July 2, 2008 Palio Winner is......

......Istrice or Porcupine!

The Istrice contrada won the July 2 Palio; the first Palio of 2008. The second and final Palio race will be held on August 16.

We were really hoping to be able to see a Palio race after living in Siena and seeing all of the festivities that occurred months and months after the race day. I can say that after having lived in Siena, the Palio is VERY important to the Sienese: there is even a local TV station devoted almost entirely to replaying Palios of the past. Many a night was spent watching this channel! The Oca (Goose) and the Lecorno (Unicorn) won last years Palios and there were festas, dinners, and decorations throughout the entire fall commemorating their victories!

Decorations in the Oca contrada commemorating their victory in the July 2, 2007 Palio:


Our contrada, the Onda (or Wave), for some reason seemed to be less active than the other contradas. Only on a few occasions did we see the contrada practicing with their drums and flags and only around Christmas time did the contrada hang their flags and light fixtures.

The Onda flag and light fixture decorations:


Although the Palio itself is a simple bareback horse race around Siena's Campo, there is nothing simple about it. Not all the contradas compete during each Palio and there are races prior to the main race which help determine which contradas compete. Scheming and plotting by the contradas occurs all year, culminating in a 90 second race around the Campo! The winning jockey and horse are heroes; the runner-up is the biggest loser of all!

One day we hope to make it to the Palio. Hopefully the Onda will win that year!

Back in Siena: Oliver will not be getting a pet passport

After coming back to Siena from Cortona, one of the main priorities of the week was to figure out how to get Oliver a pet passport, which would facilitate travel back to the U.S. We were able to find out where the office of the Azienda Sanitaria Locale per Veterinaria was in Siena, and luckily there was a very nice vet who spoke English that I was able to talk to. He told us to come in on Thursday morning with all of Oliver's paperwork.

Thursday we took a 12 Euro taxi ride out to the ASL only to find out that Ollie could not get a pet passport because he was born in the U.S. and they only give pet passports to dogs born here in the E.U. or to dogs which are owned by people who are residents of the E.U. Luckily the vets looked over all of the paperwork (his E.U. entry form, rabies certificate, microchip information) and said this was all acceptable and that they would sign an export certificate for us. The catch is that this needs to be done within 48 hours of our departure! We were originally planning on completing this at the ASL office in Verona but they could not confirm that the office in Verona would not require more-such as a trip to the vet! So, we have decided that we will have these forms completed here in Siena instead of Verona.

Thursday night I also had one last dinner with Anna and Cristina at a restaurant near the Duomo!

Trucker Strike!!

There is officially a full blown trucker strike going on here in Italy! The 5-day strike began on Monday as a result of truckers protesting the high price of fuel. Some drivers blocked highways and roads with their trucks, while others formed convoys that deliberately slowed traffic on major highways. This is causing a crisis as no food, merchandise, gas etc. can be delivered anywhere! With more than 70 percent of Italy's merchandise delivered by truck, this is a huge problem! By this morning, almost all gas stations had run out of gas and the ones that did have gas had huge lines on people waiting (even emergency vehicles-ambulances, police cars, fire trucks-are running out of gas).

Google News picture

Being that we don't have a car, we actually did not realize this was going on to be honest until today. Yesterday we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things and sure they were out of a few things but nothing to really take note of. Today we walked down to the new huge grocery store near the train station and it was empty! Almost as if they were going out of business. Reed went in and said that there was barely any food, and what was left (spinach and tomatoes were the only vegetables) was about three times as expensive at it usually is!

This is what a lot of the grocery stores look like here:


No joke! And there is still two more days of this strike to go!

There are more consequences....The pharmaceutical association is warning that there could be drug shortages if this strike continues and Fiat, the Turin-based car manufacturer temporarily closed a number of it's factories and laid off 22,000 workers because parts were not being delivered.

Only in Italy!

Christmas Time Has Arrived in Siena and a few other things of note

Christmas time has finally arrived here in Siena. Yesterday I happened to be walking by Palazzo Salimbeni (the home of Monte dei Paschi bank) and noticed that they were putting up the Christmas tree. Today as I walked home with Mr. O, they were putting the finishing touches on the lighting. It is quite nice...


...even if it is a little scraggly. We've seen a few other "public" trees around town set up in piazzas or on streets. We joked the other day that they were worse than Charlie Brown's Christmas tree! They are really small! I walked by a stand tonight on the side of the road selling Christmas trees and the majority of them were about 3 feet tall-and that's being generous.



Still, it is starting to be quite festive around here which is great! Not to mention there is a chance for snow this weekend.....!

