Tuscany and Abruzzo

Armed once again with a rental car (another Fiat 500 hybrid with manual transmission), we drove south from Venice to our next home base of Siena, a hill city in Tuscany. Medieval Italian towns were often built on hills for better security, and many of them were walled. Siena was no exception.

On our way, we stopped by DHG outside of Firenze (Florence), a well-known wool dyeing company that is, in essence, the Pantone for dyed wool - for example, they have 9 different shades of purple! Jeannette has done a lot of wool felting this past year, and really wanted to see the DHG warehouse and purchase some materials there.

Then it was on to Siena. As we got near, we drove uphill, passed through the gate of the city wall, took an immediate left, and drove up to the parking lot for the Hotel Athena where we had reservations for four nights. It was a tight fit - thank goodness we had a small car!

After checking into our room, we went up to the rooftop terrace for beautiful views of the Tuscan landscape and Siena's walls. An olive grove stood below us.

We walked into the city (more uphill, of course) to find a laundromat and lucked into finding a cafe with delicious food where we could sit outside and eat while monitoring dryer cycles.

The next day was ours to explore Siena, walking from our hotel into the center of the city.

Along the way, we stopped at the Duomo (cathedral), famous for its marble floor designs.

Inside the Duomo was a sumptuous library featuring large music books of Gregorian chants.

We visited the Duomo's museum, where some replaced statues reside.

We found this statue indicating that Siena decided to appropriate Romulus and Remus (and the she-wolf that raised them) for their own purposes.

We climbed up to the top of an unfinished section of the Duomo for great views of the city.

Then it was on to Siena's famous Piazza del Campo, a huge plaza in the center of the city.

Twice each year, in July and August, a horse race called the Palio is run around the outside of the piazza.

We used the next day to visit four more Tuscan hill towns. The first (and probably the most beautiful) was San Gimignano, famous for its towers. Seventeen of the original 70 still remain.

We also had the world's best gelato, at least according to the sign on the door and their past awards. It was delicious.

Then it was on to Monteriggioni, a small walled town sitting high on a hill. We were able to walk on part of the city walls, which were undergoing repair by archeologists.

This is truly a battering ram!

We drove south to Pienza, a lovely little town famous for its pecorino cheese. The church had beautiful light coming through the windows, and it was just a short side walk from the main street to beautiful views of the Tuscan countryside.

Finally, as the sun was setting we reached Montepulciano, famous for its red wine (although we heard later that the same grapes produce an even better wine in the Province of Abruzzo). We walked up and up (for about a mile, it seemed) to reach the piazza at the top of the town and dinner at a great restaurant.

On our last full day in Tuscany we drove an hour to brave the traffic and tourists in Firenze. We had not been there since 1997, and decided to repeat two things we'd not done since our honeymoon in 1984. We signed up for a excellent guided tour at the Uffizi Gallery, sampling some of the masterpieces.

Blond hair and blue eyes were the beauty standard in Florence during Medici times, so that must have been how the Virgin Mary looked, right?

However, Medici rulers were depicted as they really looked, hooked nose and all.

Then we moved on to see Michelangelo's David at the Accademia. Tickets there are a hot property with long lines, so we signed up for a Skip the Line ticket on TripAdvisor which seemed to be sanctioned scalping. We met a certain guy at a certain spot at a certain time, and he gave us tickets which allowed us immediate access to the Accademia.

We wandered by Florence's famous Duomo, then into the piazza by the Palazzo Vecchio.

The copy of the David that stands there was getting a good cleaning.

We crossed the Arno River on the Ponte Vecchio bridge...

...and walked uphill to the Piazzale Michelangelo where we we treated to a panoramic view of Florence's old city.

After that, a long walk back to the parking garage, then snaking out of the city in terrible traffic, and finally onto the autostrade for the drive back to Siena.

Leaving Siena, we moved on to Abruzzo to visit Villa Scontrone, which Jeannette's grandfather, Antonio Melone, left in 1903 to emigrate to America. It's a small village of about 200 people and sits up in the mountains that run down the spine of Italy. The area is popular for skiing in the winter.

Villa Scontrone is a suburb of the hill village of Scontrone, where one of Jeannette's cousins is the mayor of both towns.

We were hosted by several of Jeannette's family members, some of whom are now in their 90s but still going strong, and their children who are about 10 years younger than us.

This was our fifth visit to Villa Scontrone and the nearby city of Castel di Sangro since we first came there on our honeymoon in 1984, and it's always a total Italian family immersion visit whenever we go there.

We stayed in an apartment above the offices of the family concrete and construction business, Fratelli Melone, which has been quite successful.

During our visit we explored some things new to us, such as the castel (castle) of Castel di Sangro, built for a knight who served the King of Naples...

...the basilica church serving the town...

...and portions of the Parco Nazionale di Abruzzo which is also in the area.

We also toured the archeological museum in Castel di Sangro, which has artifacts from prehistoric, Imperial Roman, and medieval times.

Finally, we visited an art gallery showcasing the works of painter Teofilo Patini, who portrayed the conditions in which ordinary southern Italians lived (generally poor and overworked).

A doctor feeling for the pulse of a dying child

This painting is called "Beasts of Burden" and depicts the lives of four generations of women (the standing woman is pregnant) who spend all day carrying heaving loads of wood.

Before leaving our relatives and Villa Scontrone, we drove uphill to Scontrone to view the International Women's Art Museum (started by Jeannette's cousin Patrizia Melone when she was mayor, and now continued by current mayor and cousin Francesco Melone).

Scontrone, founded many hundreds of years ago, on its mountain perch

Villa Scontrone, the more recent suburb (only hundreds of years old) down in the valley below

After that, we headed to Rome for the final leg of our trip. More about that in our next blog post.