"...Excellent Field Trip..." Post Six

The Tuscan Hillside

I'm writing poolside on the patio this morning.  Usually I write at the kitchen table, but this morning the Spousal Unit™ is in there, prepping his World Famous Buttermilk Pancakes without the usual ingredients.  More about that to come.  For now, I'm steering clear of the kitchen.

Yesterday we did send a couple contingents off to Siena.  Navigating the roads in any new place can be fraught with both peril and excitement.  Our three car loads did not disappoint.  The winners of the Peril Portion of the Program were, by a mile, the McManuses (or, the McMani--there was conversation how to apply the plural to McManus).  McB put the Duomo in Siena into her Google Maps and technology did not fail.  However, it was a bit too accurate so the McManuses found themselves right in the square fronting the Duomo--kinda like driving into DMZ without the DM. With all aplomb, John let McB and the girls out, then messaged Bill and Dan for help.  

If you've been overseas and have toured the pretty darned amazing churches that were built centuries ago, you know that every time you walk with one, your jaw drops in wonder at, "How did they do that without modern tools?"  The craftsmanship is simply stunning--and there is nothing simple about it at all.  The Siena Duomo did not disappoint.  (Photographic evidence below.) 

Following a lovely, leisurely lunch at a restaurant facing Il Campo, the Siena square, we wandered around this delightful city.  Jeanie believes that there must be a Siena Homeowners Association (the SHA for short) because unlike most of the other Tuscan towns we've visited, all the buildings are built from the same hue of materials.  (Photos below).

We stopped on our way home in San Gimignano, where we came upon a wedding party that had just exited the church in their main square.  Jeanie and I commented on the bride's and bride's mother's footwear.  The bride wore Carrie Bradshaw worthy red stilettos.  The bride's mother wore very comfortable looking sneakers that matched her attractive beige dress.

We drove the back roads home which took us through the magnificently scenic Tuscan countryside of rolling hills, peppered with vineyards, olive groves, cyprus trees.  When I'm in Florida, every day I stand on the beach and say, "Thank you, God, for the ocean."  (The grandchildren who can talk offer that prayer with me when they're visiting as well.)  As we were driving, all I could think was a version of that prayer: Thank you, God, for Tuscany.

One last stop before we made it back to the Agritourismo Pinzale where we're staying and that was at the grocery store.  New-to-you grocery stores anywhere require a fair amount of patience as you try to navigate the aisles and figure out where the hell they shelve (fill in the blanks).  Doing this after a long albeit wonderful day with the store about to close and in Italian was, shall we say, not fun.  The Spousal Unit™ had it in his head to fulfill his role in the framily as the Breakfast Parent and to do so would require the from scratch cooking of the aforementioned World Famous Buttermilk Pancakes.  We're going for the short version of the story here: attempting to find things like buttermilk, baking soda, baking powder and vanilla proved very, very challenging.  The Spousal Unit™ also declined to use Google Translate to approach a store clerk for assistance.  Very, very challenging.  As I write, he's in the kitchen and we're hoping for the best.  If not, we purchased ready made pancake mix as a respectable albeit not the same backup.  On the plus side, the grocery store does carry Diet Pepsi in a can for .49 euros so from my perspective, the trip was a success.

On this Sunday morning, may I encourage you to just look around and say, "Thank you, God, for..."

Siena (photo courtesy of the Siena Homeowner's Association SHA)

I mean, c'mon.  Can you imagine living here?  And what the HOA fee would fee?

Siena Duomo

Siena Duomo selfie of Mary and Jeanie.  Jeanie is an Episcopal Deacon, which she conveniently pulled out when I asked her which saint was depicted in one of the many intricately rendered statues in the Duomo.  (Episcopals, unlike Catholics, are not big on saints.)  I will report, however, when we toured the crypt where there were multiple frescoes of Bible stories, she was extraordinarily knowledgeable ("Know Your Synoptic Gospels").  I'm horning in on her church's pilgrimage to the Holy Land early next year and will be leaning heavily on her there.

Church doors (as I write this, the church bells in Cuscina, the nearby town, are tolling.  They toll the quarter hour and hour all day long.  So lovely.)

One of many tiles portraying stories on the floor of the Duomo.  I especially like the Romulus and Remus story, above.

The pictures unfortunately don't do the beauty of the dome justice.

Love me some gargoyles.  My favorites are at Notre Dame in Paris.

Just to provide some perspective, this is the kind of street the Blessed John McManus was driving down while his wife, McB, believed the Google Maps and navigated.

For my St. Louis Park, MN friends--Aquila. (For everyone else, there's an Aquila School in SLP.)

Our Lady of the Laundromat

Our Lady of the Directional Signage

A very poor photo of the Tuscan hillside taken from a moving car

PS--the pancakes are finished.  The consumers appear more than satisfied, although the Spousal Unit™  pronounces them less fluffy than the ones he makes back home.  "Thank you, God, for the Spousal Unit™ " a prayer from the bottom of my heart.