Florence Palazzo Vecchio, wealth of the Medici, San Gimignano and Siena
Our second day was another museum. We had read that Florence will result in museum overload and it's real easy to do. We headed to the Palazzo Vecchio, the old palace of the Medici. They built and moved to the Palazzo Pizzi when they tired of the old place. Must be nice to run a city during Renaissance times. Fighting the Vatican and other city states didn't seem to get in the way. Florence had a 300 year long fight with Siena and finally defeated them after subterfuge with the governor of Siena's stronghold, Monteriggioni,. More on Monteriggioni later in this blog.
In the evening on Saturday we ate at another small restaurant we passed on our way back to the B&B, Osteria Pepo on the Via Rosina. We shared the spaghetti con vongole, and Cathy had ossobuchi con veggies and I had fried lamb cutlets with potatoes. Another good find. Prices were a bit lower than other places we had passed.
We had decided to take an "easy" day without as much walking on Sunday, our 3rd day in Florence after all the walking in Venice and the Uffizi so we booked a tour bus ride to San Gimignano and Siena through the Chianti countryside. The Chianti region reminded us of the foothills around the Cascades, only with a lot more vineyards. Rolling hills, even reminiscent of the Palouse where wheat fields were located. An extra stop was made at a hilltop fortress town, Monteriggioni,, after lunch at an agriturismo, Casse Frasse. Montereginino only has 48 residents and 2 gates. It was a Sienese stronghold during the Siena/Florence wars and was never conquered until the Medici bribed the governor of the town to surrender.
San Gimignano is known as the city of towers. There used to be over 70 but now, earthquakes and time have whittled them down to about 15. They were built by families as homes. The footprints of the households were small and the only way to gain space, and prestige, was to build up. We had only a couple hours but were able to capture some shots.
Entry to San Gimignano
View from San Gimignano
I have no photos from Casse Frasse, however we had a good lunch and a small wine tasting. The antipasti plate of meats and cheeses from Tuscany and the pasta bolognese were better than expected. We had to buy a glass of wine to have with lunch, though. That was a surprise, especially since the tastings were smaller than you get in Washington. We would like to someday stay in this place. It's beautiful around there and the agriturismo is a small old monastery with a chapel.
We had about 30 minutes in Monteriggioni, the old fortress. That was about enough time to walk through the small town and back. It is a STEEP walk up and through the town. It's still completely walled and the walls are all in good shape. It's worth a short stop. There's not much there but the view and a few coffee shops and souvenir shops.
Our last stop of the day was Siena. We were supposed to have 3 hours but we lost a half-hour at San Gimignano because one of the folks somehow got lost in a town with only 3 parallel streets for main roads. All others lead to one of these 3 and they all come back to the main gate. Madre! We ended up leaving him to return with another tour that was arriving from Pisa in about an hour and a half. His tough luck. He missed lunch and Siena.
Siena is really a beautiful city. We walked from outside the walls built by the Medici after they conquered the town and fortified it against the Vatican. We met our English-speaking local tour guide, Claudia, and took off for a fairly quick 45 minute tour of the high points. The main square where the Palio horse race is held twice yearly, in June and August. The city had 17 district councils and each year lots are drawn for 10 of them to have a horse and rider compete. In 2016 the Seawolf district won both races, the first time in history, with the same horse and jockey. The district has banners hanging of photos of the winner coming across the line. What's amazing is that there are no other horses in the photo, they had that great of a lead. Claudia was a member of the Unicorn district. Each district has a well where water is drawn for baptisms. Once you are baptized in a district you are always a member of that district, even if you move to another. By the time we had to leave it was after sunset. We got back to Florence a bit after 8 and luckily had already picked our place for dinner.
The main square where the Palio is held. The horses race around the outside, note the white columns. About 20,000 crowd into the center. They lay several inches of sand around the square for the course.
Interior of the Siena Duomo
That evening we ate at an organic restaurant near our B&B, SimBIOSi. We shared an insalata mista which was big enough for two! And, we had a sausage and truffle pizza. We have never had a dish with that many pieces of black truffle on it before. Great doesn't begin to describe it. Another place to try if you're in the area. Get there early or get a reservation. We were lucky in that we were able to get a table after only a 10 minute wait.
Sausage and truffle pizza. Look at all the truffle pieces.