Under the Tuscan Sun

Every year over 4th of July weekend, the base here always has a little festival. Its the usual fun & games for kids, softball, BBQs, and fireworks at night. But Susan and I decided we wanted to get away from all of that. We got together with a couple friends of ours, Cheryl and Vi, packed up our car with camping gear and headed south into the most famous region of Italy... Tuscany.

When most people think of Italy, the picture that forms in their mind is probably Tuscany. It is known for its rolling hills, olive trees, vineyards, sunflowers, and medieval towns and castles that has inspired artists and writers for centuries.

It takes us about 4 hours to drive there, and definitley worth the trip.

Susan found a campsite outside the city of Siena. So our plan was to camp there for two nights while we do some exploring of the old villages, and on Sunday we would head into the city of Siena for the climax of the trip - a horse race called the Palio... more on that later.

We arrived at the campsite on Saturday morning around 10am. After we pitched the tent we hopped back in the car and headed west into the Tuscan hills.

We had no real plan of where we were going, but we just thought we'd stop at any little towns that looked cool. Our first stop was in the tiny village called Monteriggioni. It is a medieval town fortified with a wall that still stands today and completely encircles the town. From the road, Monteriggioni looks really cool. It sits on the top of a small hill, the town church tower is the only thing that you can see over the old defensive wall. (Vi has some good pics I still need to get from her). It is a really cool thing to see from the road.

Susan and I standing in Monteriggioni with the hills behind us.

Monteriggioni is tiny, and I do mean TINY. I'm sure the average Wal-Mart store is bigger than this whole town.

But when we were there we were lucky enough to come upon a wedding being held in the town church.

Awww... Aren't they adorable?

The souvenir shop in Monteriggioni. THE ONLY souvenir shop in Monteriggioni.

After an average lunch in one of the 2 restaurants in Monteriggioni, we hit the road again. We followed the map and made a stop at a town called Volterra, another medieval town that is rich with history and set in a beautiful landscape surrounded my the hills.




We went into a little art gallery and made friends with this local artist. Her paintings were awesome, all acryllic or oil landscapes of Tuscany and she painted the frames too so that it looked like the scenes burst out of the frame. Vi and Cheryl made some purchases. Susan and I plan to make a return trip!

These are the ruins of an old Roman ampitheater right in the middle of Volterra.

One thing I wanted to do on this trip was a little hiking. We really didn't ever get much of a chance to do that, but we were able to take a walk outside the city limits of Volterra as we went in search of an old archaeological site not far from the town. (I read about it in a guidebook!)

The site is a necropolis from the Etruscan times. A necropolis is really nothing more than a grave or tomb, usually where important people were buried. The Etruscans were the people who lived in this region before the Romans. Did you get that? Before the Romans, so we're talking about over 2000 years ago! I guess you have to be into history for that to find that interesting, but I think its cool!

It took us about 45 minutes to walk from the outskirts of Volterra to this necropolis. On the way we passed lots of little houses, a beautifully kept cemetery, and ancient ruins built by the Etruscans. And of course the Tuscan countryside as a backdrop to everything made it all nicer.

Susan, Vi, and Cheryl inside the necropolis.

We finally reached a sign that pointed us up some old stone stairs and down a narrow little overgrown trail. The trail split and there were entrances to the tombs in either direction. It sure didn't look like it got many visitors. We arrived at an entrance, a set of old stone steps going down. I have to admit it was a little creepy. Since it was me and three girls, of course I had to go first! I took the first few steps and a out came about 80 flies. They were big, at first I thought they were bees. I pressed on and continued down.

The necropolis was like a small room with chambers that were used for the bodies. There were small electric lights mounted on the walls. Outside it must have been over 90 degrees, but down here it was nice and cool.

Even though I couldn't do any hiking, I was glad we took this little excursion. Its always fun to do a little Indiana Jones stuff!

That was enough of old dead people stuff. We walked back to Volterra and got back in the car. By this time it was close to 4 in the afternoon. We headed for our next stop, San Gimignano.

San Gimignano is a little bigger than Volterra, much bigger than Monteriggioni. We decided this would be a good place to have dinner and spend the evening.

