After a pleasant and relaxing trip to Modena on Friday we decided it was high time we went back to Siena to check on things and so after running a few errands Saturday morning, we took an early afternoon bus from Florence to Siena.
It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon as we cruised out of Florence. Traffic seemed unusually light as we sped Via Senese past the Certosa at Galluzzo which overlooks the city of Florence and the Arno valley, down onto the Superstrada 2, past the American memorial cemetery for the dead from World War Two, past the vineyards of Chianti to our left, the workhorse city of Poggibonsi to our right and on down the road past the quaint tiny hilltop hamlet of Monterrigioni until we pulled off at the Siena Nord exit.
We got off at the usual spot, Piazza Gramsci, and strolled down one of our favorite streets, Via Banchi di Sopra, onto Via di Citta where we stopped at the Gelateria Artigiana on Via di Citta but which has a small terrazzo that overlooks the Piazza del Campo. We ate our gelato and strolled across the Campo, along with hundreds, maybe thousands of other like-minded people, out enjoying the holiday weekend – for this is one of the major holidays in Italy and a time for people to make the pilgrimages back home to their families. We were of course caught up in it all ourselves – as we would come to discover the next day; but more of that later.
After our gelato we had to go and see Aimone at the Cantina in Piazza. We knew the big change was to have happened in early March – he sold the cantina portion of the business -- and we had been trying to reach them by email for some time but to no avail. So we strolled over to Via Casato di Sotto.
We were struck right away how small the shop was now that the “cantina” was gone – in fact that part of “Cantina in Piazza” had been incorporated into a new restaurant; the wine shop now took up just one small end of the original space with its own entrance of course.
We spent some time getting caught up on what had been happening and after agreeing to return the following week to have pranzo in the new restaurant with Aimone and Alessandra we headed off to stroll the streets of Siena. We stopped by the English bookshop on Via San Pietro and chatted with Lisa before heading off to Nannini’s where we found our old friend Lorenzo still pouring the prosecco and of course had to stop for an aperitivo (or two with him pouring as usual). He was the same of course, full of big smiles and hot looks at the young girls (Italian or American, or any nationality, Lorenzo does not discriminate, and is truly a very globally minded young man), although his hair was trimmed to his pate – rather a popular style here now I gather.
We said arrivederci and headed off to catch our early evening bus back to Florence, back onto the SS 2 heading north. . .
Easter Sunday began dreary, overcast and was a bit cold in a damp sort of way and it pretty stayed like that until late in the afternoon. But no matter it was still a grand day for us here in Florence.
We spent the morning getting caught up on household chores and at about 10:30 we left for St. James church, the Episcopal church in Florence, also known in some quarters as the “American” church probably because it was founded by J. P. Morgan some 100 years ago. But today the congregation is made up of a wide variety of denominations, cultures and ethnic groups. Anyway we told Warren and Gladys we would meet there and they invited us to lunch afterwards at their apartment.
So we took our umbrellas along “just in case” and started off toward St. James. The church is located not far from the Arno river in the western side of the historic part of Florence and for us is about a 15 minute walk. Today we made sure to skirt the Piazza del Duomo where the big Easter ceremony – complete with exploding cart drawn by two huge white oxen which I believe were not designed to explode themselves – was slated to kick off precisely when we were supposed to be sitting down in church: 11:00 am. Word on the street here is that some 20,000 people are coming into town for this occasion, the exploding cart thing, so we gave the Duomo a wide berth.
We got to St. James just before services began and sat in one of few available pews in the very back of the church. Indeed the church was standing room only as a number of people came in late. It was a very warm and charming setting, however, lots of families and children and seemed quite homey in fact. One woman even brought her two toy poodles into the service – dogs go everywhere here in Italy.
The service was extra long since they had a large number of baptisms and according to one source there was a larger number of people taking communion than usual. The choir – of which Warren is a part -- was small but exceedingly powerful – their voices resonated throughout the church it seemed to us and proved most pleasant. The quality of their sound was explained in part when we learned later that three opera singers are members of the choir. I was indeed impressed, especially when you consider that my idea of high quality music is Led Zeppelin.
The music was fine, to be sure but I also found the sermon fascinating. The new priest, Father Roger is from Australia originally and just joined the church this past January. He talked about two things that I found intriguing. The first was the idea that in their church (and indeed I suppose in most Protestant churches) Christ is “off” the cross, a clear representation of his resurrection and of course the whole point of Easter. (The contrast for me here was that in the Roman Catholic Church he is still “on” the cross.)
And the second point I that I found equally intriguing was his use of the idea of the “stone rolled away from the tomb” – using it to point out that we all have stones that need to be pulled away from us to allow ourselves to be resurrected into a new life, stones which hamper or impede needed changes in our lives as it were. Fascinating.
After the service and as we all filed out into the open space in front of the church we were greeted by several tables, cookies and fruit punch for the kids, sparkling wine and cake for the adults. Quite nice touches to be sure. We caught up with Warren and Gladys and arranged to meet them at their apartment just after a quick stop at our apartment to pick up some wine for lunch. (photo: Father Roger.)
We actually got to their apartment a few minutes before they did – and while we waited we watched the tourist traffic walk by, everyone rushing to get somewhere on this Easter afternoon. When Warren and Gladys arrived they were with two friends. Tish, who used to work for the World Bank in Washington, DC and is now in her fourth year in art school in Florence and who also lives in the same building as Warren and Gladys, and Pat, a woman who defines the concept of world traveler, a woman seemingly at ease in Florence, Manhattan (where she lived before moving to Florence) or Frankfurt (where she was born).
We all trooped in their apartment and Warren immediately tasked me with opening the sparkling wine from Asti, which quickly turned into Mimosas and the start of one of the most fantastic lunches in our record books to be sure.
We sat, ate, drank wine and chatted from about 1:00 pm until after 6 pm!
The lunch began with soup made of cauliflower, leek and almonds! Simply put it was absolutely delicious (two words that are overused by me perhaps but are clearly necessary in this case). And equally tasty was the second course, Shepherd’s Pie! The lamb was tender, the potatoes just right (and the being from Illinois mashed potatoes is a part of my genome code) and the tiny onions perfectly cooked, firm but sweet and all a wonderful medley of flavors. We had Chantilly crème pie (Chantilly crème is really big here and let me tell you why: it’s half whipped crème and half pastry crème. So there.) We ended the afternoon with tea. (photo: Pat and Warren.)
Late in the lunch their good friend Laura, an art historian who leads small tours and individual clients on intimate trips in Florence and elsewhere in Italy, joined us. She is also one of the resident lecturers for the Art Institute of Chicago and had just returned from a tour cruise to Athens, Tunisia and Malta and regaled us with stories from the trip..
Indeed the afternoon was wonderful not only for the food or the wine, but to be sitting around that large round table, swapping stories of past food experiences, places traveled to and from, families’ lost and found. All of us shared one thing though, and that is the awareness that life is too short not to be enjoyed and that is is terribly important to push ourselves forward, to learn more than what meets the eye. (photo: Susan and Gladys.)
Wish you were here,
Steve
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