The first thing our guide, Nicoletta, told us was that she was a Caterpillar. What the ??? OK a little background is in order. Siena is about 75 kilometers south of Florence.
Back in the middle ages towns were rivals and even arch enemies sometimes. Remember that I told you about St. Francis fighting in the war between Assisi and Perugia. Well, without going into details, it was similar with Florence and Siena. Long story short, Siena surrendered to Florence in 1555.
Now, Nicoletta identified herself as a Caterpillar, or more correctly, a person born in the contrada (district) of the Caterpillar, one of the 17 districts in Siena.
These districts were set up in the Middle Ages in order to supply troops to the many military companies that were hired to defend Siena as it fought to preserve its independence from Florence.
Over time the contradas lost their military functions and became areas of neighborhood patriotism and rivalry. The communities are held together by their histories, emotions and sense of civic pride. However, they take it to the limit. You see, Nicoletta being from the caterpillar neighborhood married an elephant - much to her parents displeasure. Well, the marriage didn't last, as predicted when you put people from two different contradas together. Which ever contrada you are born in you retain that status forever!
As you can see here, people are so proud of their districts, that their Contrada flags fly high.
And this brings us to one of the most important events in Siena - The Palio. The Palio is a horse race held twice each year, on 2 July and 16 August. For ten of the contradas ten horses are drawn by lottery and then ten riders at random. Imagine the combination - good horse, good rider - good horse not so good rider etc.. imagine the betting combinations! How do you ever create "organized crime" betting with that chaos. To add a bit of adventure the race is bareback around the fan shaped town square which has a very sharp turn. So,...you may have a good horse and a bad rider that come crashing down in the sharp corner... so the slow horse and good rider can actually end up winning because they don't wipe out. In fact, your Contrada can win even if the rider comes off but the horse carries on to cross the finish line first.
Here is a picture of the 2018 Palio.
As you can see the town square is packed with people. It is estimated that 45,000 of the town's 50,000 people attend. This race is the most important thing in the lives of Siena townsfolk after births, marriages, and deaths of family and close friends. The citizens spend all year preparing for this 3 lap race which takes place in just 1 1/2 minutes. The rivalry of each of these districts is epic. For football fans think Edmonton vs Calgary, Regina vs Winnipeg or Toronto vs Ottawa.
Here is a short you tube video of the event. It is about 3.5 minutes long and is in Italian, but sub-titled in English. If you wish to watch it, as with prior videos, click on the triangle in the video.
Siena has a beautiful Duomo (house of God) very near the centre of town. This beautiful church was started in the 13th century, and the town folk were keen to build a cathedral to rival that of Florence (no surprise there!). The grand plans were halted by the black plague of 1348, when 40,000 of the town's 50,000 succumbed to the plague. The church has two small statues done by none other than Michelangelo.
These are statues of the Apostles Peter and Paul. Apparently Michelangelo was hired to create a number of statues. However, after learning what he was to be paid, he stopped after creating these two and had his students create the rest. They laboured for quite some time but they too abandoned the project prior to completion leaving one empty spot. Contractor problems even back then!
Statuary adorn the pillars of many public buildings. It is beautiful to walk down the charming streets and allies. The odd part is, that nationally the spend millions repairing, cleaning and maintaining statues, and yet pigeons are a protected species! Go figure!
Sonya had to check out the details of this statue. Good thing she has a powerful zoom!
After Siena, we traveled deep into the heart of Chianti Country. Ah...Tuscany and its Chianti Classico.
Do you remember sticking a candle in these bottles and letting them drip down the sides to create the ambiance of Christmas or a dinner party? Well, more likely than not, it was a bottle of Chianti wine. In Italy, there is a saying that goes, "A meal without wine is breakfast! Nuff said!
Italy is the world's largest producer of wine. From 2013 - 2016, it produced an average of 50 million hectolitres per year. Put another way, that is about 6.67 Billion bottles of wine. Yes, Billion. France is a close second, followed by Spain and, surprising to me, USA is the fourth largest producer, followed by Australia. Sorry Canada, we did not make the top 20 list!
Despite the vast amount of production, Italians only serve wine with food. You would not go to someone's house just for a glass of wine. No wonder Italy is all about food!
Our tour is called Country Roads of Italy, and we have traveled down some fabulous roads. We are staying in Radda in Chianti, with a population of about 1,600 people.
Wherever you drive here, you see vineyards and olive orchards (more on olives in another installment). This year, it is quite green because they have received a good amount of rain. Last year, they had no rain for six months. What a difference a year makes!
We stopped at a winery (Il Molino de Grace owned by the Frank family from Ohio, USA) for a taste of three different grades of Chianti wine. They were Chianti Classico, Riserva (special reserve), and Gran Selezione (grand selection). Each was very good, with the next being better than the one before. The third one was outstanding and I selected a bottle of it to take home.
Needless to say I was overruled on this three litre bottle of Gran Selezione! Can't blame a guy for trying!
Maybe, I can get them to ship one of the small barrels to me when I get back! Or maybe not, since it won't fit in the "camping machine" - as Gloria refers to RVs.
The next morning, we went to the town of San Gimignano, or Saint Jim for short. If you have seen the show 'Tea with Mussolini', with Dame Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Cher, you will have seen the Piazza Cisterna (The Well Square), which is the centre of town. The town sits on a hill as do many of the towns in the area (remember the wars between towns), and we went up to the fortress atop the hill to get a view of the area.
OK, next stop is a real estate agent to see if there are places to lease or sale! Kidding of course, but you can see why one would be tempted!
In town is a Gelateria that has won several world Gelato tasting competitions, and they are not ashamed to say so.
Our tour included a tasting of course - gelato or sorbetto!
Now you think that we are eating ice cream, but this is deemed an insult to Gelato makers. According to Stefano, the co-owner of this shop, the big name ice cream makers (names omitted here!) have in the range of 35% butter fat. Now that means that every third mouthful of ice cream you eat would be pure fat, assuming the first two had none. Because the fat can increase the volume of ice cream so much, the makers have to add food colouring and flavouring.
Gelato on the other hand has much less butter fat (Stefano says 15% or so). No other flavours are added, as the fat volume does not dilute the flavor as much as ice cream does. Their gelato is usually made the same day, or at the oldest, the day before. We will definitely be sticking with gelato for the rest of the trip. Oh, and no, Sonya you cannot take the ice cream maker south in our camping-machine unless you give up the spot for your Thermomix!
On to Florence and Cinque Terre!
Ciao for now,
SnP
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