DAY 7 - THEY SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST, THE MEDIEVAL CITY OF SIENA

SATURDAY & SUNDAY - 6 & 7 SEPTEMBER 2014 - SIENA

There was time for a quick exploration of this most fascinating Medieval city after we checked into our hotel Saturday afternoon. Siena is built on seven hills, just like Rome said the guide. Not only do you have to be careful choosing your route between sights to ensure the least climbing of these hills, there's evidence of dark ages city planning. The plaza's and squares are tilted, some very much so. Good drainage, I suppose, but not very supportive of the 13th Century backhoe and earthmover operators' union. Siena's slanted seashell shaped Piazza del Campo, above, is the site of the twice annual Palio, a bareback horse race that defines the city.

We continued our independent sightseeing around Siena on Sunday morning. This gave us a chance to observe everyday life as well as strange tourist behavior. This rare morning free time was because most of the group had opted for the very early and optional (meaning great additional cost) hot air balloon ride over the Tuscan countryside. Unfortunately for them, it was quite hazy and cold at altitude. (They all reported that the balloon ride, "was nice". I think they actually hated it.) Barbara and I were very glad we could explore Siena more extensively as well as sleep late. Did I mention that Siena is a knockout?

The group reconvened with a local guide after lunch. We learned about how the people of Siena are dominated, obsessed, defined, and otherwise crazy about their couple of times per summer bareback horse race around the main Palazzio. This is a huge seashell shaped open area we had visited earlier. Apparently, this event, Il Palio has been happening since early times (the second race each summer was added in 1701) and involves heavily bribed hired non-local jockeys. Each small neighborhood downtown is defined by an entry in the annual races as indicated by flags and wall medallions. The guide explained that one is born into a neighborhood and can not change affiliation even if they move. "Once a turtle, always a turtle", she actually said. I assume she is a turtle. The neighborhood groups party together (frequently), fight the other neighborhoods (occasionally), and get very excited over the two or three races each summer (really excited, apparently). This is not a town a stranger moves into lightly. Even Dante looks characteristically uneasy as he looks down on one of the squares.

Our walking tour visited the interior of the Siena Duomo, perhaps the most interesting cathedral outside Rome. There's paintings on the floor that rival any in museums, spectacular decorations inside, and a statue of a guy with a beard, that Michelangelo sculpted just before he was summoned to Florence at age 27 to do David. (I couldn't help but notice that Michelangelo avoid the pesky hand and other part size issues in this work by effectively hiding these features.)

Our guided tour of Siena ended with  an excellent wine lecture and a visit to a museum dedicated to the annual races. She reminded us that she is a turtle and that she gets very excited about the horse races each summer. Yes, we know, we know, we said.

We ended up the day with a reception and excellent dinner in the wine cellar of the hotel, but despite our early transfer to the airport in the morning we could not resist one last quick walk around our hotel to check out the curious masked dancers and drum line across the street from our hotel. I asked the hotel staff standing in the doorway watching what this was about, perhaps something to do with the horse races? They answered in unison, "No, we don't know what that is." Guess, I'm not a turtle.

We said goodbye to the others and arrived home by early evening Monday.

DAY 6 - WINE, BIKING, PASTA MAKING, AND A VERY GRAND HOTEL

SATURDAY - 6 SEPTEMBER 2014 - LUCCA, UNDER THE TUSCAN OLIVE TREE, AND ON TO SIENA

The road from the Cinque Terre is a lot more scenic than the straight as an arrow train which rides mostly through tunnels. We climbed through the Ligurian Hills passing scenic mountain farming villages to the highlands surrounding the less touristy city of Lucca. This relatively unknown (by Rick Steves, I suppose) gem of a city lies in a flat valley and is surrounded by a broad wall. What a great place for a bike ride.

The bike ride was fun and allowed us to cover a lot of ground while enjoying a narration from a local guide, also on a bike, via our wireless system. Quite civilized. We got stunning views of lovely Lucca including its iconic tower with trees on the roof (It's an Italian thing, I suppose), grand downtown views, and on the way out of town passed a number of grand homes. Lucca is a town to visit for a longer time as long as one remembers to bring padded bicycle underwear.

The next stop was Fattoria Colle Verde, a winery and olive tree farm and oil producer located in a Tuscan setting that could be a movie set. Oddly enough the owner, who looks like Victor Borge, is a former film producer who left the world of entertainment to grow grapes and make olive oil. He also runs a cooking school. We were given a lesson in pasta making. The pasta I made was not linguini or tortellini. I made sterco, a new variety I believe. After a tour of a room full of wine barrels and a discussion of olive presses conducted by the ex-film maker owner, we had a lunch which included the winery's wine varieties in great quantities, mostly so we wouldn't notice the texture of the pasta we each had made. A good time was had by all in the bus ride to Siena.

