9-12 May 2024

Five hours on a bus later and we’re back in one of our favorite places in the world, Siena. On our honeymoon, Hampton found a wine tour out of Florence that stopped there for dinner and used that as half our transportation to Rome. We loved this quiet, medieval city so much, we wanted to explore more this trip.

Our first night in town, we got peposo, a simple beef and wine stew that Flat 493 makes on the regular these days, and got to see the beautiful, central, Piazza del Campo at dusk. Siena is made up of 17 neighborhoods that have distinct boundaries and mascots. Twice during the summer there are horse races for neighborhood bragging rights for the year.

The next day we headed out to see some of the other small, walled Tuscan towns including Monteriggioni and Volterra. Hampton especially wanted to see San Gimignano and Adam was able to find us a trip there that fit our schedule and didn’t require renting a car. Perhaps one day we will be that adventurous but given the state of parking, probably not. Yay for other people doing the work! This tour group happened to have three couples — and one of the others was from Fuquay-Varina, just outside Raleigh. What a small world.

On the way to San Gimignano, our driver stopped outside the city so we could take pictures. Mine do not do it justice, find a real photographer because holy cow. San Gimignano is known for its towers, which we didn’t get to properly explore, but we did get to do a wine tasting, and I think Hampton can now die happy.

From there, it was onto a lunch and a tour at Il Palagione. The tour info just said something about a “rustic lunch at a Tuscan farm” and nothing about a winery, so we were super excited. One and a half of the other couples were teetotalers, and the fourth person preferred sweet (read, NC) wine, so it almost felt like we had a private visit. The Australian woman who didn’t drink said she finally understood why some people like wine given the conversations Hampton was having with our driver — who used to be a winemaker himself — and the owner. And we had the best lasagna I have probably ever eaten, not a visible or overly aromatic onion or chunky tomato in sight!

Tuscany is best known in the U.S. for the wines that are fairly easy to find — montepulciano, super tuscans, and, of course chianti. But there is a whole host of wines that are made in such small batches, they’re nearly impossible to find without importing them directly — much like the Lacryma Christi we had in Naples. Our wine highlight of this whole trip were the crisp and minerally whites we found. You can read more about it from proper wine people here.

That evening, back in Siena, we had a meal made of up of things we almost definitely will not try to make at home. Ristorante Numero Unico had flans made with artichokes and potatoes that are hard to describe but were a delight.

We didn’t do the duomo last time and decided to it this time on our free day. The tickets included multiple sites and while we were at the Museo Dell’opera, the last part of the cathedral complex as we did it, we saw a line of people waiting for the “panoramic terrace”. We love a good view, so cool. We had no idea this panorama would include climbing to not just one but two levels of terrace. Absolutely gorgeous, especially because of the surprise.

One of our goals for this trip was to find the random greenspace an American waitress pointed us to while on our honeymoon, and we did it! They now have a proper restaurant at the bottom of the hill and not just the stand where we got drinks last time, but there was new art, so that was fun. We also visited the botanical gardens, and while wandering about, we discovered a free park slightly outside of the city center with amazing views back downtown. So much green space! So many hills!

I did have to break down and buy sandals here because the sneakers that were so comfortable as I wore them around for a few weeks before the trip turned out to not be so great after repeated days of 20k+ steps. The sales clerk that helped me was so sweet and non-judgey and even recommended a restaurant we had been to before — Numero Unico of the flan delights — so she clearly had great taste. While there are many, many places I would love to see yet in this world — including many we haven’t gotten to Italy! — I think I could go to Siena many more times and not get bored. It’s just so beautiful and calming and easy to get around.

The trip to Florence was short, so we looked up local buses. Luckily, our cab driver to the bus stop we thought we wanted directed us to a bigger and closer station that was better for waiting, and it was staffed with an actual person so we didn’t screw up getting tickets. And Hampton got to have his first proper “backpacking through Europe” experience.

One more unpack!