Thursday morning update: with the addition of a few more photos of Pisa (Camposanto and museums), this post is now as illustrated as it is going to get.
I'm sorry it has been so long since the last update - the poor internet at our last hotel gave me a nice hiatus from blogging but I sure have a lot to catch up on! Since I last posted, we have seen lots of wonderful sights and taken a gazillion photos, as usual.
Our current base is the Eurostars Toscana Hotel in Lucca, a lesser-known Tuscan town NE of Pisa. Our hotel is generally quite nice but has been a big disappointment in two things. First, the internet. We have both wired and wireless access in our room (for a fairly hefty fee), but it is usually slow and often goes out altogether. It's only slightly better than the dial-up we had in our last place, so uploading photos is very time-consuming. But at least we can use our laptop here, so with a great deal of patience I can get some up.
Secondly, the weather is getting a lot warmer (upper-70s F) and our hotel room gets quite hot, but the air conditioning doesn't work. We went to ask about it and were told that they don't turn it on until late May. "It's practically an Italian law," they said. So despite being in a modern 4-star hotel with central climate control, we have been sweating it out at night and dealing with the road noise and insects coming in through our open window. Italy sucks sometimes.
OK, I'm done complaining. Now for all the good stuff!
A Bit More Assisi and San Gimignano
First, some catch-up pictures and brief notes from Assisi and San Gimignano. In Assisi, I must record that one of the best restaurants we found was just up the street from our hotel (Hotel Pallotta) on Via San Rufino, called La Lanterna. The service was a bit indifferent but the food was consistently delicious and served promptly. The lasagne was some of the best we've had in Italy, the pasta dishes were perfectly cooked, and the pizzas were chewy with quality toppings. And it came with the best bread we had in Umbria. Highly recommended! We also had a delicious lunch at the Trattoria Pallotta in the Piazza della Minerva, run by the owners of our hotel.
View down to Via San Rufino from the Hotel Pallotta in Assisi.
Assisi Cathedral (Duomo di San Rufino), just up the hill from our hotel. When I saw this dramatic light from the hotel room, I sprinted up the hill with a camera! Is that dedication or what? You can see how steep the street is in the previous photo! And I was just in time - I only got this one shot before the light faded.
Sunset view from the rooftop common room at our hotel.
Basilica of St. Francis (Upper Church).
Basilica of St. Francis (Lower Church).
Crypt with the tomb of St. Francis.
Eremo delle Carceri, built around the cave where St. Francis lived as a hermit. One of the trees on the right is said to be the site of his famous preaching to the birds.
Please see my Assisi set on Flickr for more photos of this wonderful town!
We never had a meal out in San Gimignano because we had our own kitchen, but my guidebook indicates the food is nothing special. The major exception to that is, of course, the previously-mentioned, world-championship-winning gelato in the Gelateria della Piazza!
The Villa Ducci in San Gimignano, in early morning light.
Bedroom in the Villa Ducci apartment.
Kitchen counter, post-shopping!
Vineyard and Tuscan landscape across the road from the villa.
View of San Gimignano from the Villa Ducci.
Towers of San Gimignano. (See previous post for info.)
Main square in San Gimignano. The Gelateria della Piazza is housed under the round arch in the lower left of the photo.
Award-winning gelato in San Gimignano.
La Collegiata, the main church but not a cathedral in San Gimignano.
Interior of La Collegiata
An unusual 14th-century biblical frescoes in La Collegiata: Eve emerging from the rib of Adam.
A kitty yawning (looking more threatening than she was) near the ancient walls of San Gimignano.
Tue 4/29: Abbey of San Galgano
From San Gimignano we made two fantastic day trips south. The first was about an hour's drive to the Abbey of San Galgano. The journey itself turned out to be a big part of the attraction - incredibly beautiful Tuscan scenery, nice winding roads, and little traffic. One part of the drive was quite strange - amid all this lovely nature, we came upon a valley with an industrial factory, several big cooling towers, and a big silver pipe snaking up the hillside! I bet the people who live in that valley were thrilled when that was built!
The abbey was a nice change from all our city sightseeing - wonderfully peaceful and accessible. We parked along the tree-lined access road for free and wandered around slowly for a couple hours. It was mostly cloudy when we arrived but we took our time, hoping it might get better. And indeed we did have some nice sunbreaks, especially near sunset.
This scenic location first became a religious site in 1180, when Galgano Guidotti renounced his worldly life as a knight by plunging his sword into a rock and living as a hermit. He died a year later and was soon revered as a saint. An interesting round church was built over the site (the Eremo di San Galgano), where the "sword in the stone" can still be seen today. Especially impressive is the dome, which is quite large and made of alternating brick and stone.
