Sirmione

Whenever we talk to "locals," we always ask what they recommend we do during our time here.  After a while, we began to notice that the suggestion we heard most often and most enthusiastically was to go to Sirmione, a town on a peninsula at the southern point of Lake Garda.  Obviously, we had to see for ourselves.

Since no cars are allowed in the old city, we parked a ways out, closer to the base of the peninsula.  As our destination was about a mile away, we walked along the shore of the lake to get to the city walls.

We've begun to notice a great abundance of castles in Italy and wonder what we're going to do after we move back and no longer see them up in the hills on every drive we take.  Sirmione definitely did not disappoint in this category.  A giant castle met us at the entrance of the city, requiring us to walk over the moat and through its arches to enter.

First things first: lunch and a fine bottle of Italian vino in a little restaurant alongside the castle.

Has anyone else noticed that for some reason, wine always tastes better when you're drinking it next to a castle?

The city of Sirmione itself was very cute with beautiful flowers and architecture at every turn.

But what we really wanted to see was the ancient ruins at the very tip of the peninsula.  We set out to find them, wandering through an olive grove or two along the way.  At one point, we noticed a freshness in the smell of our surroundings and realized we had walked straight into a patch of wild mint.  

Some of the ruins on the tip of Sirmione date back to 50 B.C. which was absolutely mind-boggling.  The craziest part, however, was that after you get in, you're basically free to wander them as you please.  Seeing Roman ruins is one thing - being able to walk around in them was another entirely.

Lounging upon ancient Roman ruins is also encouraged.

The water of Lake Garda was beautiful, and I couldn't get over the rocks along the shore.  They had this amazing reddish color, and added such a beautiful texture to the scenery.

Of course, as the Spartans were playing Wisconsin (the first time) on this fine day, Luke was showing his love from across the globe.  It worked.

The ruins were surrounded by olive groves, which just added to the aura of the place.  On the way out, Luke saw an old Italian man pick an olive straight off the tree and pop it in his mouth.  Now this was something I had been wanting to do for a long time, and upon hearing that an Italian did it, I ran with it...  Big mistake.  Olives straight off the tree have the consistency of an avocado, are ridiculously bitter and taste absolutely awful.  Lesson learned: do not do as the old Italian men do.  Ever.

On our way out, we visited the castle and walked around its grounds for a bit.  The views from its tower were incredible and gave us a great panoramic of our surroundings.

Sirmione peninsula looking out towards the lake (the ruins are barely visible at the end, through all the forest and olive groves).

Sirmione looking back towards the main land.

King and Queen for a day.

Siena, Tuscany

Hands down, Tuscany was truly one of the most beautiful places we have ever been.  It is the only trip we have taken so far that afterwards, when discussing each of our favorite parts, we agreed that simply driving around was what we both liked most.  

Forgive my teacher tendencies, but there are a couple of really cool things we learned about Siena that I can't help but share.  First of all, Siena, which is a walled city, used to be a big deal in medieval times, to the point where it rivaled Florence.  It got hit hard by the plague, however, and never quite recovered.  The result was that the people who survived tightly embraced their traditions, preserving at lot of the city's history in museums and in practice.  One of those practices is the Palio race, for which Siena is pretty famous.  The Palio is a horse race in which a representative horse and rider from each "neighborhood" in Siena competes twice a year in July and August (we vowed to come back to see one).  Siena is essentially divided into these "neighborhoods" by area, and each has it's own proudly represented mascot.  Some are more appealing, like a dragon, panther, or even a unicorn, while others are questionable (who wants to be on the snail or shell team?).  Our bed and breakfast, for instance, was full of giraffe paraphernalia, and all of the bottles we bought from the winery we visited proudly displayed a rooster on the label.  The race itself sounds like it would be quite a spectacle.  The horses and jockeys race three times around the Piazza del Campo, which is the main piazza in Siena, and interestingly shaped like a scallop shell (with nine sections that represented the Council of Nine, who ruled Siena at its height).  When standing in the Piazza itself, it's hard to imagine 17 horses racing around it with a huge crowd watching - it just doesn't seem that big!  But that's only the beginning; regarding the Palio race, there is only one rule: a jockey may not grab another horse's reins.  Other than that, anything goes.  Kidnapping another neighborhood's jockey the night before, drugging him before the race, whipping him during or trying to knock him off his horse - all fair game.  Logically, this is all in tribute to the Virgin Mary.

Pretty cool place, huh?

The view of Siena from outside the city walls.  You can already see the Duomo towering above everything.

One of my favorite pictures from the trip and the first thing we saw once we got into Siena's centro.  This guy was just doing a little sunbathing outside a wine store.

