del Bacio” (Kiss street).

Pienza’s specialty is pecorino, or sheep’s milk cheese. Pecorino can be fresco (semisoft and unripened), secco (aged and sharp), or infused with all kinds of flavors. The smell of it wafts down every street.

Next up: adventures in the heart of of Chianti.

Bonus photo of my host’s kitty:

She looks very much like my Mango! Her name is Sapri.

San Domenico and San Gimignano

March 5, 2012August 12, 2024Leave a comment

Well, the halfway point of my trip has come and gone—how is that possible? I have, obviously, been keeping busy. There’s just so much to marvel at here, and my school sometimes puts on lectures and trips (last week, there was an olive oil tasting, and over the weekend I went to Montepulciano, Cortona, and Pienza), and as the saying goes, time flies when you’re surrounded by some of the most profound beauty that the world has to offer and constantly awash in new and interesting experiences. (That is the saying, right?)

I’m short on time and, actually, I’ve covered many of the historical details before, so there won’t be too much explanation in this post.

On Friday, I visited the Basilica di San Domenico. This cathedral, built in medieval times to venerate St. Catherine of Siena (and preserve her thumb and skull), has one of my favorite church interiors—it’s dim and gray, without pillars or significant frescoes, and the ceiling is flat and unremarkable, but it is tall and open and peaceful, and sound does not carry except from a few particular places. It is extremely contemplative, leaving you to focus your own thoughts rather than trying to draw your mind to greatness with elaborate art and spectacle.

There are no photos allowed inside the church, and unfortunately, the outside is not very interesting to me. Still, it’s a perfect example of the color of the Senese brick that was so ubiquitous in its medieval architecture, and against the brilliant spring sky, surrounded by cypresses and pines, it is a quintessentially Italian sight.

I wandered down the hill just past the church a bit to see where the staircase led (nowhere hugely noteworthy, except possibly Alma Domus, a nun-run hotel that I had wanted to stay at last year but missed out on).

A few blocks from San Domenico is the house where the beloved Santa Caterina grew up. Over time, it has been restored and transformed into a chapel in her honor, with each room containing paintings, statues, and frescoes depicting miraculous events in her life. Once again, no photos were allowed inside, but the courtyard is lovely.

On Saturday, I took the extra-urban bus to San Gimignano, one of the better-known Tuscan villages, with a distinct—and sometimes overplayed—medieval character. San Gimignano is famous for its towers; fourteen remain where sixty once stood, most part of the fortified homes of squabbling noble families. The oldest towers date from the 900s; by the Renaissance, however, towers had fallen out of fashion due to the development of cannons and other forms of weaponry capable of knocking them down.

Piazza della Cisterna, one of the larger and more commercial open spaces in this little hill town:

In Piazza del Duomo, with the Palazzo Pubblico (the civic/governmental palace), Torre Grossa, and the Duomo:

Have any of my readers played Assassin’s Creed II? You know those funny square holes that are spaced at regular (convenient) intervals along all the towers and walls? Those were probably used to secure beams that supported balconies and other structures. Handsome young Florentine assassins might not have been able to use them to climb, but they could probably have waltzed right up a handy wooden staircase.

Shops throughout town sell famous wines such as Chianti Classico, Rosso or Nobile di Montepulciano, and San Gimignano’s specialty white wine, Vernaccia; you can also find cinghiale (wild boar) sausage, salami, and prosciutto.

The view from where I ate my lunch (a wild boar prosciutto and pecorino cheese sandwich):

Even better, the view from the top of Torre Grossa:

Leaving the Palazzo Pubblico, and back to the steps of the Duomo:

A brief walk from the center of town leads out to a tiny medieval fortress, now a public park filled with olive trees, drenched in sunlight, and with a lovely view of the San Gimignano skyline from atop one of the fortress walls.

Clustered around the fortress are towering pines:

Back into town, I returned to Piazza della Cisterna, bought some gelato, and ate it by the well.

Night begins to fall:

Next up: still more gorgeous Tuscan hill towns (they really are endless).

Il Duomo e la Fortezza

February 27, 2012August 12, 2024Leave a comment

On Wednesday, word of an open-air market at the fortress was all over school, so a few of my classmates and I hiked around past San Domenico to Fortezza Medicea, once military fortress housing Florentine troops, and now an enormous public park.

Merchant stalls surrounded the ancient brick walls like the camp of an army laying siege, selling everything from clothes and shoes to kitchen utensils to beautiful meats, cheeses, fruits, and vegetables.