We have had a mildly successful week so far accomplishing a few things that we need to get done. We have basically booked all of our hotels for our 2+ week trip in January and because it is low season we are paying less than the advertised price at almost every hotel-yippee!! That means more money for food! I've had quite a good time planning out our agenda and I know we will barely see (or taste) all that the regions have to offer, but we are looking forward to many more trips here in the future!

We have had slight success in trying to figure out exactly what forms we need in order to bring Mr. O back (not going to leave him here)! Yesterday we hiked out to the closest vet...took about 30 minutes to get there (very reassuring if there was an emergency) only to turn back around again. I had my first real taste of the "Italian System." First of all, there was one waiting room but NO receptionist (this is apparently what all doctors offices are like as well-I'm just glad we have not experienced this in person!), just a bunch of other people waiting to be seen by the vet. All I wanted to do was ask about getting Mr. O a pet passport (which is apparently free) but the room was filled with people and pets and who knows how long it would take to get to ask this simple question! So back home we went.

Our trip to the vet being a bust, today, we decided to try to find the Azienda Sanitaria Locale because apparently (from my research), this "mysterious" organization can give you a pet passport as well as issuing you your export certificate which allows you to export your dog after you pay a $30 fee at the post office! I find it quite ironic that I need to pay Italy to be allowed to leave with Mr. O! Anyway, I say that the ASL is mysterious because on one hand they issue these export certificates but they are also the organization that is equivalent to 911 in the U.S. Weird. Anyway, the ASL main office is located in the old psychiatric hospital here in Siena (great!). We head over there and they are actually quite helpful. But of course, this is not the right place to go. They tell me we need to go to a different office which is outside the walls and you need to take a bus to get there! AHHH!!! We'll be doing that soon....

The other thing I really wanted to do this week was look into trying to take a tour of the bottinis (especially since we have a bottini in our apartment). I had read just the other day on the internet how it is possible to take a tour and I thought it would something that would be really neat and interesting for me and Reed to get to do. So today we headed over to the information center. They told us that there is a waiting list but to head over to the museum in the tower because they would have more information. Long story short we will not be going on a tour of the bottini. Apparently there is a very long list...How Long? Two Years! So maybe in 2010 it will be our turn!

On a very positive note, this weekend the three of us our heading out to Tania and Keith's house in Cortona (Tania has a great blog that is worth looking at- Check it out here). I think it is going to be a great weekend because it seems like we have a lot in common! We are already planning an Asian themed meal! And Ollie, he is going to have two new friends to play with and keep him busy!

In the spirit of heading south, we've made two really good meals that are Southern Italian. I'll post the recipes later.

Siena, It's Like Living in a Museum.

Two Italian girls that I know here (both from southern Italy) always describe Siena as a museum and say that living here is like living in a museum. It is kind of true. There is so much history within the walls and when you stop and read about the city it is quite interesting. On Saturday (while Reed was working), Ollie and I took a walk around the city to get pictures of some of the more interesting buildings around Siena.

Siena was on the main pilgrimage route from Northern Europe to Rome and the south and was a frequent stopping point for pilgrims. The constant influx of of pilgrims helped establish the Monte Paschi di Siena bank and also was responsible for the establishment of the Spedale di Santa Maria della Scala, the hospital. Although this is no longer the hospital (thank god!) it served as the city's hospital for more than 800 years and was in use until the 1980s-Yikes! Today it functions as a museum.


Santa Maria della Scala is part of Piazza del Duomo and is right in front of the Duomo (the Duomo faces the spedale). Santa Maria was one of the first hospitals in all of Europe! Legend says that the hospital was established in the 9th century by a cobbler turned monk who took care of orphans. However, it is more likely that the hospital was established by canons from the cathedral (duomo) to provide hospitality and medical care for pilgrims (the hospital also was an orphanage, taking in gettatelli, abandoned children).

Siena was on the Via Francigena, the trade route between Rome and Northern Europe. The route passed right below the city walls of Siena. As a result, numerous rest stops (ospedali) sprung up around Siena. There were more than 40 ospedali within the Sienese territory and Santa Maria della Scala was one of the most important ones.

These ospedali were established with the intent of serving as an abode and shelter for pilgrims, not necessarily a hospital by modern terms. Santa Maria and the other ospedali were to function as a hospital that looked after the sick, but also could serve as refuge and a food kitchen for the entire town during periods of plague and famine. The credo of Santa Maria was "hospitality rather than hospitalization."


The church controlled the hospital until the 14th century and used donations to support itself (the earliest recorded donations are from 1090!). By the 14th century the city had taken control of the hospital.

Some of the funds donated to the hospital were diverted away from humanitarian purposes to artistic and architectural commissions. During the 1500s, the exterior facade was frescoed (these works were destroyed by the elements) and an interior room, the Sala del Pellegrinaio, was also frescoed.


