BOXES 227-228: Tuscan Places.

Though you can't tell from the photo, this spread was on an outdoor table on a Tuscan farm, overlooking vineyards and olive trees. The key to the location is the bottle of chianti, if you look closely at the label. Anne and I were spending a couple of days at an agritourism farm on the edge of the Chianti district: it was called the Fattoria La Loggia, and the grapes grown there went into the wine we were about to drink. I think we must have bought the other items at a grocery (some miles away) for our very Mediterranean lunch: cheese, ham and bread; tomatoes and marinated artichokes and olives; cherries and apricots; and a piece of panforte, the great Tuscan sweet, on the far left. This was part of the trip we took in the summer of 2001 that had included Bologna, Orvieto and the Maremma, as I've reported in the previous two posts.

After our week in Ansedonia, where 11 of us rented a house on the coast, Anne and I, Jim and Jean Tobin, and my Swiss friend Heinz drove northeastward toward Siena. For Anne and myself a major reason for this segment of our trip was to check out some of the arrangements we had made by letters. email and phone for our forthcoming campus trip to that city in January 2022.

The first photo I took after leaving 'Nikkiland' (see previous BOX) is of a herd of sheep moving beneath olive trees (I think), with one sheep reaching up to nibble some leaves. I like the play of light and shadow in this photo:

The next picture shows a grander vista, taken somewhere along the drive into Central Tuscany: a classic landscape of farms, cypress trees, forested hills and higher mountains in the distance:

We didn't drive directly to Siena but stopped in two "wine" towns to the south of it: Montalcino and Montepulciano, which I'd visited with Max, Wayne and others back in 1983. (See BOX 144.) Here is the road leading up into the hill town of Montalcino:

Montalcino is dominated by a fortress--now a place where you can buy the famous wines of the district:

Montepulciano--where we stayed the night--is on an especially rugged hillside, with the very beautiful church of San Biagio below it:

Here's a somewhat wider view:

And here's a closer view of San Biagio:

I took these photos the morning after our stay, but I see from the order of slides in my box that San Biagio was our first stop when we reached the town the afternoon before. I don't remember if we actually visited the church or just admired the avenue of trees leading up to it:

It took some time to find our hotel (where we must have made an advance reservation): we had to drive up and down narrow medieval streets where there was barely enough width for our cars to navigate, not to mention their being filled with pedestrians. But when we finally looked out the windows of our rooms, the views were more than worth the effort:

We continued to take in the views as sunset approached:

The next photo, which includes San Biagio, might have been taken from the parapet next to the hotel. Likewise for the telephoto view of the land below:

I'll include this net photo of Anne with Jean and Jim, even though it's partially overexposed, because it brings back good memories of that evening:

That evening we had an excellent dinner after dark, with a celebratory bottle of the local Vin Nobile di Montepulciano: we were toasting the birth of Tiffany and Aron's second child, Forest, earlier that day. (Anne was in a phone booth during part of the dinner--she did manage to reach them--and I recall that Jean stayed in her room to continue to watch

the sunset with swallows whirring up and down in front of the her window.)

The next morning I attempted (and failed) to get a good shot of the landscape outside our window with the geraniums perched on the sill. But I did get a better photo of a typical steep street of Montepulciano. I believe the building in the center with the arched doorway is our little hotel; I don't know about the crown over the doorway on the right.

The drive to Siena that day was filled with fantastic views of Tuscan fields and hills:

In Siena Anne and I were comped by the management of the Hotel Athena, on the edge of the old city, since our very large campus group was going to be staying there in January. I'm surprised I took no pictures of the hotel--I must have thought their brochures were sufficient. But this photo of Anne with the Sienese countryside might have been taken from the grounds of the hotel:

And this second failed attempt to shoot flowers against a rustic scene might have been taken from there as well:

Back in the secular heart of the city (as opposed to the nearby Cathedral Square), in front of the Palazzo Pubblico, I took a pic of Heinz, Anne, Jean and Jim:

The Palazzo is on the more flat side of the great half-moon-shaped Piazza del Campo -- here's the view looking in the opposite direction:

And here's a closer view of part of the curve of buildings at the high end of the 'square':

The Campo is where the famous Palio horse races are run twice a year around the perimeter. We were in Siena a week before a Palio, and it was fascinating to see the preparations being made: for example, bleachers being installed in front of the buildings. (Not shown, though we did see it: dirt being spread over the pavement for the racetrack.) The rivals in the race are the various contrade (neighborhoods) of Siena: each contrada has its own flag and other trappings; in the photo below, flags of the Dolphin contrada are hung everywhere:

We also saw flag-tossers practicing: on the day of the Palio these flags are tossed and crossed high in the air in elaborate patterns:

The Tobins stayed on longer than Anne and I did in Siena, and got many wonderful photos of the Siennese in their medieval costumes. I have only a few more of the city itself to share. Here are (1) a courtyard of the Palazzo Pubblico and (2) a typical narrow street:

And here are two glimpses of the great Cathedral:

Our next stop, now just Anne and myself, was at the Farm La Loggia. This was by far our most expensive stay, but our free stay in Siena helped to make up for it. The farm was on a hill, remote from any towns (though not very far south of Florence), reachable by little winding roads. The nearest town of any size was San Casciano in Val di Pesa, which you could see in the distance from the farm, as in the photo below:

The main building was indeed an old farmhouse but considerably renovated for touristic visits:

Our quarters were more modern than rustic:

But it was the beautiful countryside that made the place really special:

The above photo was taken through the window of an extension of the house that had been set up with a dining table as a sort of pavilion. I took a second photo which shows the building itself:

In the next photo figs, grapes and olive trees are all seen together:

One afternoon we made an excursion to Greve, in the heart of the Chianti district. The town is notable for its triangular main piazza. In the two photos below, the building with the clock is the city hall, and the statue is of native son Amerigo Vespucci.

When we left Fattoria La Loggia we headed south to Rome's main airport (Fiumicino), to drop off our rental car. Along the way we stopped for lunch on the south shore of Lake Bolsena, which we'd seen from the north on our drive from Orvieto to Ansedonia. I remember having a delicious fish caught from the lake, though my only photo is of some ducks near the shore:

The last days of our trip were spent in Rome and finally Milan, where we rendezvoused again with the Tobins. I'll save photos from these cities for my next post.