(I was much more interested in the latter.)

The fortress was built in the 1560s by order of Cosimo I de’ Medici after his Florentine forces conquered the city. With its perimeter of over one kilometer, it’s a popular spot for walking and jogging, as well as picnicking. I love to pick up a sandwich from a nearby bar or a bit of fruit and cheese from the market just across the bridge, and eat with a view of the majestic Tuscan hills or the city’s three great towers.

My friends and I wandered back through town and parted ways at the Duomo, which I’d seen last year but wanted to visit for a second time.

One of my classmates asked me an impossible question: between the Duomo of Siena and that of Florence, which one do I like better?

I think I prefer the exterior of Santa Maria del Fiore, with its pastel colors and gentler Renaissance architecture. Siena’s intensely Gothic façade and bold black-and-white stripes are a little too jarring for me.

Doesn’t stop me from photographing the heck out of it, though.

The structure is mostly 13th-14th century Gothic, influenced by what was then quite fashionable in France. Note the similarities between this facade and that of Notre Dame, particularly on the upper levels. (The Duomo’s first story, begun in 1215 and worked on until just before 1300, is more Romanesque, while the upper stories and the belltower were designed in the early 1300s.)

If you read my blog last year and are currently going, “but wait, this all looks so familiar!”, then you are right. I featured several shots from Siena’s Duomo last year. That day, however, my camera battery died partway through the trip, so this year, I have taken pains to ensure that you’ll get to witness as much of the Duomo as possible!

I mentioned before that I prefer the outside of Florence’s cathedral to Siena’s, but the reverse is true inside. While there is something to be said for the contemplative simplicity of Santa Maria del Fiore’s interior (Siena’s San Domenico is similar, and it’s one of my favorite cathedral interiors), the tightly-woven complexity of Siena’s really comes together for me. It is order just bordering on chaos, it’s a bold celebration of contrast.

The interior includes works by Michelangelo, Duccio, Donatello, Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, Bernini, Pinturicchio, and still others.

From the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, you can climb up to a vantage point on the wall of what might one day have been the new façade, if not for the bubonic plague. The Senese intended to expand the existing cathedral to fill the entire piazza, making it the largest church in Europe (and more importantly, larger than that in Florence); after the plague, the project was abandoned, the populace fearing that the plague was punishment for their hubris.

In addition to another lovely view of the countryside, this place gives you an excellent angle on the cathedral itself.

Note the changing widths of the white stripes on the bell tower. From ground level, this creates the illusion that the tower is much taller than it actually is.

Later, I returned to Piazza del Campo to people-watch and get a bit of sun.

Next up: San Domenico, and a day trip to San Gimignano!

Siamo in arrivo a… Siena!

February 27, 2012August 12, 2024Leave a comment

On Sunday, after my morning in Pisa, I took the train to Siena and a cab from the railway station to my host’s apartment, where I have been for a week, now. It’s a clean building in a quiet neighborhood, just a few minutes from the bus stop, and from there a fifteen-minute ride into town past silver fields of olive trees and hills with little golden buildings perched on them. Monday was terribly cold and rainy and I didn’t do much sight-seeing, but Tuesday was all blue sky and warm sun, so I did what I seem to do in every city I visit nowadays: find the tallest tower and climb it!

Torre del Mangia, seen in the above photo from a viewpoint atop the nearby Duomo, was the tallest secular tower in Italy when it was built, overlooking Piazza del Campo from the Palazzo Pubblico. It was named for Giovanni di Balduccio, whose nickname, “Mangiaguadagni,” more or less meant “he eats his paychecks” and referred to his love of expensive food. (He and I have something in common.) The tower is visible from almost all of Siena, and was designed to be the same height as the belltower of the Duomo, symbolizing the equal power of the church and the secular government in the medieval Senese republic.

The tower is 330 feet tall and provides an astounding view of the city, the Piazza, and the surrounding countryside. From it, you can identify three other “high points” of this hilly Tuscan town: the Duomo, the church of San Domenico, and (difficult to see in the below photo, but look just behind San Domenico’s belltower in the far right) Fortezza Medicea.

The lower levels of the tower have windows overlooking the Piazza, making it an excellent place to watch the milling crowds on a sunny afternoon, or the preparations for Carnevale if you happen to be there on Fat Tuesday…

The Palazzo Pubblico, seat of the government of the republic for hundreds of years and now a museum and theatre, still sports the symbols of Siena’s medieval independence from nearby Florence and the Papal armies: the black and white crests of the city, and the water spouts in the form of snarling wolves (Siena’s symbol is la lupa who nursed Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome). When Siena was finally conquered by Florence around 1560, the Medici family coat of arms was added to the building’s façade, topped by fearsome metal crowns.