The Basilica di San Domenico was built in the 13th century by the Dominicans and dominates the area surrounding it. Saint Catherine, the patron saint of Siena, was said to perform miracles here. If you go inside the church you can see Saint Catherine's face and thumb preserved (although ironically her face and thumb are on opposite sides of the church!). It is a little freaky!


A crumbling old building....


The Loggia Mercanzia is located at the intersection of Via Banchi di Sopra (the main street in Siena) and Via Banchi di Sotto (which leads to a Porta Romana, and onwards to Rome). It was designed as a tribune house for merchants to do their deals and also a site where the daily exchange was established.


It was also at this place where traveling pilgrims had to decide whether to continue along Banchi di Sotto to Rome or continue along to Siena's cathedral. All the faces of the statues on the Loggia (pictured below) face North, up Banchi di Sopra, indicating to the pilgrims that they should stop in Siena.


The ornate ceiling in the Loggia.


Continuing down Banchi di Sotto (towards Porta Romana) you come across Palazzo Piccolomini. This is one of my favorite buildings, especially at night. It was commissioned in the 1460s by Pope Pius II, who was one of the city's great Renaissance patrons. It was built to be one of three palaces that the pope built for his family in Siena.


The palazzo now holds the Archivo di Stato, the city's archives, and a few stores and enotecas.




Details on the building.



Ollie and I continued along snapping a few more pictures as we went...our apartment is somewhere over there.





Reed and I have also managed to take quite a few pictures of interesting pictures of fountains and statues-thats for another time.

Today we need to finish making hotel reservations for our upcoming trip and try to get Ollie is pet passport!

Wurstel, Brezen, and Plans for January

Since getting back from Verona on Monday night, we've had a busy week. Our number one priority has been trying to plan our time once we leave Siena (at the end of December). We thought about trying to spend one or two more months elsewhere (one in the South and/or one in Verona) but realized there are a lot of places we want to travel to and we could either travel for a short period of time (three weeks) and see the places we want to see, or choose one of the many places and move there and not travel. We chose to travel!

We've been working hard to try to create an itinerary that works with our budget and our time constraints (we are looking to fly home around January 18th-flights are very reasonable at that time!). We've even been able to be in contact with a few hotels and have one confirmed reservation already! Our tentative plans include heading to Sorrento (near Naples) for a few days; Ostuni and Alberobello in Puglia (to see the trulli); Matera (a crumbling old city where Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ was filmed); on to Sicily to see the Greek temples in Siracusa and the fabulous food markets in Palermo; then back to Verona for a few days before heading out of Milan)

I've also been working on figuring out the requirements for bringing Ollie back. Luckily the U.S. only requires that the dog been given a rabies vaccination within one year. Italy though, apparently has a few requirements for you to be able to export your dog.

With all this planning, we have still had some time to do a few things. On Wednesday (in between dealing with our landlady) we stopped by the weekly market:


We did not end up buying any artichokes-maybe this Wednesday. On Friday we headed over to the Christmas market that they had set up the week before in the park near the Fortress.


They have a weird mixture of stands: a spice man, people selling trinkets, and food stalls including crepes, wurstel, pretzels, beer etc. Very little Italian Food. Someone told Reed that it was a Northern European Christmas market.


Reed opted for a wurstel con crauti.....


It was huge!


Not being the biggest sausage/wurstel (hot dog) fan myself, I opted for a Brezen. At the time I thought it was like a pretzel (shape) but it tasted a lot like a doughnut.


There were many options to choose from....



In the end I chose the Brezen Krapfen.....


It was huge too!! And sweet!


Then it was back to more trip planning....

On a side note, Reed got to meet Al Gore at Osteria Le Logge on Wednesday. Al Gore was in town to celebrate the birthday of the restaurant's owner. They all got to drink a really old Brunello too!

A Night in Siena: Pizza, Sushi, and Christmas

Since we had leftover pizza dough from yesterday, we once again had pizza for dinner, this time changing it up a little. Our topings included: Cipolla rossa (red onion), aglio (garlic), basilico (basil), prosciutto, carciofi (artichokes) and mozzarella (not mozzarella di bufala because we ate it all already!).


Pizza dough with a little sauce.....


....and some prosciutto and cheese.....

a few more topings.....


Fresh out of the oven!


This evening after Reed headed off to work, I took Ollie for a walk around Siena. I came across this sign for happy hour:


This was the first time that I have seen anything about sushi since we got here. Judging from the way all the fish smells around here, it is not that fresh. The ironic thing is that the place having the above mentioned happy hour, Nannini, is more of a pastry shop known for it's panforte, not a sushi-type place. Oh well.