We checked into the Grand Hotel Continental Siena mid-afternoon. This property is considered the best in town. Our room, located in the remains of the tower of the former palace, had frescos on the ceiling, and what appeared to be a murano glass chandelier above the four poster king bed. The nearby public room seemed nice, and the view out our window looked like a painting. I didn't ask what that room costs. Although we took a nice walk around town before dinner in a local restaurant, I'll leave the discussion of lovely Siena for tomorrow's entry.

DAY 5 - A HIKE AND A TRAIN RIDE: IT JUST DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT

FRIDAY - 5 SEPTEMBER 2014 - MONTEROSSO AL MARE, VERNAZZA, AND MANAROLA


The day started humid and hot. Nevertheless, most of the group was ready for the hike from Monterosso al Mare to the due terre, Vernazza. We were issued carbon fiber walking sticks (I told you Tauck doesn't skimp) and led by our Tour Director onto the hiking path through the Cinque Terre National Park that connects the five towns. Thomas told us that the park passes he obtained for us include unlimited use of the train line that connects the towns. Finally an opportunity for a train ride. Hooray.

The trail is moderate at most, certainly by Colorado standards, at less than 3 miles long and with a gain and loss of about 400 feet, but tiring because of the heat and humidity. Also the first half mile consists of a very long flight of steps carved into the cliffside. But the hike from Monterosso to Vernazza is the most scenic of the connecting trails and only takes a couple of hours. We looked up the hillsides, down to the sea, and off in the distance to actually not far off Vernazza until we were virtually on top of Vernazza and headed down through a side street into town.

We stopped briefly in actually very scenic (and also very crowded with tourists) Verrazza. After resting on a bench with a nice view of the harbor, we joined the tour director for the train ride to the quattro terre, Manarola. Thomas exclaimed that we didn't want to visit the tre terre, Corniglia, because of a "climb" from the train station into town. OK, we said.

Upon arriving in Manarola we walked through this smaller and less crowded town and looked at its harbor before choosing not to join the tour director in a walk to, "a park on the top of that hill with some sort of canon on top". Instead we ventured back through a smaller number of gelato and sunglasses shops and found the railway station on our own. By now we had decided that we were up to the essentially level one mile walk to the Riomaggiore on the "Via dell'Amore". Who wouldn't? Well actually, everyone it seems because a big sign on the closed gate indicated that the path of love was chiusa. Not wanting to violate a chiusa sign, we headed back to Monterosso al Mare on the next train where a beer at a cafe overlooking the rocky but pretty beach ended the active part of the day.

Dinner that night at a seaside cafe at the bottom of the hotel's long and steep driveway consisted of various local seafood products from the Ligurian Sea, mainly sardines and anchovies. Really good actually. The walk back up the driveway was not.

DAY 4 - MARBLE, LARD, AND THE CINQUE TERRE FROM THE SEA

THURSDAY - 4 SEPTEMBER 2014 - CARRARA, COLONNATA, PORTOVENERE, AND CINQUE TERRE


Carrara

A remarkably pleasant drive on an excellent toll road from Florence brought us to the mountain range outside the town of Carrara in Liguria. What is remarkable about these mountains is that they are literally made of marble. Huge slabs of this almost perfect compressed calcium carbonate (same chemical as Tums but in various colors, not flavors) have been mined here since Roman times, making the Carrara marble quarries the oldest continuously operated industrial site in the world.

 

Tauck came through again with a truly unique four wheel drive tour of the steep mountain side working quarries. As far as I could tell, we were the only tourists riding amidst and walking near the huge trucks and machinery. We were not issued hard hats and steel tipped shoes, but then neither were the workers. We stopped at a number of working areas high up above the Port of Luni where the stones are shipped world wide, including the actual quarry where Michelangelo got his huge stone and removed that which was not David. This was perhaps the highlight of the entire Tauck Culturious Tour in many ways.


Colonnata

This is the lard capital of the world. We had lunch in the Lardarium. This restaurant was not kosher. Colonnata Lard is creamy and salty. One spreads it on bread or eats it in little cubes. The guide explained that the processing of this pure fat makes it "low in cholesterol and actually good for you". I almost believed it until she said that the processing consisted entirely of adding great quantities of salt.


