Block #12 - Poggibonsi and Siena

We tired of Florence fairly quickly, and since we were in the capital of Tuscany we decided to undertake a couple day trips. The goal of this particular day trip was a wine museum and a torture museum in the little town of San Giamangio. The wine museum particularly because Nick was really interested in seeing how wine was made, but all of the tours we looked into were really expensive and seemed more geared towards sightseeing and drinking wine than finding out how it was made. When the reviews we got from talking to people reliably contained phrases like “hammered by lunchtime,” we decided that the tours were not for us.

We figured out what train we needed to take, what train station we needed to get off at, managed to find a stamping machine in the Italian train station that actually worked to stamp our tickets and set off. We got off the train at the appropriate stop and....nothing. I wouldn't have been exactly surprised to see a tumbleweed blow across the street in front of the train station.

Part of this was our fault, as we arrived during lunchtime (approximately 12-2pm), the main meal of the day. In cities such as Venice and Florence, that means that everyone is out in cafes and restaurants, but in the teeny-tiny town of Poggibonsi (where we ended up) that meant that everyone was at home having lunch, leaving the town eerily deserted. I took a picture of this lovely sewer grate outside of the train station:



How is it that even the sewer grates give me ideas for quilt blocks? I guess that's Italy for you. We decided that probably San Giamangio was somewhere close, and that we'd be able to see it if we climbed up somewhere high (it's a medieval walled town), so we aimed uphill. After climbing what felt like straight up and taking a turn that probably meant we were trespassing on some farmer's fields, we had this lovely view:



Do you see any medieval walled cities, or even anything promising? Yeah, me neither. Nick said that given his hiking boots, he could probably find it eventually by the end of the day. On the way back down the hill, I took another picture of a drainage grate



And a window box that was too picturesque not to take a picture of.



We decided that we were not going to achieve anything by staying in Poggibonsi, so we made our way back to the train station and spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure out how to buy train tickets on to Siena. That in and of itself was an adventure, as there were two automated ticket machines, neither of which worked, and an information window that looked like it hadn't been manned in a couple days, let alone like anyone would be back anytime soon. Finally we noticed a hand lettered sign on a piece of cardboard (think homeless man on the side of the road sort of sign) directing people to the newspaper stand to buy their tickets. Relieved, we finally obtained tickets and got on the train the rest of the way to Siena, which was a much more exciting place.

The whole town was in the midst of preparing for an annual horse race and festival that takes place in the central plaza of the city. The horse race has been taking place since medieval times, and the viewing stands around the plaza looked like they were original. I'm sure that attending this race would have been awesome, but at the same time, the whole operation looked really dangerous to me. I mean, take a look at this picture:



Would you really want to sit in those seats while half a dozen or more horses raced around that track? You can see almost half of the circle, by the way, from this vantage point. I didn't think so. We did take the opportunity to climb the tower that rises above this plaza.




Only 25 people are allowed in the tower at any one time, so you have to wait at the entrance until the previous group comes out. Which is really annoying while you're waiting at the bottom, but it's obvious once you start climbing that they have to operate that way because there's absolutely no room for people to be going up and down, you have to let people go up and come back down before anyone else comes in. It was a great view, though, and I would say well worth the wait.



As we were making our way back to the train station, I had to take this picture



What you can't see is that there was a saint of a mother pushing her child (who looked old enough to walk) in a stroller up this hill. And what you really can't see is that said child had the nerve to be complaining about something at the top of the hill. I was quite impressed with the patience and upper body strength of that woman.

Finally, tired but content with the day's accomplishments we headed back to Florence. For dinner that night we ate in a adorably eclectic restaurant nearby to where we were staying. It was cheap, the atmosphere was great, and they had the best tomato sauce I have ever eaten in my life. It was awesome. I don't remember the name, but if anyone is ever going to Florence, let me know and I'll give you directions to this place. With one more day left in Tuscany, we decided to do the touristy thing and head to Pisa! Until then, Ciao!