This was to be our last morning in Rome. I take time to enjoy one last grand breakfast before heading to the bus and checking out of the hotel. There was a 3 hour bus ride today to get us to our new hotel destination. Though, there would be two towns to split the drive up- Siena and San Giminiono (sp?).
The countryside is fantastic-though if you were to ask nearly anyone else from the trip they wouldn't be able to really tell you, as they were all asleep. But the grassy countryside gave way to rolling hills and vineyards, and giving the air an almost ember tinge to everything. Tuscany is the province, and pictures do not do it justice. There was a lot of rain today as well, but not with dark brooding clouds, but lighter grey clouds that seemed nearly cheerful with the idea of rain. Seeing the clouds roll along the countryside and enshroud the farmlands into mist was a nice touch, and in a way, very Gusto.
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| Big Nutella on top of a GIANT Nutella |
We made our first pitstop at a truck-stop. Only here in Italy they are referred to Bus-stops, which makes sense because there are by and far more buses than trucks on the roads. The insides of the stop are, from my experiences here in the States, quite clean and friendly-not the grungy oil stained slop house I was expecting. They have a full espresso bar inside the store as well as a resteraunt, as well as a grocery store. Perhaps one of the most quirky things about Italy that I've seen is that they love Nutella brand nut-butter. It was present at all my breakfasts and most places that sold food. So here in this first gas station, there lies a giant (appx.3 gal.) tub of Nutella, 40 euro for the interested consumer... Other than that, the pit stop is the same in every country-find the bathrooms, be delightfully disgusted by certain parts that are just gross, wash your hands, and avoid touching anything else from there on.
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| 15/17 Districts (I'm not a great photographer, hence the two corners cut) |
Our ride takes us to our first town after that- a lovely town that grew out of Medieval tradition named Siena. This town stakes its fame from one particular event that is held twice a year; a no-bars horse race called the Palio di Siena. It is a competition to see who is the best horse racer in the town, and the only competitors are from the 17 districts inside of Siena's Medieval town itself. The thing about Siena, is that they don't focus so much on the outside world-people are born, baptized, married, and buried within their district. And getting into a district if you aren't born to it is a serious difficulty. The horse race itself is held in the center of the town in the half circle Piazza del Campo. They fill the Piazza (which is the usual place for commerce in town) up with a few layers of dirt, set up some rails, and enjoy watching jockeys beat each other to win a race.
Before we enter into the medieval district of town we meet up with our local tour guide, Paolo. He is an older Italian dressed like a British gent, almost like a spy you would expect to hand you a mission. He is humorous, but in that very dry, professor-like way. He and our main guide get along really well however, so I can tell that we should pay attention to what this main was saying. He guides us through a few districts as we make our way up to the Duomo of Siena.
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| Duomo di Siena |
The main reason we come to Siena though is to see the Duomo of Siena. It is a large church constructed out of black and white marble, with a long unfinished portion off to one side. Why is it unfinished? The city ran out of money to fund the project (more to come of that later), and the main portion had already been finished, so ya. The tower is also a little topsy-turvy in that it has an ascending number of columns the higher you go, creating an inverted triangle-really cool to me. Once inside the church however, it is treated as much as a museum as a place of worship. There are exhibits celebrating Siena, Tuscany, the Church and Christ. I also noticed that the outside of the building looked much more Rococo,and the inside was much more in a Gothic style. No flash photography is allowed in this church (same with most museums that house items that can be damaged by excess light), and every time someone has a flash go off, Paolo turns and yells at them "No flash photography please!" in the way you know your parents yell at you to be stern, and still get the message across that they aren't afraid to punish you further. After he does this a few times he turns to the group and says "Me and the guy upstairs *gestures up* came to a special agreement that only I get to have, that everytime I say that in this church, I get two weeks out of Purgatorio, of course I don't know how much good that will do me, but I'm sure it helps." So one of the better quotes from this day (and trip) was "ah, another two weeks off."
After we see the main altar and one of Michaelangelo's sculptures, we get to go to a special room that houses five hundred year old, original mint-condition chant manuscript. For those of you who don't know, this is a Choir Tour, and I just graduated with my undergraduate in music. These were quatragram chant music lexicons. I cannot tell you how long i just stared at these in awe-my heritage, right there in the leaflet.
We break for lunch before our impromptu performance at the Duomo. My group finds a pizza place right off of the Piazza di Campo where for 2 euro 50 cents, you could get a slice of pizza that was bigger than my head. We meander around the town, looking at the local goods (leather was still at a good price here), and the junk shops are what won out for me in this town because they sold a lot of local Siena based stuff dealing with the races and the districts themselves.
