Thursday, October 13, 2011
Siena, Italy with side trip into Chianti
This morning at breakfast I spoke with our waiter, Mario. He was our waiter for dinner last night, a nice friendly guy who worked the cruise ship circuit and knew Vancouver and Stanley Park. He listened to my tales of wine yesterday, then suggested a journey for today, with a name and to use him as a refence. Particularly since the four of us had no fixed agenda today, just to head north and see what it brings, we decided to act on Mario's recommendation.
Mario's directions, drawn on the back of yesterday's dinner menu, got us on the right road and on our way. We were supposed to look for a winery (or restaurant or hotel, that wasn't clear) called Barolo Saputo, and it would have a statue out front of it. Big statue, small statue, a shrine to the Virgin, we didn't know - or care as we were in the heart of the Chianti Classico region and wherever we wind up will be good. So on we went, me looking for statues and watching the GPS. Then a chirp from the backseat, there's the winery name, over there on the right, right there!! So the brakes are jammed on the the wheel goes hard right, and we are on a gravel path in an instant. A repeat of yesterday, with a dead end and a tough U-turn??? Nope, no gate this time and we sail right up to a big modern building with a huge parkinglot that would accomodate all of the busses from a Princess cruise. yep, this must be the place. Wine, here we come, and I'm not queasy today.
I was the scout, and went in to scope it out. A solitary young lady sat in a little room, at a computer, working. Hello. Bon Journo. Is this a winery? Si. Do you do wine tastings? Si. Uh, ok, like, now? Si. Here?? Si, here. Ok, be right back, and out I went to give the high sign to the group. In we went, they even had a ramp for Shiela's scooter. The girl, I think, wasn't really a sales person and didn't usually give the tours, but she tried anyway. The entrance foyer and greatroom area was huge, cavernous, and would have accomodated the said Princess cruise in its entirety. She didn't bat an eye at the mere four of us, and we went into her office area, which had a sort of table with six chairs. She pulled a couple of bottles off the shelf and started opening them, and telling us about them in passable english that was heavily but charmingly accented. Turns out, the company is a big one, with 400 hectares of grapes in the heart of Chianti (making it Chianti classico) and in addition 100 hectares near Montalcino in the Brunello region. Without all the details of the tastings, of which I remember increasingly less as the time progressed, we had the full 'tour' one small glass at a time. Dick was impressed and bought the great names. Jan and I, largely ignorant of details except whether we liked the taste or not, bought a desert wine, and a bottle of Grappa, and a bottle of 'classico reserva' just to fit into the group. Actually, we had a plan for that bottle for the last night that the four of us are together.
Leaving the winery, much later is seemed, we met two dogs in the yard. One of them a mutt, but absolutely charming and I wanted to take him home. However, he belonged to the winery so I couldn't. We took a bunch of pictues of the winery, the grape vines, and the dog, then off we went again.
The rest of the day is a bit blurry, but we pressed on looking for the hotel that Mario had referred us to but we had no luck. We covered many miles however, of spectacular Tuscan countryside. This is truly what we came for, these sights, tastes, and smells.
Finally, back in Siena, we wanted to take a trip to the old town and see the famous Duomo and the square where the annual horse race event takes place. After parking (always a major challenge) and a long walk down some winding streets, we came upon the fabled sight. I'm sure it was lovely, if I could have seen it. But every square inch was covered by tourists on this sunny late afternoon in the fall. We definitely hit this place during the fat season, it is jammed. But we got our pictures, and a sense of the surroundings, and a sort of feeling of this vast and sprawling horserace around the streets and piazza the town is fabled for, where anything goes and the only rule is that there are no rules. On the walk out of the city center, I stopped and bought bread, cheese, sausage, olives, and other goodies for dinner. Dick bought some wine, cheese and fancy spiced ham.
All of us verging on exhaustion now, we crawled back up the hill to the parking lot. I got winey and said something like 'thats it for me, I quit' or something equally unintelligent. Jan rolled her eyes and nodded, yes dear. At last, after a major disagreement with a parking meter, which Dick lost, we escaped the parking lot and were off to the hotel.
After a bit of an afternoon nap we reassembled for our impromptu dinner at a small table within the hotel complex. It was sort of an 'away' place, behind an elevator but with its own sink and facilities, and we dined on our booty from the afternoon shopping.
Full and tired eventually, we were off to bed.
