3 November 2024–Mass at “Il Cubo” and Road Trip to Siena: Sunday Mass this morning was within walking distance from our B&B in Foligno. In fact, it was right next to the Hospital in which John found himself for a few days. “Il Cubo” is not the Church’s real name, but it is called such because of its shape: it is shaped like a giant cube! From the outside, it looks like a large concrete block, and inside, it is extremely modern-looking, especially given the medieval surroundings in this part of the country. Our host told us that Siena would be mostly flat, so we figured that it would not entail more uphill and downhill walking, large number of stairs, an so on. We traveled to Siena. We found that although the main town center, once inside of it, might be mostly flat, one as to walk uphill to get to the town center, not unlike many other medieval towns. Then, of course, one must walk downhill to return to one’s car. Having said this, we did see one bus that perhaps would have driven us to the top, but we were not sure about the bus, so we walked. So, I’ve learned a couple of things during this trip to Italy: 1) When Locals say that, “e da vedere…e Bella,” one is saying literally, it is a must-see, it is beautiful, but what they mean by beautiful in this case, is that it is going to be a beautiful place from a historical perspective; and by historical, in these small towns, it typically means that it is going to be a Roman or medieval town; and 2) when Locals say that something is “in pianura,” literally meaning that it is on the first-floor level, i.e., that there is no climbing involved, what they really mean is that it is relatively flat, that it is on the “hill”, that it requires little or no up/down walking/stepping; and by “hill,” the Locals in the North and Central parts of Italy, they really mean what we call “mountains.” Anyway, the Cathedral (Duomo) of Siena is BEAUTIFUL! I think it ranks among the top duomos that we have seen so far, such as Florence and Milan, for example. It has a Baptistry, as well, not unlike Pisa. Florence, and such. An interesting part of the Duomo’s interior is the Biblioteca Piccolomini. One room has marble-looking Mass Books with musical notes as they must have looked in the Middle Ages. Of course, Siena has an university, but it also has palaces, Roman arcs, museums, other churches, and the like. There are vendors, gift shops, restaurants, bars, cafes, both in the piazza and lining the narrow streets. A walk to the Piazza del Campo leads to a huge “race track” twice a year, for what is called the Palio di Siena. This is a horse race, and traditionally Palios are competitions among the various neighborhoods of the same town. This “race track” is slanted to facilitate the race, there is a large fountain in one section of the piazza, and one could see Palio flags both lining narrow streets as well as intermittently flying by someone’s residence nearby. The Piazza is huge, and its circumference is lined with specialty shops, bars, cafes, restaurants, and other shops. In one of these shops, I noticed a very familiar wine bottle, one that sat on our kitchen table at every mealtime when I was growing up. My father used to enjoy Chianti wine in such bottles. Additionally, I could not resist purchasing a classical small panforte di Siena. Panforte is a dried fruit and nuts confection that for us was sent by our grandparents at Christmas as a gift, all the way to the U.S. Of course, this shop also sold the traditional Sienese cookie called the Ricciarelli (which looked to me somewhat like the cracked chocolate or lemon cookies at Christmas time). Siena, like most other medieval towns in Italy with entrenched culinary traditions, certainly has other specialties that were being sold in stores today, delicacies such as crostone (a sort of large toasted slice of bread, topped with whatever one desires, i..e., cheese, prosciutto, mortadella, and so on) and ciaccini (a sort of stuffed pizza). Of all of these, we only purchased a small panforte. Dinner was at Vesuvius Ristorante e Pizzeria in Foligno, like last night. Dad had eaten a filet last night that was not only delicious but it was also good in his stomach all night and today; therefore, he was happy to go there for the same item tonight. I love gnocchi, so I had Gnocchi a la Sorrentiina. These gnocchi were very delicious.
Our Travels 