The Joys of Siena a bit of Tuscany...

The Joys of Siena a bit of Tuscany...

For those of you who are new to these musings/drivel (delete as appropriate): welcome. To those of you who have already rendered themselves a subject of the full force of my cynicism regarding the world: why did you return?!

Travel takes on many forms, from commuting to holidays, from backpacking to Virgin Galactic. This particular edition of my carefully-constructed and in-no-way-insightful thoughts on places what I've been to concerns itself with Tuscany.

Tuscany is one of those places of which everyone has heard, but very few people (including me before I went there) actually know anything about: a similar reaction can be obtained by asking Americans about Europe... or indeed almost anything. Most people can successfully place it in Italy, but that's about the extent of the layperson's knowledge of Tuscany. A quick check on Wikipedia in a library told me that Tuscany is a region on the north east coast of Italy and contains a total of some three and a half million inhabitants, which is nice. What's that? Some places you may have heard of within Tuscany? Well, there's Pisa (that one with that slanted tower), Florence (the place that isn't Venice) and Siena (the one that's Siena).

We flew in to Pisa - a city over which I shall cast my proverbial beady eye later on in this comprehensive travel guide - and had a solid 2 hour drive ahead of us. This all sounds lovely and charming, but the scene needs to be set properly, lest you have any incorrectly-assumed positive images in mind. We had, in our infinite wisdom, decided to rent a villa which was smack-bang in the middle of the Tuscan equivalent of the M25. Tuscany has one main motorway which seems to roughly go around the edge of the region, but nowhere near the middle. This inconvenient fact, coupled with the mountainous roads we'd have to use, meant that driving between two places roughly 47 miles apart was conducted at an average speed of bugger all.

With me literally hot and bothered at the wheel, it was with a sense of delight and relief that the surrounding scenery gradually morphed (not literally - I hadn't taken mind-altering drugs for at least a few hours) from desolate factories and cheap retail parks to vineyards and general greenery as far as the eye could see. There was only one thing I was thinking as I drove along the Via Chiantigiana, through one of Italy's principle wine regions, passing vineyards and surrounded by grapevines, with the aroma of red wine hanging in the air: "I wish I wasn't driving a sodding Ford Galaxy".

We arrived at our rented villa following only a few death-defying driving manoeuvres as I navigated around carefree Frenchmen and endless numbers of Dutch pensioners on caravan holidays (Dutch pensioners seem to only have two speeds when driving caravans on winding roads where overtaking is impossible - slow and stop). Three things did I notice during the first few days; 1) Everywhere you look in Tuscany, your view is filled with beautiful, green, hilly scenery, all drizzled liberally with sunshine. 2) Temperature-wise, it was barely hotter than a sunny day in Southampton. 3) There were no other Brits in the region, what with David Cameron having to cut short his Tuscan holiday to go home and tell off some unemployed people for stealing trainers and setting fire to buildings in London. This lack of Brits was one of many positive qualities Tuscany would go on to reveal.

                   Typical roadside views - such as this - lead to foreigners driving even slower than normal.

One of my favourite aspects of the region was the panoply of mediaeval towns. This may not be the kind of comment to make you leap up from your computer and hop on the next plane to Pisa, but even if architecture and history aren't your thing, the sheer serenity and state of preservation some of these places find themselves in are remarkable. Every other day brought a different mediaeval town, each more mediaeval than the last. Some personal highlights were San Gimignano, a town which has almost as many mediaeval towers as it does tourists; and Monteriggioni, a town that is no more than 100 metres in diameter, but has all of its surrounding defensive wall intact and seems to have changed even less even than Norfolk since the middle ages.

                            Monteriggioni. Taking this photo almost got me run over by an irate Italian motorist.

Aside from plentiful pleasant walled towns, Tuscany can offer you some corking wines (geddit?), notably Chianti. Following my Tuscan sojourn, Chianti has rocketed to number three in my favourite wines list. And yes, I am pretentious enough to have a list of favourite wines.

The locals' affinity for wine is best expressed by the Calici di Stelle festival in August. In our local town, there was a street party attended by local wineries and most of the town's population: yep, both of them were delighted to be there. There was a system whereby one bought a ticket which entitled you to sample 10 glasses of different wine. Of course I partook and had a thoroughly enjoyable evening. I imagine a similar concept in the UK would result in mass cirrhosis of the liver, a record night for drink-drivers being stopped and a 2 inch deep layer of vomit in every town centre in the country.