The white marble structure at the base of the tower is a chapel, built by the survivors of the Black Death in 1348; today, it is used to bless the participants of the Palio, a twice-annual horse race around the Piazza. (For more on the Palio, see my entry from last year’s Siena day trip.)

Any of the caffeterie or ristoranti around the Piazza give you a great vantage point for people-watching in the afternoon, and the prices, while somewhat inflated due to the location, aren’t nearly as bad as in places like Piazza San Marco in Venice or near the Vatican in Rome. The food is nothing to scoff at, either. A good Senese specialty, well-represented in the historic center, is pici, a type of thick, round noodle that is satisfying and chewy. You can also find lots of typical Tuscan secondi such as coniglio (rabbit) and cinghiale (wild boar).

The day wore on and Piazza del Campo began to fill with people in anticipation of Carnevale. I didn’t stick around, since the festivities were mostly oriented towards children and I was getting tired of the crowds, and instead took a walk towards San Domenico.

On deck: Fortezza Medicea and Siena’s striking Duomo.

La Torre Pendente

February 23, 2012August 12, 2024Leave a comment

Well, my internet access is dependable but infrequent, so apologies for how slowly I have been posting. Class is going well and my host, Marcella, is molto gentile. The last couple days have been gloriously sunny and almost warm, so I’ve been spending more time outdoors than inside the (freezing cold) school building.

Where were we? Ah, Pisa! I flew into the airport mid-evening and got a taxi to the pensione I’d booked, on a quiet little corner barely five minutes’ walk from the Leaning Tower. I got dinner at a trattoria across the street (penne con porcini, and rabbit in a lovely tomato and olive sauce), and returned to my room to rest up for the next long day.

It started to pour down rain on Sunday, so I bought a cheap umbrella at a roadside stand and got right to work.

The Leaning Tower, actually the belltower of the adjacent cathedral, is one of the most recognizable sights in Italy—perhaps in all of Europe. It is almost 200 feet tall and leans a full 15 feet—five degrees—to the south, thanks to the marshy soil and its shallow foundation. Construction began in 1173, but for reasons lost to history, work continued only for a few years. Twice, the tower was left incomplete—once in 1178 and again in 1278—each time for nearly one hundred years.

All of the buildings on il Campo dei Miracoli are leaning slightly, probably due to the unstable ground. The Baptistry leans about six feet to the north.

Pisa’s Baptistry is the largest in Italy, at 180 feet tall, and it showcases multiple architectural styles reflecting the length of its construction: Romanesque arches (12th century) on the lower level, Gothic (13th century) spires and arches mid-level, and a 15th century Renaissance dome.

The Duomo of Pisa is where the architectural term “Pisan Romanesque” is derived.

The interior is spectacularly painted and frescoed, but no photos were allowed inside, sadly. So, let’s focus our attention on that tower.

The tower’s incline presents some interesting problems when it comes to preservation and restoration. The south side, shielded from erosion from rain and wind, collects airborne dust and pollutants and requires manual cleaning; conversely, the north side suffers much more greatly from erosion and mineral deposits due to the flow of water. The angle of the tower places such stress on the structure itself that parts of the tower—particularly the outer columns, of which only 33 of the total 180 are original—have cracked or fractured.

Notice that the very top level, the belfry, appears slightly askew in relation to the rest of the tower. This was an attempt by architect Tommaso Pisano (a descendent of the original designer, Bonnano Pisano) to shift the tower’s center of gravity further north and slow its ever-increasing tilt.

For a measly fifteen euros, you can climb to the top of the tower. Tours are taken up every half-hour. As the groups ascend, peals of dizzied laughter begin to fill the narrow stone passages. The tilt is more than noticeable as you spiral up and up, and the cognitive dissonance between the seemingly-regular stairway and the changing angle of your ascent is… really something. I do not recommend this climb for anyone with vertigo or difficulty balancing. I would also suggest, if you make it to the top, staying on the north side of the belfry.

Still, the view is stunning…

… and they might ring the bells while you’re up there.

The tower is the only part of Pisa that gets much publicity, but another worthwhile stop is the Cemetery of Camposanto, a narrow, elegant marble structure just north of the Duomo, in which some six hundred prominent Pisans are entombed, many in recycled Roman sarcophagi.