As we walked the streets of San Gimignano Vi made friends with another local artist. He even hooked her up with some good deals on his work. People seemed to be so much friendlier down here. Maybe it was the small town atmosphere. But then again if you got to live among this scenery, I think it would be pretty easy to be happy all the time!

I sat at a sidewalk cafe and had a beer while the girls shopped for more art...

We wrapped up our Saturday night with a nice dinner at cool little pizzeria. We got a little lost on the way back to the campsite, but we made it. I slept like a log, hope I didn't snore too much!

SIENA

Sunday was the big day. The main reason we came on the trip. Every year Siena holds their big medieval festival. The highlight of the festival is a one-minute long fiasco of a horserace called the Palio. You may have heard of it since it is relativley famous as far as Italian medieval festivals go.

Siena is divided into 17 districts or "contrade". Each contrada has its representative animal and colors. Some are named after cool, scary animals like the ram, the wolf, and the dragon. But the funny thing is that some of them are named after things like the caterpillar, the seashell, the snail, and the goose.
As you walk through old Siena you see the flags of the contrade everywhere. As you move from one district to another and if you pay close attention, you will notice subtle symbolic reminders of which one you're in. The lamps on the buildings are sometimes in the shape of the animal. There are little stone designs on walls, and maybe a fountain with a statue of their animal too.

This is in the rhinoceros district. They are getting ready for the parade and the race.

Here is where the race happens. In the central town plaza. Not on a race track, right in the middle of the town! Granted it is bigger than the average town plaza, but still. They put together a makeshift path for the horses, bleachers, which cost close to $200 per seat encircle the track and a huge midsection is left in the middle. Its free to get in there so that's where we headed. Some people said you need to be in there four hours ahead of time, but it turned out that you can get in almost right before the parade starts.

Here I am donning the colors of the Elephant district. (its actually called the Tower district, but their flag has an elephant on it)


Susan picked the dragon district!

Here is the parade. All the districts brought out their horse escorted by guys dressed in medieval costumes. They were throwing their flags into the air, you've probably seen pictures of that before.

This is the band that played during the parade. They only knew one song, and they played it over and over...
This is what the plaza looked like right before the race.
Here is the parade finishing up.

So hours and hours of waiting and watching all the pagentry all led up to the big race. Finally all the horses were in place and the chaos began. The race is three laps around the track. As the horses came around the first sharp turn, three or four horses lost their footing and crashed into a padded wall. The jockeys flew off their horses. Dust is flying everywhere. The rest of the horses race past the crash site and continue on the path. The jockey-less horses keep running.

We heard that the horse wins the race, not the jockey, so they let the horses go on even if their jockey's fall off.

The horse from the Eagle district was in the lead the whole second lap. They came around the same sharp turn again, but this time, no crash. The Eagle horse had a good lead and it looked like his jockey got too comfortable. Because at the very last moment, the Panther horse made his move and tried to pass the Eagle horse. The two jockeys were hitting each other and the other horse with their sticks!

It was down to the wire, and at the last second the Panther horse won! The celebration started. Fans raced towards the wining horse, they were yelling and shouting praise for their horse. They were pulling the jockey off in a dozen directions, it looked like they were gonna rip him apart.

The Eagle fans were crying.

The whole thing was over in no more than 90 seconds.

Now that the craziness was over, we walked around the city and enjoyed the celebrations. Every contrada has a feast. The Panther contrada was so crowded we couldn't even walk down the street. Yes, the streets of Siena were one big party that night. It was really something to see.

We hit a few local bars and watched a live band play. We ended the night by walking to a few cafes and gelato stands and watched the replay of the race over and over again. Then it was back to the campsite for our last night in the tent.

The next day was Monday and as soon as we woke up we packed up our tent and jumped back in the car. We drove about one hour to the east to a little lake called Trasimeno. We got a hotel in great little town on the shores of the lake called Passignano.

Passignano is another old little village with a medieval castle on a hill. There were some nice restaurants and bars right on the lake.

We spent all day Monday relaxing on the lake. We rented a canoe and paddled around the lake, we laid in the sun on the sandy beach. A quiet dinner and a good nights sleep in a comfy bed was exactly what we needed to end the trip.

Tuesday we woke up and drove back home. Oh yeah, it was the 4th of July, wasn't it? I hadn't thought about it once.