Cold and Rainy Today

This is the narrow street we park on, our apartment is on the right. We dashed out to the car in pouring rain with our bathing suits on under our clothes. Hot Springs were on my mind. We'd slept late (for us) and left home with only coffee hoping to find pizza for lunch. Turns out, the pizza chefs only come in for the afternoon shift. Pizza is a dinner thing here, not a lunch thing. We've discovered we like to eat at Trattorias and Osterias, not in Restaurantes. They have the ambiance we like. We've given up trying to plan for and find the places described in the guide books and just pull off somewhere when we get hungry. We've yet to have a  bad meal. And so it went today:

Neither of us asked any questions, we could see they were already doing their best by printing the menu for us in English. Tats ordered spaghetti with smoke (the chef did NOT snuff her Marlborough in his pile of noodles) and I went with crescent pasta with burrata and orange. We both chose wisely, it was great.

We made our way to the hot springs, I can't say they were the friendliest lot at the establishment, but the water was warm enough and we lolled about for four hours listening to the oldsters swap lies. Everyone, and I mean every woman wears a two piece bathing suit here.  Wrinkles, sags, lumps, bumps, bellies, scars-no one gives a dang. I fell in love with a woman who I'm guessing was in her late 80's-she had the most gorgeous wrinkles when she smiled. She was wearing a tiny tube top and a little black bikini bottoms. Every time she'd get under the big faucet dumping hot water to enjoy a neck massage she'd grab at her top as it was falling down and just grin.

The skies turned black and we heard a big clap of thunder and decided to head back towards Siena and get this guy a big pepperoni pizza for dinner. And that's just what we did.
 

9:00 am Feeling pretty cocky, I have my phone with downloaded maps, the route planned, my guidebook and a good attitude.

Me to Ev: We're definitely getting the hang of things, we're getting familiar with the road signs and noticing all the Spanish cognates giving us clues about what the heck is going on. We're doin' great! 

9:45 am  Me to Ev: Google maps says in 800 meters you'll have another opportunity to do the wrong thing.

That really was how the morning started out, but we were laughing and had nowhere to be so it all worked out. We had some dirt road moments "this can't be right" and some narrow alley moments "could this be right?", but it was ALL right and we pressed on.

Today's activity was to take a UNESCO World Heritage designated drive south of Siena. Stunning doesn't cover it. Everything was green and freshly washed with the nightly rains we've been having. We recognized wheat and alfalfa, grapes and olive groves. Every town we skirted was perched on a hilltop with a medievel church in prominent view. 

Fields and fields of poppies below those incredible blues and greens.

The tall cypress at every estate is so quintessentially Italian.

I had my eye on one tasting room that sounded interesting. "It's never too early to taste good wine!", quipped our server who enjoyed telling us about her cockatiel AND the wine we were tasting.

Did not intend to arrive at 10:30 am

And finally for your viewing pleasure, the Italian in his underpants. We stopped at a light to let oncoming traffic clear the bridge and he hopped out and got his sunglasses out of the trunk. What a day.

We scooted up so I could have a better look.

 

This is going to be our new summer cocktail. We've been swigging them daily.

In Mexico when I was little we had a small bottle of gentian violet in our medicine cabinet.  Mom put it on our cuts and scrapes and though it burned like the dickens, I loved that little bottle for the long glass dauber attached to the lid, the end of which looked like a little teardrop of glass. On occasion, mom would dilute some of it and make me drink the bitter lurid orange water for the worms I was presumably getting eating dirt (or what have you).  

We've seen everyone everywhere in Italy drinking a similar flourescent orange water, though in stemmed glasses, over ice and topped with a delicious slice of citrus. Turns out, you mix it up with a little prosecco and a little fizzy water and you beat the humidity, stimulate your appetite AND de-worm.

Also-who needs their appetite stimulated here?

 

"Yes, I KNOW we're in Italy", he said, "but it's still not as good as yours."

Quasi Secondo Gol!

 Hotel Spadai in Florence was like a little soft cotton lined cocoon that received us in our bedraggled state. They pet us and made us comfy and smiled at us and encouraged us and helped us (despite charging us for the night we missed). The night we arrived we were both worn so thin, all we could think of was to raid the complimentary fridge, take a shower and order room service. Here came one of the best sandwiches I've ever eaten. Think smoked pecorino, artichoke hearts, arugula, sun dried tomatoes and some kind of thin sliced magical meat on a ciabatta not from Costco. We devoured it, fell in to bed and slept a full 12 hours.

Next up, free breakfast. Oh my word! I complimented the demi god in the black suit that seemed to be orchestrating the whole deal and he disappeared and reappeared with a hot fresh crepe filled with Nutella and thanked me for the kind words. Evidently everything in the buffet is house made by a very young staff he is mentoring. The yogurt was house made, the assortment of sweet pastries was over the top, and then of course eggs, bacon, sausage, wheels of cheese, thin sliced magical meats and the best OJ we've had since moving from Mexico. Good grief it was hard to stop.