The rectangular structure encloses a lush, bright courtyard, filled with soil that was brought from Jerusalem during the crusades.

Local legend holds that the soil has magical properties and can reduce a body to nothing but bones within a day. I had neither the time nor the spare bodies necessary to test it out, so a legend it will have to remain…

Camposanto was severely damaged during World War II (and today there are photos on display showing just how extensive the damage was). The roof, originally made of expensive lead tiles, melted when the building was bombed and damaged the frescoes on the walls.

Bit by bit, the frescoes are being restored and returned to their original positions.

Coming up next: some nice weather, for a change, and a look at Siena from several points of view.

La Città della Luce part II

February 20, 2012August 12, 2024Leave a comment

I have arrived safely in Siena and am getting settled at my home for the next three weeks. My host is a friendly older woman, my room is clean and bright, and I’m about ten minutes by bus from the historical city center. I don’t have internet access at home, but I do at school, so the blogging shall continue uninterrupted from here on. Anyway! There is still much of Paris left to talk about, so I won’t keep you waiting.

After leaving Notre Dame, I crossed to the north side of the river and walked west along it until I reached the Louvre.

The statue in the courtyard is of King Louis XIV, who in 1682 chose to change residence from the Palais de Louvre to Versailles, thus allowing the palace to be used as a residence for artists.

The famous palace was built on the foundations of an earlier 12th-century fortress, parts of which are part of the museum’s exhibition beneath the ground floor. It was converted to a public museum after the French Revolution and opened officially in 1793. You enter the museum through the iconic glass pyramid and descend into a mall-like foyer with entrances into the different wings of the museum, cafes, and gift shops.

The Louvre is enormous. It contains wing after wing of 35,000 works of art, housed in 650,000 square feet of space, spanning two millennia and three continents at least. I had already seen the Roman art and artifacts (it briefly was shown at the Seattle Art Museum a few years back), but I lingered among the Greek statues and the Italian Renaissance paintings, and spent as long as I could gazing into the eyes of the Mona Lisa (but only after fighting to the front of the mob of tourists gathered around her). I wandered the halls for a good two hours, occasionally getting lost and having to backtrack, and once I’d had my fill, I made my exit through the glass pyramid and went to stroll the Tuileries.

It drizzled on and off and there were low clouds for most of the day, but now and then the Eiffel Tower emerged in the distance.

I stopped for a light lunch at Café le Nemours, just a few minutes across the street from the Louvre: a green salad with warm chevre on toasted bread.

After the fuel-up (and more urgently, the chance to rest my already-aching feet), I headed across the river to the Musée Orsay.

Where the Louvre leaves off at about 1850, Orsay picks up the baton with 19th century Conservative, Neoclassical, Realist, and Impressionist paintings and sculptures. A little pressed for time, I went straight to the top floor for the Impressionists and basked in Monet and Degas for a while, then backtracked to the second floor for Van Gogh.

After I’d taken in about as much classic art as my brain could process in one day, I took a stroll up the Champs-Elysées, surrounded on all sides by glittering storefronts and expensive restaurants. The rain had started up again, so I put away my camera and just walked, heading towards the Arc de Triomphe, where I took the metro south to the Eiffel Tower.

It’s a few blocks’ walk from the nearest metro station, but the tower is hard to miss. At the time of its construction culminating in 1889, it was the tallest structure in the world, 1,063 feet including the antenna. It was constructed using 7,300 tons of iron and took just over two years to build (about one-hundredth of the time needed to build Notre Dame—how things have changed!).

While it is possible to take elevators to any of the three levels of the tower, I opted to save money and avoid lines by taking the stairs.

Remember last year’s 463-step ascent to the cupola of the Duomo of Florence? It is 670 steps to the second story of the Eiffel Tower. My legs ached for days.

I didn’t go up to the third and highest level (I was having bad enough vertigo as it was, the elevator lines were long, and sunset had come and gone), but they say that the view is best from the second level, anyway.

Just as I was getting ready to return to solid ground, they switched on the lights.

I made my sore and breathless way back down to earth through the blinding golden floodlights, and followed the crowds across the bridge to place de Trocadéro.

After sunset, for five minutes, the tower comes alive with dancing white lights.

I ended the long day at Café Bonaparte, a block off of boulevard St. Germain, with steak tartare (raw, seasoned, ground beef on toasted bread) and a glass of cider.

Next up: a morning in Pisa!

Doing the Thing

let's goooooooooooooo