After walking around the town for a bit, we decided to go wine tasting (what else would you want to do in Tuscany?)  This proved to be a little more difficult than we anticipated, however, as we found most of the wineries we happened upon were closed.  Having such beautiful scenery and plenty of olive tree groves to get out and explore, we found we couldn't have cared less about closed wineries.

Picking an olive straight off the tree - something I had been dying to do for a while.

And finally, we found a winery that looked promising (can you tell it was a football Saturday?)

Success!

Wine tasting, at last!  Walking into the tiny room that housed all the gigantic metal vats of wine, we knew this experience was going to be a little different than what we were used to in America.  Once we established with the two old men working there that we only wanted to buy a few bottles, rather than barrels, of wine, the pouring began.  We stood at a (very) small table in the corner of the room while nodding our heads at the descriptions of the wine kindly given to us by one of the men - entirely in Italian.  True, we didn't understand more than a few words, but the wine was fantastic.  

A few cases of wine richer, we continued our drive through some of the most beautiful country we'd ever seen, every once in a while getting out to take it all in.

Yes sir, we're in Chianti country now.

Cool.

On our way home, we came across this very cool old bridge, and couldn't help but get our to exercise our budding photography skills.

Caught in the act of trying to sneak up and scare his wife!

And of course, who could resist running across a highway on-ramp to get a picture of this?

Hungry from our day in the country, we headed back to Siena just in time to catch it at sunset.

We ended up grabbing a drink and a snack (dinner doesn't start in Italy until 7:30 or 8:00) at a cafe right on the Piazza del Campo, which housed some pretty cool Palio tiles all around the walls.

We then proceeded to find a place for dinner.  After being turned away at a few restaurants we had in mind because we didn't have reservations, we landed at Antica Trattoria Papei, where we were granted a table after waiting about 20 minutes.  Upon being asked what we would like for dinner by a waiter who spoke fairly good English, we asked if he had any recommendations.  He replied, "Do you trust me?"  We told him we did (what else are you supposed to say?!?!) and he said "Ok, I'll take care of it," and walked away.  Hungry and having no idea what we were about to eat (which can be concerning in Italy at times), we were a little nervous, but excited.  Our first course was a specialty of the area: wide-noodled pasta (think really thick fresh-made spaghetti) and wild boar sauce.  Putting on a brave face, we dug in and found it to be pretty good.  It tasted a lot more like ground beef than any kind of pork, but we were pleasantly surprised (though I don't know that you'd catch asking for wild boar at the grocery store or anything).  Next came our patate fritte (fried potatoes - french fries are considered a legitimate vegetable side around here), which were also good.  The waiter explained that they cut each potato to order, so our fries were literally potatoes 15 minutes before.  Interesting.  Our main course ended up being veal with olive oil and rosemary, and despite some twangs of guilt, we enjoyed every bite - it was incredible.  Along with wonderful food, we found we were sitting beside an older couple from upstate New York, who we got to chat with during our dinner (who also shared their bottle of wine with us), which made for a fantastic end to a beautiful day.

The next morning, we were ready to see more of Siena.  We first explored a huge brick structure in town (but outside of the historic centro) that appeared to be some sort of old theater.  The top had a huge garden and walking paths, which provided a great view of Siena.

We then headed back to the Piazza del Campo to enjoy the most expensive cappuccinos of our lives.  The location was definitely worth it.

Sufficiently caffeinated, we headed to the Duomo, which was breathtaking.  

The entire structure is this white and black striped marble, all of the floors had mosaics, and the ceiling was absolutely incredible.

Hungry from our treks around, we targeted yet another amazing restaurant, la Osteria Castelvecchio.

The food was wonderful (pistachio and avocado pesto over fresh tomatoes, for one) and the interior of the restaurant itself was beautiful...

 ... but our favorite part was undoubtedly the restrooms.

I think Luke wants to add these to our bathroom doors when we get home.

Walking back towards the Duomo, we wandered through the Museo dell'Opera Metropolitana, which housed a lot of the area's prized art.  Our favorite part was that you could climb up to the top, which made for beautiful views of the city, and especially the wine country beyond.

 Our view from the top!

 Beautiful Siena. (on the left by the bell tower, you can see all the people in the Piazza del Campo, and somewhat make out its shell shape)

 Time to head back down from the top of the tower... I don't think I'll ever get used to climbing up or down these unlit claustrophobic spiral staircases.  We find, however, that the end result is always more than worth the anxiety (Italian life lesson?)

 Medieval Italians must have been very small.

 A look at where we just were (in the arches)

Wandering around town a little more, we found a store just for me! Unfortunately it was closed, which meant it was a store for me that Luke liked a lot as well.

And, of course, we couldn't resist enjoying some gelato in the Piazza before we left!  

That stuff NEVER gets old.