Portovenere

After our healthful lunch we headed around the huge harbor of La Spezia to the lovely peninsula town of Portovenere where we walked off the most beneficial aspects of said lunch by climbing to the 13th Century Gothic San Pietro Church. This church can be seen far out to sea where sailors for a millenium could only dream of lard.


Boat Ride to the Cinque Terre

The final destination of today's journey was Monterorroso al Mare, the uno terre of the five towns that make up this cliffside group of ex-fishing villages. Unfortunately, since Rick Steve publicized them as "unknown", now these small towns are very touristy and crowded. But they are spectacular nevertheless. In Tauck style, we made the last part of the journey to Monterorroso from Portovenere by ferry, stopping in the four towns of the group that have usable landing spots. I took pictures from the Ligurian Sea of each town as we approached or passed. Riomaggiore (above) is the 5th and most southern town of the Cinque Terre and the one we hoped to reach via train and the famed Via dell'Amore path later the next day during our afternoon free time.

At long last we arrived at the uno terre, Monterroso al Mare, the largest town and northernmost of the group. We caught our first glimpse of Hotel Porto Roca, our home for the next two nights, perched on the cliff visible to the right as we approached the small harbor. We also noticed the long climb to the hotel, visible in the picture as the steep path on the top of the cliffs diagonally above the boardwalk path from the town beneath the hotel. Note the train that connects the five towns, at left, which we planned to take the next day.

DAY 3 - NOW FOR THE "CULTURIOUS" PART: RESTORATION STUDIOS, FAMOUS DEAD GUYS, AND AN EXTRAORDINARY RECITAL

WEDNESDAY - 3 SEPTEMBER 2014 - FLORENCE, ITALY

After getting the traditional touristic (meaning crowded) aspects of the visit to Florence essentially out of the way, Tauck Tour's "Culturious" aspect began to assert itself. A short ride took our group across the Arno to a neighborhood devoted to restoration studios and antique dealers. We had private visits to two art restoration studios. The first studio was the small workshop of a woman who works exclusively with antiques in ivory, bone, horn, wood, and the like. She appeared to be able to put together the results of explosions and molecular food chefs, if the latter ever were required.

The studio next door was the headquarters for a new association of traditionally non-cooperative restorers as well as a workshop for the repair and renewal of all sorts of art. We learned quite a bit about the business of art restoration and the challenges of organizing independent artizens. Here we saw paintings and sculptures being repaired and also learned the ethic of not being overly zealous and attempting recreation of the piece. Clearly here is where Tauck shines: visiting two places that we would not have known existed and visits would have be extremely difficult to arrange if we wanted to. A stunning morning and we actually learned some things.

We hooked up with yesterday's still babbling but clearly improving local guide at the Santa Croce Church, perhaps a more interesting site than the Florence Cathedral (Duomo) whose interior is mainly large and very crowded. Santa Croce houses the tombs of just about every Renaissance Northern Italian who changed the world. (There were many.) We paid our respects to still scowling Dante. We showed more respect than the figures on the monument who apparently were trying to read The Divine Comedy and couldn't keep awake; we observed the final resting place of Rossini (after being exhumed from Paris' Pere Lachaise Cemetery we visited last summer); and, oh yeah, we walked by the tombs of Galileo and Michelangelo who are there too.

The tour's busy morning ended with a visit to Florence's Central Market, a nice building and I suppose OK with you want to buy a side of beef.

Now at leisure for a few hours, we decided to take another walk away from the others--who all seemed to think the banal food court at the market was the height of sophistication--and checked out some additional neighborhoods around our hotel. We saw a statue of Marlon Brando on a horse and observed a mime snoring: silently, of course.

After a short rest the tour group reformed in the lobby of our hotel for an highlight of the program, a visit to the Palazzo Bargellini (now apparently a condo) where the renown concert pianist, Gregorio Nardi, and his wife reside and run a small museum. The Palazzo was once owned by Nardi's grandfather, a beloved mayor of Florence and operator of a music school of some note (I didn't share this insight). Nardi told the story of his illustrious grandfather and treated us to a short recital of obscure music by well known composers on a classic Steinway. Such music is his specialty, and the sound of a classic well tuned full concert size Steinway in a small room was striking, also very loud. Wine and canapes were served. The Nardi's are a lovely couple who have found a stunning way to supplement a musical career of concertizing and teaching.

After the concert, Barbara and I excused ourselves from the mini-bus ride back to the hotel on the far side of town and took the option of a lovely dusk walk back, stopping at a traditional back street restaurant where we shared a one kilo Florentine T-bone steak and a bottle of local Chiani. Fortunately the hotel was just up the street.