If Italians had a British level lack of self-control, their street vomit would presumably be more appetising than the British offering of kebab and chips. The food, as can be expected, was wonderful, with pizza and pasta ubiquitous and sumptuous. Local delicacies also gave me a licence to be adventurous with my food: I had barbecued rabbit (delicious), boar (even better) and a fair amount of ice cream (very good, but sometimes you just want to wolf down a Feast don't you?). Having been as gluttonous as I was, I'm amazed I didn't return looking like a poor man's Rick Waller... Oh wait...

The Tuscans themselves are also very tolerant, as you'd have to be coping with the endless French people and Dutch caravans. They're a friendly old bunch as well: during the Calici di Stelle in the local town, a local Italian chap supervising one of the winery stalls befriended me and began plying me with free glasses of wine. Things soon escalated and before I knew it we were toasting with various types of Grappa and other miscellaneous alcohols. After that evening, I would often encounter him in the town and try to practice my (limited) Italian with him. He humoured me for two weeks and was even kind enough to offer me a free bottle of wine from his wine shop before I left. What a lovely chap he was, and he was far from being an extraordinary case in terms of hospitality and friendliness.

It was hard to visit the bigger towns between the wall-to-wall Chianti drinking and trips to mediaeval towns, but we managed to venture out to Florence, Pisa and Siena. What were they like? Oh alright then...

Pisa only has two things going for it: its well-connected international airport and the lovely Piazza dei Miracoli. The Piazza is the home of Pisa's most famous landmark: a poorly-engineered tower. The leaning tower is a lot smaller than I had imagined, but the interesting design quirks in an effort to correct the lean are interesting. Then there's the enormous cathedral, a sight in itself. Altogether, the Piazza makes you feel a bit like you've gone back to the 16th century, albeit a 16th century where everyone in Italy was Japanese.

                                                   The one and only money shot in Pisa.

Siena then: Siena was for me a perfect size, with plenty to see, as well as providing a general feeling of how the city has looked for centuries. It is filled with mediaeval alleyways and side streets; all surrounded by buildings that were older even than Bruce Forsyth. It also has the remarkable Il Campo, a sort of round town square, where they have a horse race every year, called Il Palio, to great clamour. I'm told you have to buy tickets a year in advance if you want to watch Il Palio. The cathedral in Siena is also quite a sight in the flesh, even if tourists insist on talking loudly and brazenly taking photos, both of which all visitors are asked not to do...

                                   It seems the Italians like striped cathedrals, like this one in Siena.

Finally, Florence: the Hollywood name amongst the list of pretenders. Florence is renowned the world over as being a place of beauty and tourists. This reputation is justified. Tourists seemed to outnumber locals by 20 to 1 in many of the main squares. I imagine it's what living in central Tokyo must feel like, only with more French people and less pollution. Sure, Florence was lovely and some of the buildings were exquisite, but it all felt a bit too touristy. It felt too much like the buildings had been built for tourists, rather than as places of worship or art. Not even the world's largest masonry dome on the cathedral could shake off the disillusionment I was feeling... Still, I was glad I went and there were times during my visit when I felt genuinely pleased to be in Florence, but throughout the day I just couldn't help but feel sorry for the locals...

                          Despite my misgivings over Florence, I was rendered silent by some views on offer...

I swiftly came to the conclusion that Siena was my favourite Tuscan city, despite not offering the same prestige or renown as its larger counterpart further north.

The weather did heat up after a few days, which did make our almost daily climbs up cathedral towers slightly more challenging than would be ideal, but when you think about the poor mugs who had to build these edifices you tend to stop feeling so sorry for yourself.

Normally I would offer up some sort of conclusion. And this article will be no exception. Tuscany then is a culturephile's wet dream: you have the architecture, the art, the fine cuisine, the finer wines and the eye-catching countryside. You do have to pay for all of these cultural gems though: Tuscany - and above all in the main cities - is not cheap. An added bonus is the friendliness of the locals. So Tuscany is definitely a place to visit for the discerning tourist, and the local way of life is very easy to indulge in - after all, when in Rome... Just watch out for Frenchmen and Dutch caravans.

Until next time. And please, don't have nightmares.