Pienza e San Galgano

It's the day you've all been waiting for: me being surrounded by men.

In this case I'm sorry to report that you should not let your expectations get ahead of you, nor should you summon up an image of me traipsing around Tuscany with an almost laughable security profile of men dressed in suits with earpieces or, better yet, a trio of Latin lovers.

Instead I had the pleasure of the company of three guys from my school, K-Bravo, G, and T. K-Bravo and T are Japanese and G is German. And OMG I just realized that with my Italian blood we could have formed the Triple Axis powers of WWII. I'm glad I didn't think of that earlier, I wouldn't want to have sparked some sort of historical shame or resentment.

G's normal co-pilot

We met up at Piazza della Libertà at 9:00am to pick up G's car from the parking lot and then we were off in the right direction thanks to his GPS. It was already hot, so I could not imagine what the afternoon would hold for us temperature-wise. I got to sit shotgun without having to call dibs, and I must say how relieved I was that I would not be driving today since my last experience with manual transmission was three years ago and only in a small town near Lake Garda (Nicky and Numz will remember that summer well, along with my stalling at every roundabout).

In the car we listened to one song on K-Bravo's Glee CD, a few songs by Sonohra (an Italian B4-4 that I am not crazy about), and Aqua's Dr. Jones before giving G's mixed-CD free rein.

Our first stop off the highway was at Autogrill where the boys had coffee while I got reacquainted with family.

We come in "spicy" and "classic"

Almost an hour later we took a brief detour to take pictures at Cantina Palazzo Massaini, a secluded piece of paradise atop a Tuscan hill. It was a practically deserted wine shop and we all agreed that we would gladly work the land to live there.

Spotting the cantina off in the distance

View from the cantina

Then we headed off for Pienza and arrived around 11:00am, parked, and walked into the centre of the small town which was declared an UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its town planning. It was indeed a tiny town with everything about a two-minute walk away from the main square, Piazza Pio II.

Pienza and its piazza get their name from Enea Silvio Piccolomini, who would later become Pope Pius II. Before he restructured his hometown, it was named Corsignano and did not hold the Renaissance charm that it does today.

Rick Steves recommended going to the Palazzo Piccolomini for a guided tour since "it's the most impressive small-town palace experience that [he's] found in Tuscany", so we immediately bought tickets and signed up for an Italian tour at 12:30pm. With almost an hour to spare, we strolled around the town and found a series of romantically named streets such as:

• Via dell'Amore (love)
• Via del Bacio (kiss)
• Via del Buia (dark)
• Vicolo Cieco (blind)

Sunday is laundry day!

Piazza Pio II

After 10 minutes we had already seen the whole town. Being that it was not yet lunchtime (11:45am), we decided to stop at a bruschetteria (as you likely guessed, a place that makes bruschetta) named La Buca di Enea for a pre-lunch snack. They gave us freshly-sliced Tuscan salami as an appetizer and it was perhaps the best I've ever had in my life. I was torn between ordering the crostino, bruschetta, or a crêpe, each of which would have had the famed local ingredient of pecorino cheese. We decided to share the crêpe and K-Bravo and T each got a bruschetta with tomatoes, garlic, and oregano.

Bruschetta

Of course, in my mad anticipation and hunger, I forgot to take a picture of the delicious crêpe. As soon as it arrived on the table I got my fork and knife and divided it into four. It was filled with Tuscan salami, pecorino cheese, and fresh tomatoes. How I wish we would just stay for lunch, but we thought at the time that we would make our 12:30pm tour. I would have happily ordered a bruschetta or another crêpe all to myself.

The last piece of salami on a once-full plate

K-Bravo and G had wine and remarked how wonderful it was--which made me wonder: why did I get a coke?!  And then since G spoke German to the owner, who had worked in Switzerland for over 20 years, after our meal he gave us each a shot of Zibibbo, a sweet Sicilian dessert wine.

By the time we paid our bill we had missed our tour so we went back to inquire and realized that we could book the next Italian tour for 3:00pm, giving us enough time for lunch. Yes, we had lunch after our snack. But first we stopped by the Duomo--we're not animals!

Inside the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta (il Duomo)

Il comune (town hall)

By 1:00pm our first choice restaurant was full so we wandered around and settled on a place called Sperone Nudo, mostly because of its whimsical name. Nudo means naked, so naturally, K-Bravo said that we should all dine naked (this is probably a clue to what he said when we saw Via dell'Amore).

I had the pici al cinghiale (thick spaghetti with wild boar) and two of us shared the spezzatino di cinta senese (small pieces of Sienese pork).

Pici al cinghiale 

Spezzatino di cinta senese

 G had a delicious pork dish with green apple sauce. It was, as Olim would say, "awesomesauce".

With 20 minutes left to spare, we made it to the Palazzo Piccolomini for our third time that day and wandered around the gardens before our tour started.

We weren't allowed to take photos inside the palazzo but it was amazing the great condition things were in, including tapestries, paintings, and furniture. There was a painting of the madonna that dated back from the 12th century, and off to the side of an office/cartography room there was a boudoir which was tiny and used to be used for secret sexcapades. It was later converted into a reading room. Interesting how that worked out.

After our 30-minute tour we went on a short walk aptly labelled "passeggiata" to view the captivating Tuscan countryside of Val d'Orcia, also proclaimed an UNESCO World Heritage Site. This is the Tuscany you see in postcards, my friends, and it's almost too good to be true.

We could not get over how beautiful it was and we each wanted to own a house there. Given its UNESCO status, the landscape cannot be changed which means no new houses can be built there.

We picked up the car and went on a 1.5 hour trip to San Galgano. It was a very windy road and at times I felt slightly ill with a headache, and at some points the sky looked very grey so we were anticipating a storm. Luckily we found good weather and got to see the beautiful ruins of the abbey.

L'abbazia di San Galgano

We had first heard of this place in Italian class since one of my conversation teachers would project slides on the whiteboard and ask us to describe what we saw. One of the pictures was of a girl sitting on the stone bench (below) looking out at the abbey.

A short uphill walk led us to the Chapel of San Galgano, or Rotonda di Montesiepi, where the eponymous medieval knight stuck his sword in the stone way back in the 12th century--and it's still there!

La Rotonda di Montesiepi

We stopped by a nearby bar so that the boys could have coffee (it's the Italian way) and I saw a cute kitty. We soon figured out it was male.

Then it was a 2-hour car-ride back to Florence, on the way which we saw a rainbow and a magnificent sky.

The radio had some pretty annoying music but eventually we found a channel that played something good (Cornershop's Brimful of Asha) and other than a bit of traffic, the rest was smooth sailing from there and I got home by just after 9:00pm.

Heading back to the car from the abbey

Today's word of the day is the suffix -accio (pronounced AH-cho) used to denote that something that is bad, i.e. ragazzo (boy) + accio = ragazzaccio (naughty boy), parola (word) + accia = parolaccia (swear word). Hanging out with the boys all day means we may or may not have said a few parolaccie.