Walking around it is starting to see like Christmas here. They have begun to hang Christmas lights on the streets (although they are not lit yet) and a lot of stores already have Christmas decorations up.




They have also been putting up new light fixtures all along the streets, like the one pictured below. All these decorations make Siena really look beautiful. We have been told that they also put up a giant Christmas tree (possibly with yellow and green lights?!?!)!


I was finally able to take some nice pictures at night so I thought I would post them up here as well. Below is Piazza Salimbeni (Reed's favorite building(s) here in Siena). The piazza is formed by three palazzi (only 2 are really visible in this picture) and has been the headquarters for the Monte dei Paschi di Siena since 1472 (Monte dei Paschi di Siena is likely the oldest bank in the world!).


The bank grew from the practice of charging shepherds to graze their sheep on the pastures (paschi) in the Maremma region of Toscana (Southern Tuscany). The money the bank earned from charging the shepherds was then used to make loans.

Banking was integral to medieval Sienese wealth, in part because Siena was able to capitalize on it's position on the Via Francigena, the "French Road," between Rome and northwest Europe (also between Rome, Florence, and Bologna). The Via Francigena brought thousands of visitors to Siena, increasing the banking trade even more. A lot of the banks and moneylenders charged high interest, but Monte dei Paschi charged less, and therefore was more popular.

Monte dei Paschi was originally established in 1472 as a lending and charitable institution. Under Medici rule (16th century), it's role was consolidated and the bank began to focus solely on banking activities. In the 20th century, it merged with other Tuscan and Umbrian banks to form one of the key financial institutions in all of Italy.


The first Italian bankers worked from a bench (banco) in the street. If the city decided to stop them from trading, the bench was broken (rotto); hence the Italian for bankrupt (bancarotta).


I was also able to take a few nice pictures of the Campo at night:




Up Next: We head to Verona tomorrow, the city of Romeo and Juliet. I read something yesterday that said that the play Romeo and Juliet was originally set in Siena, not Verona. Hmmm. We also booked train tickets into Venice for Sunday, since Reed has never been. We are hoping to go on a Gondola ride and do a little sightseeing too!

When we are back in Siena next week I hope to take a few more pictures of some of the highlights here so that I can post about them!

Sienese daily life in 7 parts

Sienese Daily Life.....

1. A morning trip to Caffe Fiorella; un cappuccino for me, un caffe doppio (double espresso) for Reed, and nothing for Mr. O (because coffee is not good for dogs!).......

2. Most likely a trip to the grocery store........in fact, today we walked 45 minutes each way to Coop so we could get large potatoes to make baked potatoes and light bulbs (the grocery store near us does not have light bulbs-go figure). Too bad we forgot to get the light bulbs! But we did manage to pick up some taco sauce (which is really salsa not taco sauce) and some sour cream. I think we might be having Mexican food in the near future. Just a guess.......

3. Have a little wine...sometimes really great wine and sometimes, well....straight out of a water bottle! Honestly, it is not as bad as it sounds. There are a number of small wine shops that sell vino sfuso (unbottled wine). Sometimes it is actually a lot better than the stuff you get at the store (for a comparable price). Today, we went to one place and it was BYOB-Bring your own bottle: they fill it up, it costs somewhere around 3-4 Euros for 1.5 liters and you are good to go!


4. Take Mr. O to his park which is quite beautiful and has breathtaking views looking south (pictured below at sunrise)....


5. Reed heads off to make desserts at Osteria Le Logge.......

6. I practice my Italian a few days a week with my friend Cristina.......

7. And, we're busy taking advantage of this great opportunity to travel, including meeting up with some fellow expats here in Italy. We leave bright and early on Saturday to head to the Veneto to meet up with Lawren, Steve, and Mary (fellow Charlottesvillians!!!) and to get to see Verona and Venice! And Tania and Keith have invited us out to Cortona later this month to stay with them in their very own newly purchased Tuscan farmhouse. Oliver will be busy playing with their two dogs, Porter and Murphy!.......Can't wait!

On a note unrelated to Italy......before we left Charlottesville, Reed filmed an episode for public television. It just aired but can be seen online. If you want to watch him make his Tuna sashimi and Avocado pizza check it out here! (He is episode 120.) I think he did a great job!

Tomorrow we head to the market that is held every Wednesday near the Fortezza. The market mostly has household items, clothing, and misc. stuff. I was told that it also has food (we've never seen any! Hmmm!) and that supposedly some men drive up every Wednesday from Napoli to sell fresh mozzarella. Hopefully we are successful because we have some pizza dough thawing in the fridge right now!