SIENA, ITALY – Nov 12-15
The highlight of Siena was that we celebrated Taryn’s 11th Birthday. This was partly by design as we had discussed this as a family for a good month leading up to Italy. 🙂 And Siena is hands down one of the most beautiful cities we’ve experienced. It’s kind of a mini-Florence without a river and all the famous art. But Siena doesn’t need all that to survive. The Piazza Il Campo is easily our favorite Piazza in all of Italy. It’s shaped like a giant shell and is built with a slope. We referred to it as ‘The Beach’ because locals and tourists come and layout in the sunshine. “Who wants to go to the beach today?” At the base of the piazza is the tower, Torre de Mangia. We climbed it’s 330 steps through ultra narrow passages all the way to the top. The views of the Tuscan hills are breathtaking and the tiny people in Il Campo below look like ants. The other great thing about Siena is the literally hundreds of narrow and winding streets, it’s like the world’s largest labyrinth. The streets are just wide enough for a small car to fit through with people along the sides. There are no sidewalks and the road is cobblestone. I can’t express enough how cool walking these streets is – unlike any other place.
Our apartment was a very short walk from Il Campo and located on one of the main streets. We loved our spot because we could meander the streets, hit ‘The Beach’ or visit other sites like the Duomo all within minutes. Our apartment included free breakfast at The MeetCafe a hundred meters down the street. There was also a local market nearby. We had two private rooms on one floor with a shared kitchen and baths. The other room was occupied by Ellie and Bridget – two awesome American students from Loyola University in Chicago. They are doing a semester abroad in Rome and were in Siena for the weekend. It was fun hearing about their adventures and they gave us some great recommendations on Rome. As a parent of 2 girls, it’s important for us to have great role models like this for our daughters. For them to see these strong young women traveling through Europe alone will no doubt have a profound impact on them.
For Taryn’s birthday dinner our host Roberto recommended a great local restaurant not far from Il Campo. Our waiter fell in love with Jett, “Ciao Bello. Ciao Bello”. In fact, several of the waiters came out from the back to give Jett a “Ciao Bello”, pinch his cheek and play with his hair. It was hilarious. We had local beef famous here in Siena as well as Pici pasta, a thicker spaghetti also well known in Siena. The owner came by often to check on us. The food was delicious and the local Tuscan wine amazing. But the highlight was when all the lights went out and they brought in a piece of cake with a candle on it singing the Italian ‘Happy Birthday’ song. The whole restaurant joined in! It was incredible. And it was a surprise to us too otherwise we would have videoed. I think it is one Taryn will remember for quite awhile.
We spent one day just wandering the streets, stopping for espresso and hot chocolate. Interesting thing about hot chocolate in Europe – it’s typically more like thinner, chocolate pudding. The kids love it and eat it with a spoon. Also, saw the beautiful Duomo but didn’t go in as there was a fee – picking and choosing as always… But it’s beautiful from the outside. Along the streets, there are these metal rings that were used to tie up horses in centuries past. Each has an ornate shape or sculpture to it. We also stumbled across, La Perla, the little pension that we stayed at 15 years ago when we first fell in love with this place. Another interesting thing you’ll see in Italy is an image of a wolf feeding two babies. It’s the fascinating story of Romulus and Remus, twin brothers that were abandoned and raised by a wolf. As adults, Romulus killed Remus and named Roma (Rome) after himself.
Back at our apartment, there was some food left in the fridge from the previous guests. We went through it all, tossed anything suspect and kept a few things. One was an unopened jar of tomato puree. We already had butter, cream and some spices so we whipped up some yummy tomato soup. We also had some leftover steak from Taryn’s Bday so we made little steak bites and a veggie/cheese tray to share with our roommates. We kept calling them ‘The Maddis’ because they reminded us of our niece Maddi who studied here as well. Good times.
The only downside to our Siena experience was that we were located on a busy street above a bar. People literally partied until 5am and then around 6am you’d hear the morning sounds – cars, people walking to work etc. After two nights of little sleep we finally broke out the ear plugs which actually helped. Luckily, the kid’s room was on the other side and they didn’t hear all the racket.
Aside from that, Siena was as amazing as we remembered it. Highly recommend visiting. And if you go in the summer, consider going during the Paleo – a bareback horse race that takes place inside Il Campo. It’s definitely on our to-do list one of these years.
Stivers Tribe 