View of the Eremo di San Galgano on its hill.
Closer look at the Eremo
Eremo interior, with sword in the stone under a plastic bubble in the center.
Sword in the stone
Stripy dome
In old churches, you just never know when you're going to run into a corpse or piece of one.... According to legend, these arms belonged to someone who tried to pull the sword out of the stone in 1181 while Galgano was away. He was then eaten by a wolf, a friend of the saint. Carbon dating was done on the arms in 2001, and they do date from the 12th century.
In the valley below the Eremo, the Abbey of San Galgano was built by the austere Cistercian order in 1224-88. It was the first fully Gothic church in Tuscany and was used as the model for Siena Cathedral. Today it is a pretty, roofless ruin. None of our interior photos came out very well, but we lucked out with some nice evening sun on the outside.
Abbazia di San Galgano
West facade of abbey church
Side view of abbey church
Remains of monastic buildings adjoined to the church
By the time we left it was getting late, so we picked up a snack from the bar/gift shop next to the abbey and headed back to our apartment for yet another delicious homemade pasta dinner. We are really missing that tradition already and are determined to incorporate more apartments in our traveling future!
Wed 4/30: Siena
Siena cityscape
Siena rooftops
The next day we drove to Siena, which is only about 45 minutes from San Gimignano. Siena is a very popular city and we were quite overwhelmed by the crowds of tourists after our relaxed visits to San Gimignano and San Galgano Abbey! We didn't fall in love with it like we did Assisi or Spoleto, but it is a lovely town with atmospheric, hilly streets and an abundance of art. There are several parking lots outside the walls, the most convenient of which are Duomo and Il Campo. We ended up heading for Il Campo, which turned out to be the wrong choice (at least coming from the north), as the access road goes ridiculously far in the wrong direction before backtracking! But once we got there, the parking garage was good, convenient, and not too overpriced.
We hiked uphill towards the Duomo, which is very pretty and unique. The facade is too fancy for my taste, but the marble is gleaming white and the tower is pleasingly stripy. It is suffering from a severe bout of renovation at the moment, however, so we couldn't see the dome at all.
There was a long queue for tickets out front, but after joining it for a few minutes I remembered a great tip from my web friend Adrian of Paradoxplace - go around back to the baptistery first! For admission purposes, Siena Cathedral is divided up into several parts - the cathedral itself, the crypt, the baptistery, and the museum - and you can buy a combo ticket to all of them for 10 euros. There was no line at all at the baptistery, and once we had our combo ticket we could walk right past the queue at the cathedral!
But we toured the baptistery first, which is a smallish rectangular building covered in nice frescoes. In the center is a fancy baptismal font with 15th-century bronze reliefs (one by Donatello). Happily, photos are allowed inside as long as you don't use flash or a tripod.
Halfway up the marble stairs on the south side of the cathedral is the entrance to the crypt, where the frescoes were much older and more interesting. Photos aren't allowed and the rule was enforced by a roving official, but we managed a few anyway (of course without flash).
And then we smugly marched past the lines at the cathedral to have a look at the interior. It is very impressive, and pleasingly stripy like the tower. Photos with no flash are allowed. The main art highlights are the sculpture-covered pulpit by Nicolas Pisano, the marble pavement with elaborate symbolic scenes, and the library with very nice frescoes on the wall and ceiling.
From the Duomo it is only a short walk downhill to Il Campo, the main "square" of Siena. Unusually, it's not a square - it is scallop- or fan-shaped and very beautiful. This is where they hold the twice-annual Palio, a bareback horse race between the medieval neighborhood associations of Siena, accompanied by traditional costumes and much pageantry. That must be an incredible sight! The rest of the year, it is ringed with cafes and pizzerias and filled with tourists. We had overpriced (of course) but quite delicious pizzas in one of these cafes, with a wonderful view. It is definitely one of the best squares we've seen in Europe.
Il Campo
View from our lunch table
Pizza Capricciosa, one of my standbys - ham, mushrooms, artichokes and olives.
David's choice was a spicy meat fest that he said was "the greasiest and most delicious" pizza he's had outside the States.
After lunch we wandered some side streets and pressed on to a few more churches listed on my website. First was Santa Maria dei Servi, a nice brick church with interesting frescoes inside. There was a good view back to Siena from its steps and the road leading up to it was lined with the colorful flags of the local neighborhood/Palio team.
