Well of course we hope yesterday wasn’t our “last time” in Siena but we did want to get back to our favorite city one more time before we headed off into the unknown of northern France amidst the uncertainties waiting for us among the wilds of the Frankish kingdom. That and of course we had some work to do as well. (photo: Aimone of the Cantina in Piazza enoteca.)
We had at last been able to schedule a time to do some voiceover taping with Patti and Roberto – they had arranged for a friend of theirs who has a pretty good grasp of English to help us out in our quest to move the Tuscan Voices project further on down the podcast road at least. After some double checking with Patti about schedules we decided to take the train to Siena instead of the bus so we could arrive a little earlier and accomplish what we wanted to for the day.
Roberto picked us up at the train station and we headed off to his home outside of Asciano, among the clay hills south of Siena. But today the clay hills were a complete golden yellow hue due to the recent haying that had just been completed. Huge rectangular and round hay bales were scattered everywhere. Anyway, the drive alone was worth the trip, and we realized we had not seen this particular view of the Sienese countryside before, never having been there in July or August. It made us aware of how much we were going to miss this very special part of the world and how soon as well.
We got to The Bechi home and after a few minutes Patti took the kids into town to play and leave us to tape in peace and quiet. Patti had had the foresight to spend some quality time with our voiceover person Sandro all morning, going over the transcripts so he could familiarize himself by actual reading his lines out loud. (He had already been given copies so he knew the dialogues already.) It was also a perfect opportunity to do some last minute editing and get the pronunciations ironed out.
After Patti left with the kids we turned to taping in earnest and before long we had finished the two interviews, which had been our target for the day. Sandro left and Roberto fixed lunch for the three of us (some of Patti’s delicious flatbread, marinated tomatoes with mozzarella and a delicious fruit cobbler).
Just as we were preparing to leave Patti returned with the kids and we chatted for a few minutes, talking about when we might be able to move forward on the remaining 9 interviews. We said arrivaderci and Roberto took us back to Siena, dropping us off at the Hotel Duomo in the centro storico.
We freshened up, and then strolled off to see Aimone and Alessandra at Cantina in Piazza.
We spent a nice afternoon talking – mostly in Italian – about the usual things: food, wine, Italy, Florence (dirty), Siena (clean), wine and food of course. Aimone asked if we would be willing to try an experiment and naturally we said yes – knowing that with him such a question always involved food and/or wine. In this case it was food: gelato to be specific but gelato with a twist, or rather with “aceto balsamico” (“tradizionale” which is aged at least 12 years in barrels). Aimone went to a nearby gelateria and came back with a Styrofoam dish with four flavors of gelato in it: vanilla, cherry, pistachio and stracciatella (chocolate bits in vanilla). We tried each flavor one by one, and each with a few healthy drops of the” balsamico” on it. Contrary to what you might think not only were they edible but they were delicious, and the cherry and pistachio in particular were outstanding with the balance of the acid from the “balsamico”. (photo: Susan sampling gelato with aceto balsamico.)
We soon found the courage to get up and choose some wines to take home with us. After saying goodbye we headed off to the hotel, where we dropped our wines off and then headed back out, this time to the Piazza del Campo, where we found a comfortable place to sit and sip some cold white wine, drink plenty of water and watch the world walk past.
After a couple of hours we returned to the hotel, showered (an hourly necessity in this heat) and relaxed in the room and read until it was time to go out for the evening.
We strolled leisurely past some of our favorite spots and ended up at Nannini’s for an aperitivo: negroni sbagliati, made in half-gallon glasses by the indomitable Lorenzo. We sipped and sipped and sipped until at last the red nectar was gone and it was time for dinner. We decided to try a new place for a change, somewhere we had never been and so we walked over to Le Campane, on Via delle Campane, just a stone’s throw from the Campo. Although it was pretty full when we got there and we didn’t have a reservation they seated us anyway and we had s superb meal, ravioli stuffed with asparagus and duck breast in a chianti sauce.
Just after we sat down I got a text message from our friend Daniela, a German woman we had met last year when we were all students at Dante Alighieri in Siena. She had sent us an email a couple of days back saying she was coming back for three weeks of classes and would be arriving in Siena on Sunday, the 23rd. I sent her a note saying well guess what? So are we!
We arranged to meet her after dinner on the Campo and so we did – her hair was shorter but still with a great smile and after we caught up on the news from both of our lives – her husband is now out of the Army and back at home in Reno where she will soon join him – we arranged to meet together in Florence next Saturday.
We said buona notte to Daniela, and on the way back to the hotel stopped off at our favorite spot for gelato.
A fine day all the way around.
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