We had to leave today, I made another rookie mistake with a money changer and made an executive decision to let it go. 

At the airport we got our little Italian shitbox that turned out to be better than expected and turned south to Siena. Miracle of miracles, google maps and my intrepid chauffer got us to our BnB flawlessly.

I've ridden alongside this man for many many miles and only had to start actually pulling my weight as a navigator recently.

I didn't get pics of our homestay before we trashed it, but this is the view:

Looks like a cartoon view to the right.

Old Town to the left.

And here comes the "quasi". In Italy's historic districts there are strictly enforced zones where you must not go on wheels. Weeeellll, nobody told google maps and we traversed what felt like the entirety of Old Town in our little shitbox.  Bless Ev, he was dodging mindless gelato eaters, planters full of geraniums, bistro chairs and unruly spaniels on leashes that have probably never seen a car. There is no telling how many euros I'll have to pay in fines. All I wanted was coffee and cream for in the morning at a promising grocery store. We managed to find pizza and will try try again in the morning.

A Few Things I Learned In One Day in Florence

 The famous cathedral was a work in progress for hundreds of years, having first been built in a gothic style in the 12th century. Three hundred years later (aboutish) it was torn down and rebuilt in a more modern renaissance style. Pieces of the original cathedral were found and saved by local preservationists. The craftmanship of the little preserved chunks is astounding.

The rebuild is no slouch, either. The technical aspects of a building this large and complex is mind bending even today. Then you have the artistry of all the famous renaissance masters of the day, putting the icing on the cake. Biggie up these images up and see what I mean about the details. It is beyond imagination.

I particularly like this little cherub doing a big job.

Leonardo da Vinci, who was active as a painter, engineer, scientist, sculptor, artist and architect was highly regarded at the time even though he had quite a few big failures. He tried to reroute the Arno River before Caterpillar was a company. He failed, causing widespread flooding and quite a few deaths. He really really wanted to fly, so he devised a bird outfit and threw himself off a cliff. Someone with a good sense of humor thought it would be funny to carve an image of him for the cathedral as part of a panel of 12 desirable personality traits under the virtue “Temperance”.

Leo's big idea: let's divert this river with hand shovels and rocks and make Pisa thirsty!

Temperance: moderation in thought, action and feeling.Not.

While others were imagining and creating huge structures and fantastic representational art, Galileo had his heart set on defining light, seeing the teensiest of things, predicting the weather, determining where he was in space, understanding the physics of motion and standardizing how to conduct experiments. In short, he was understood as a heretic and spent the last of his life under house arrest. Poor guy.

The instruments he designed and used were remarkable but I was struck by their beauty. The etching and fine machining on each little tool was a sight to behold. Everything was behind glass so you will just have to imagine it. Each tool had it's own cherry or rosewood dovetailed box made especially to house it. Made my palms sweaty.

Journal Envy

Look at this inlaid and keyed lens cover for a newtonian telescope. What Pop would have given to have a keyed lens cap!

More time is needed in this busy little city.

GOL!

 After 48 hours of rookie mistakes combined with a little United Hell, and 3 bonafide angels in the Frankfurt Airport we've arrived in Firenze. It's 8:45pm, we've just showered and ordered room service and are looking forward to bed.

 I had a little bad feeling this morning when I woke up. We were packed, I didn't have any last minute crisis additions to the luggage, things were going well with Kino but still my little bad feeling persisted.

Onward. 

Robert picked us up, we arrived at the airport at 11:40, a full two hours before our flight. I looked over at Tata, he looked like he was being led to the guillotine but he mustered a gamely smile thinking about the pizza he was going to eat.

Flight to Denver, on time! We shuffled to our gate.

Half the passengers were loaded, when suddenly the process was halted.  We heard, "We're calling maintenance, the door is malfunctioning." quickly followed by "The flight is cancelled"

I'm so disappointed, aggravated and all the bad things I can't really even speak. We're reticketed for tomorrow but that only gives us 2 nights in Florence and we're forfeiting the tickets I got for David and Galileo.

To retrieve our luggage, one by one, each of the 189 of us on the flight had to go to the ticket counter and describe our bag to a lone guy who would dive into the bowels of the airport and drag it up. Someone squawked on the little microphone pinned to our helper's shoulder, "Calm the fuck down!" The crowds roared.

Rather than go home, I took the stinkin' voucher from United and got us a cab to The Clyde. The sweet young thing at the desk asked me if I had a floor preference and I said, "as high up as possible and facing the mountain if you can." She said, "I can do BOTH of those things!"

I see no mountains, only antennae. 

The End

Addendum: Had dinner in the hotel bar. "I'll have the Clyde's Fizz, the hotel's signature cocktail", he said. "We're out of egg whites", the bartender retorted. "I'll have a icy cold glass of your Pinot Grigio", she said.  "Let me go get it out of the hot and stuffy storage room.", the bartender responded.

Headed to bed now, hoping to recoup my sunny disposition tomorrow.