Across town is San Domenico, a huge brick edifice that is impressive from the outside but quite boring inside - except for the preserved head and finger of St. Catherine of Siena, both of which are on display and much venerated by pilgrims. Photos were not allowed in this church, sternly enforced by the man sweeping the floor. But we managed a couple discreet snaps.
We didn't have much better luck outside photographically speaking, as the sunlight was on the wrong side and we couldn't find a way into the cloisters for a view of the sunny side.
Down a steep hill from San Domenico is the Shrine of St. Catherine of Siena, consisting of a couple chapels built into her house. The light was difficult here too, and photos were not allowed.
A hike through some very nice old streets brought us back up towards the Duomo. Along the way, we came upon a nice viewpoint towards San Domenico:
By now the sun had swung around to the west so we took some better photos of the cathedral's facade, then visited the last sight on our combo ticket, the cathedral museum. It was a very good museum over several floors, with an abundance of original sculptures, paintings and stained glass from the cathedral. Photos aren't allowed, but this wasn't enforced.
Admission to the museum includes a panoramic view from this arch, which was part of an unfinished plan to expand the cathedral:
David opted out since he had his camera bag along and was ready for a rest anyway. It didn't take me long to climb the very narrow but short spiral stairway up to the viewpoint, despite some stopping and squeezing past people climbing down. The view was lovely and on all sides. You can go up even further to the top of the structure, but I didn't bother since the view was unlikely to be that much better and I'm no great fan of heights anyway!
We were plenty tired by the time we headed back to the car around 5:30, but we decided we couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit another abbey! And not just any abbey, but one that sounds and looks from pictures to be very beautiful - the Abbey of Sant'Antimo. So we raced the setting sun as we drove almost another hour further south, hoping to get there in time and hoping it would be worth it... and we did, and it was!
Abbey of Sant'Antimo
The Abbazia di Sant'Antimo was built in 1117. Unlike San Galgano, it is still intact and still in use by white-robed monks. It was absolutely magical, both in its setting and its beautiful Romanesque architecture. The road to the abbey approaches from above, so the first view of it is spectacular - nestled alone in a valley against the backdrop of a thick-forested mountain.
Down at the abbey, where again we had free and easy parking, we had a fine view of the west facade just before the sun sank below the hill.
Ideally you would spend all day here, especially if you're into photography - in the morning for the beautiful east apse with its interesting carvings, midday for the view from above (south), evening for the west front, and at night when it is floodlit. I hope we will do so on a future trip.
The interior is just as magical as the exterior, which is rare. Our photos don't do the beauty and atmosphere of it justice. We stayed long enough to join part of an evening service, led by the Gregorian chanting of the monks. It was magnificent.
The drive to and from the abbey was also incredibly beautiful. It's not nearly as famous, but we think the countryside around San Gimignano and south of Siena is even more beautiful than Chianti. There are more meadows, which are made of dense, shimmering, soft-looking green grass (couldn't figure out what that crop might be), punctuated by pointy Tuscan trees and smoother roads.
We got home after dark and it was quite late when we enjoyed our last homecooked pasta meal. We had overshopped a bit and had several pastas and sauces left in the fridge, so we sampled them all! - large green tortelloni filled with spinach and ricotta and topped with olive oil and parmesan; tiny chewy tortellini filled with prosciutto and topped with fresh ragu sauce; and thin spaghetti with fresh pesto. Delicious! Then we tempted our digestive fate, but happily without consequence, by going to sleep almost immediately after.
Thu 5/1: Lucca
After checking in at our hotel, David wandered into town while I sorted some photos and got a few other things done on the sometimes-working internet. A couple hours later, he came back with such glowing reports that I had to go check it out too. So David drove me halfway to town (only about a 15-minute walk total) then did our laundry at the best laundromat we've had yet on this trip. I still can't believe my luck that he's always willing to do this! I don't have the patience for all the waiting in laundromats, but he seems to find it relaxing.
Lucca really is a fine town and I'm glad I picked it as our base in northern Tuscany. It has plenty of tourists but they don't overwhelm like they do elsewhere, and most are Italian or German. It has medieval streets, old houses, and lots of beautiful historic churches. Most of the center is pedestrianized and lots of people rent bikes for the day. It took me awhile to figure out why it felt a little weird somehow in its layout - then I realized it's flat! We've been almost exclusively in hill towns the last couple weeks that it felt really odd at first. But it sure is a nice change of pace!
Outside the walls. These walls are very thick and still completely intact; on top of them is a wide paved path that is great for walking and biking. It's 4km around.