Well, between Paolo and our main guide, we are allowed to sing a few pieces inside these high vaulted walls. The accoustics were amazing. The Gothic interior allowed for a sound that, in my opinion, was far more catering to our Russian piece, Bogoro Ditse devo. The bass in there carried so sweetly, and clearly, I personally think this was the best vocal performance I had ever given. And in true fashion of ISU's choirs, we went a few songs over our allotted time. The clergy were none-to-pleased, but at least they weren't rude about it (and to be fair it was because it was closing time at the church and they wanted to go home, presumably to watch horse races).
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| Wishing well top in foreground, city in background. |
After all was said and sung, we boarded back up onto the bus, and drove another 45 minutes to get to San Giminiono. This town was a true medieval city. It is peppered with tall standing towers throughout the town. And where Siena had modernized quite a bit of their buildings, S.G. seemed to have left most facades looking the same (though I can probably safely assume the insides were very modern). The towers were of course, the way families in the town could show off their wealth. It's basically the same idea as owning giant cars in America-the bigger your vehicle, the more self conscious you are. Still, the towers make the town unique and charming. There is also some fantastic vantage points to see the Tuscan country side all around the town. We stop here to sing at the local church, a place Dr. A had been working to get to sing in on 3 different trips- he was pretty giddy that we finally succeeded (and I think then and there Dr. A knew our guide was the best he had ever had).
The acoustics inside are fantastic for Italian Baroque. The hall carried the sound with little effort, gave plenty of feedback, but didn't overwhelm the hall with clustering noise. This hall could easily be my favorite to sing in in Italy. After our set of music, the Priest asks us he could show us something he thought was very special. It was a private tour of the shrine to the patron saint of the church. The saints name escapes me (and by extension the name of the church), but her story goes like this: At the age of 12 she had a brain annurism that caused her to be immobilized. As the story goes, she decided to lay on a wooden table, to emulate Jesus' suffering on the cross. After four years, she was visited by a Papal Spirit telling her that for her faithfuless her suffering would soon come to pass. All this time she is assisted by an arthritic old maid, who began seeing this girl as something very special, because this girl provided this old woman a reason to live and be useful. Six months later, the girl passed to Heaven just as the spirit had said, and something strange happened in the surrounding country side. The local flowers which always bloom white, that day bloomed yellow. A blind boy touched her feet and was able to see again, and the old maid who was so deep in grieving the loss of not only her friend-but of her usefulness too, had her wrists suddenly grasped by the deceased girl, and afterwards had no arthritis. They still kept her brains in a jar, right there in the church. I felt very honored that the priest would choose to share this story with us, a group of foreigners who offered him nothing more than our voices. Very humbling.
Well, we have a short enough stop there to get some terracotta goods, eat some gillatto (always time for that), and hop back up on the bus. We headed to the town we were going to stay in, Montecatini, a beautiful little town nestled in the midst of some mountains, and about 20 minutes outside of Firenze (Florence in English).
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| Our room, fancy! |
We stayed at the Grand Hotel. The best way to describe this four star establishment is the sort of resort movie stars in the 40s and 50s would have gone to go skiing or hiking up in Italy. The electric sockets didn't quite work in our room, our bathroom had no shower curtain (though a mobile shower head did drape down into the tub), and a great view. To contrast, our friend had a room that had a random stool, slanted ceiling, and a shower that started at about 5ft.10in. and slanted down to about 5ft.4in., funny rooms. This hotel wasn't bad by any means, it just had a very unique personality to it that I appreciated. I felt completely underdressed for dinner that night which was at the hotels own resteraunt, a waiter-in-tuxedo type place. I was in a white t and jeans... but the food was still really good! We had another tasty pasta for the first course, veal for the second (which...ya...I'm not about the veal...), and tiramisu again for dessert. Oh, and we all enjoyed some Italian wine that night.
Important to note about the Chianti in this region- there is an official stamp that must be put on the bottle of Chianti in order for it to be an authentic Chianti from the Chianto vineyard region of Tuscany. Our wine was not authentic, though we were told that the stamp was usually under the label, so you'd have to drink the bottle to find out if the brand was legit or not anyways. As it turns out, the stamp is under the foiling they use to seal the cork. And the stamp is a black rooster. Why a black rooster? Well as the story goes, the city states of Tuscany would always fight with each other. At the end of one particular encounter, the warring states of Firenze and Siena (always bitter enemies), decided to have a horse race to determine land boundaries. Well, of course, one side decides to cheat. The black roosters in the area were their alarm clocks-meaning that when you heard them you woke up, and in the jockey's case, got your ass on a horse and rode like hell. So Firenze decides to keep those roosters up all night so they keeka-deekee-dee late (oh, our tour guide was great with his animal noises). Naturally, the rider from Siena woke up late, and wasn't able to get as much land as Firenze. Fun! And also, a true Chianti Classico is perhaps the best red wine I have ever tasted, more on that later.
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