This was originally a Roman amphitheater. The shape has been retained, but the seating was replaced with houses and cafes.
By the time the laundry was done, I had completed a fast-paced and very enjoyable tour of Lucca's best churches and sights. The highlight was the cathedral, which was my first look at "Pisan Romanesque" (i.e. related to the architecture at Pisa). The facade is absolutely beautiful, covered in gleaming white columns and really interesting sculptures. It's busy without being over-the-top, and includes several of my favorite themes in medieval art (like the Labors of the Months and the Tree of Jesse).
The interior was much less interesting, except for the Volto Santo (Holy Face), a wooden sculpture of Christ that was quite a big deal in medieval Europe. Legend has it that it was carved by Jesus' friend Nicodemus, then sailed to Europe on an unmanned ship and rode on a carriage pulled by untamed oxen, all of its own volition.
There are several other fabulous churches in Lucca as well, the best of which are San Michele in Foro and San Frediano. The former has a beautiful facade similar to the Duomo and the latter has a fine exterior as well as some interesting things to see inside.
Fri 5/2: Pisa
Yesterday morning we drove to Pisa. It was just a super-easy (toll) freeway drive and then a bit of slow traffic once we arrived in Pisa, for a total of about 20 minutes. The parking situation is far better than I would have dreamed - there is a large, free(!) parking lot just outside the north wall by the Campo dei Miracoli (where all the main attractions are), with separate sections for motorhomes and tour buses and a little shopping center with a market and toilets.
Thanks to the famous Leaning Tower and its location near the sea, Pisa is absolutely mobbed with tour-bus and cruise-ship loads of tourists. And of course they all have to pose with the Tower as though they are holding it up, so that it can be difficult to walk peacefully around. But like all other crowded tourist attractions in the world, it's famous for a reason. It really is an astonishing sight and the lean is more dramatic than I expected it to be from pictures.
But for me, the coolest thing about Pisa is not the lean of its tower but the whole group of buildings of which it's a part. Laid out on the pancake-flat Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles) is one of the most beautiful and interesting cathedrals in Italy, a lovely round baptistery to match, a separate belltower (the Leaning Tower), and the Camposanto, a rectangular marble courtyard once covered in frescoes and used for noble burials. These buildings, made of gleaming white marble and stretched out across a roomy green lawn, make such a beautiful sight and I really wish I could see it without the crowds.
Having read up on the logistics of Pisa, upon arrival I headed almost immediately for the ticket office. You need a ticket to enter each of the buildings listed above and, as in Siena, combo tickets are available. You can climb the Leaning Tower only on scheduled "tours" - by the time I got my ticket at about 10:00, the next available time was at 11:20. The experience is not cheap - 15 euros per person! By comparison, a combo ticket for all the rest of the sights, including two museums, is 10 euros. They must have recently hiked the price of the Tower tour, as my 2005 guidebook says it costs only 2 euros!
Ticket in hand, I started with a visit to the Camposanto while David wandered around the cathedral and tower, people-watched and snapped photos. The Camposanto was quite interesting: it's like a giant rectangular cloister with a beautiful grassy garden in the center.
In the covered walkway around it, the floor is lined with interesting tombstones, there are medieval and ancient tombs set up against the walls, and higher up on the walls are fragments of 14th-century frescoes. In a well-lit corner room are huge frescoes with toe-curling images of the Last Judgment and Hell.
Then I met up with David again and we visited the beautiful Baptistery, which is Romanesque on the bottom level and Gothic further up (since it took many years to complete).
Inside there is a large octagonal font, a small choir area, and another Pisano pulpit. You can climb a flight of stairs to the gallery, which gives some great views of the font and choir (which are difficult to see at ground level) and out to the Campo. Someone has thoughtfully cut a small square in the screen that faces the cathedral's west facade, allowing for a nice photo op.
While we were up there, we got to enjoy a demonstration of the baptistery's acoustic properties. One man positioned himself up in the gallery and another down below next to the font; after shushing all the visitors, they sang a loud clear note to each other, which echoed around the walls. It was very cool.
Then it was time for the tower tour, which David opted out of. They don't allow any personal belongings up there except a camera, so we would have had to check the camera bag in a locker and he didn't love the idea of the climb - or the lean of the tower - very much anyway. He was astonished that I was so willing to go myself, given my phobic horror at the Eiffel Tower and other high places! But my fear of heights has everything to do with how secure the height feels. But I climb study-feeling cathedral towers and galleries all the time without much problem. Elevators in very tall buildings freak me out, especially when you can see out of them. More importantly, the Eiffel Tower was built for an Expo in the 1800s and never intended to stay up this long! But a stone belltower that has remained standing (more or less) since the Middle Ages, and - most importantly - which is checked constantly by scientists and engineers from around the world, seems like a much safer bet.
I somehow managed to be first in line for the 11:20 tour, despite not having arrived all that much in advance. At the designated time my ticket was punched and I was off, thinking I might achieve the small distinction of arriving at the top first. But before I was even halfway up my heart was beating out of my chest, my legs were burning, and I was no longer interested in that goal! Fortunately, we were required to stop at a terrace midway up anyway.
The view was magnificent even from that point, but the climb would have been worth it just for the experience of feeling the lean! I didn't expect this phenomenon at all, although I should have. The stairs run in a spiral just inside the outer wall of the tower, with solid stone walls on either side and only an occasional small window. So you lose track of what side you're on visually, but find yourself being pulled to the right especially as you come around the lower side, and feeling like you're going uphill as you go around the higher side. Combined with the spiral staircase, it all makes you feel rather off-kilter! But it is such fun and really a unique experience.
That's me waving at David in the center of the photo.
Note that the horizon is straight in this photo - quite a dramatic lean!
After maybe 10 minutes, we were allowed to continue all the way to the top. The top of the tower is remarkably open, which was rather alarming.
There's a fence around the edge, but from the edge you can climb up five steps to the bell platform. I couldn't help but think that if you tripped from one of those stairs, you could go tumbling right over the fence!
From the bell platform you can shimmy up about 10 more steps to the very top platform, which has a railing but also wasn't quite as secure as I would have liked! But I tried not to think about it and enjoy the views, which were spectacular. I was especially thrilled to be able to take "aerial" photos of the cathedral, which was one the main reason I climbed the tower.
That's me left of center.
After all that excitement and exercise, it was time to take a break from the crowds and find lunch somewhere. We walked towards the river until we were sufficiently away from the tourists and tourist restaurants, which didn't take long. We chose a nondescript cafe on a shopping street and had some very nice lasagne (David) and ravioli (me).
After lunch we continued the rest of the way to the River Arno, which is the same one that flows through Florence but the riverside is a lot less pretty in Pisa! Then we stopped at an ATM, where I got pooped on by a pigeon. Right on the top of my head. It's the first time I've had the pleasure of that experience and I'll be glad if I never have to repeat it! Fortunately my purse was well-stocked with tissues so I was able to remove the offending substance quite quickly and thoroughly, but of course the first thing I did when we got home was wash my hair! YUCK!!
We spent the afternoon finishing our tour of all the sights on the Campo, starting with the interior of the Duomo. It is remarkably large inside, with two aisles on each side of the nave and a very tall ceiling. The main art attraction is the best of all Pisano pulpits, with reliefs of biblical scenes and personifications of virtues and the liberal arts.
Then David rested on the base of a monumental fountain and watched the Tower posers while I visited the Sinopie Museum and the Cathedral Museum. The first one displays the sketches that underlie the frescoes in the Camposanto, which are important artistically but weren't terribly interesting to me.
But the Cathedral Museum was excellent. It displayed some of the original sculptures and a magnificent bronze door from the cathedral, along with ancient illuminated manuscripts, treasures and tapestries.
Detail from the bronze door, showing the Nativity and the Journey of the Magi.
Finally, we took a few more photos of the cathedral and baptistery in the afternoon light, but unfortunately the sky had become quite hazy so the pictures aren't that great. If we have time one of these evenings (we're based in Lucca until Tuesday), we might drive over for some photos in better conditions.
On our way back to the car, David tripped on a big hole in the sidewalk next to the train tracks, twisting his ankle very painfully. This is especially worrying because he injured that ankle a few years ago and it has bothered him quite a bit ever since, so he really doesn't need to injure it further! But I'm very happy to report that it has miraculously recovered and so far there seems to be no permanent damage done. What an adventure Pisa was!
Sat 5/3: Lucca
Today is much-needed rest day, during which I've been able to get this hefty post and some picture sorting done. We thought about driving to the nearest beach to cool off, but even that sounded like too much work. We'll visit Florence tomorrow or Monday and then head to the Cinque Terre (cliffside villages on the northwest coast) on Tuesday.
1 comment:
It's been a long time, but the pictures were worth their wait. I am always amazes at the beauty of the cities and the homes in Europe. You should have hoofed it to the beach. We had a lovely day at the beach in La Jolla on the 3rd.
Ron
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