Under a Tuscan Sun... (and Amalfi Coast & Pompeii)

Tuscany!

Tuscany and Umbria are the two famed countryside regions in Italy. Think sunflower fields, vineyards and olive groves, colourful painted ceramics and an old fortress in the distance. These regions are delightful places to find yourself driving through - unless you happen to drive through a depressing field of sunflowers that has already browned and died, in which case, focus on the distant fortress. If you can, stay overnight in one like we did.

The fortress town of San Gimignano is another UNESCO area and is most known for its collection of 14 towers. Unlike many Italian towns where the towers were destroyed by war or later reduced to the same height as nearby houses, these towers still stand tall soaring high into the sky while flocks of birds soar around them - particularly in the late afternoon. Also unlike many other towers we saw in Europe, these towers were not defensive structures built as part of the town wall - many were inside the town area. No, these towers were signs of wealth and nobility. One by one, each of the local noble families decided to build a tower in their own honor - naturally they had to out do their neighbours and so each new tower was higher than the last (as long as the family had enough money). I think San Gimignano is best seen rather than described. The bare cobblestone look of the buildings and walking areas is unlike most places people see or imagine so here are some more pictures to add to your imagination memory bank:

San Gimignano main street.. complete with nun(!)

Model of old San Gimignano

The tourist hordes flood in to San Gimigano during the day and ebb back as the light falls. As we were staying the night inside the walls, in a place next to the town square, we got to enjoy the view of the shadows falling down the old towers and watch the dusty sunset from a small lookout we found on the old town wall.

S.Gimi towers in the background

Apart from its unique charm, San Gimignano has a great reputation for gelato. The real stuff. With organic and specific location-sourced ingredients (to ensure consistency of flavour from one batch to the next), the Gelateria di Piazza is the playground of Sergio, an international award winning gelato maker. He has twice won the gelato world championships as part of an Italian team. He has also won multiple awards for flavours that include the best pistachio ever, 'blackberry and lavender', 'raspberry and rosemary', and several fruit and champagne/white wine varieties. Mmmmmm....!* Hopefully we will still feel the buzz of inspiration when we get home to our ice cream maker! A little, but important, tip - Sergio's place is about 15 metres from another gelateria that sports a big sign claiming to be the world's best gelato (without proof) and trying to lure in unwitting tourists who have only heard vague rumours of Sergio's fame. We ducked in there briefly to compare. While I'm sure the gelato is perfectly fine, the flavours just weren't as inventive.

[*Jahda: We decided that if it was good enough for the world's celebrities, it was good enough for us. So we indulged ourselves after dinner and again for breakfast... err, an early 'morning tea' the following day. And thus began our search for Italy's best gourmet gelato...]

Surprisingly good after dinner (or for breakfast)

Despite the area's beauty and small town feel, we had been warned not to trust our belongings to the car, which had to be parked outside the city walls in one of the towns' car parks overnight. This was Italy after all. We felt a bit sheepish with all our bags as we checked in for one night only! Wheeling our luggage down along the cobblestones was a bit bumpy but after negotiating our car through the narrow backstreets to drop our bags off the previous night we knew that wheeling them down 300m or so of bumpy cobblestones was the easiest option, even if it involved occasionally losing control of our bags and accidentally running a few people over who were moving slowly on the steeper sections. Staying overnight was definitely worth it though.

An entrance to Sienna

Sienna

Have you heard of the famous Sienna horse races? Twice each year a throng gathers for the races in the large town square. Twice, because the good people of the region found that the annual event was so good it should happen more often. Anyone up for a repeat of the London olympics?

Sienna duomo (cathedral)

Sienna was big, ancient and had some amazing architecture. Short on time, we raced through the famous piazza and up to the duomo (cathedral). This is all we really saw as we had to rush on to the Amalfi coast. Scampering down Sienna's main streets we also noticed a few old homes that had front doors big enough to drive a horse and carriage through. After all, that's exactly what the residents used to do.

Amalfi coastline

The hour or so it took to drive along the Amalfi coastline to our little hotel in the quiet area of Positano was quite harrowing! The brief moments of seeing charming buildings hugging the cliffs were interspersed with me calling out 'you've got room on the right!' (between the car and the overhanging cliff) as Jahda fought for space on the one lane road that had two lanes of traffic on it. This was all on a windy road on the side of a cliff at what seemed like rush hour. There were fearless Vespa riders darting around and our movements were impeded by parked cars lining the road (yes, the same one lane road) that were sometimes mirror-less or featuring motorbike-shaped dents. The order to this chaos was occasionally interrupted by public transport buses that threatened to wipe us all off into the ocean...or at least onto the jagged rocks next to it.

The view from the local bus

Our haven from the Amalfi road was the Hotel Firore with this nice view from our room. We spent a few days here, plucking juicy-and-about-to-explode overhanging figs, looking at ceramics, catching the bus to Positano in one direction and Amalfi in the other (we weren't going to drive there, we had learnt our lesson!), eating cheap local pizza and avoiding the other meat dishes that on the first day we saw sitting unmoved at the nearby cafe at 2pm and 6pm and again at 9pm....

For those that love the beach like us, you've got to be really dedicated if staying in Positano. The instructions we got were "go 300 metres down the road then follow the winding path down. There are about 400 steps". To be honest I can't remember the number of steps but it was between 300 and 600 and many 'steps' required several forward steps so that by the time we climbed up from our swim we were ready for another one.

Grateful for our vibram five finger shoes, we enjoyed swimming beside the cliff boulders and smaller rocks. One day we were surrounded by a large school of little shimmering fish. After our effort to get back up to our hotel, we acted like the locals and lazed away the heat of the day only going out and about towards evening. We sampled the vodka-lemon drink Limoncello, ate more flat Italian pizzas with their sparse flavourings and spent an evening walking along the road looking at the poor old houses with their lemon tree terraces and rich ocean views. It's no surprise that Sophia Loren has a mansion around here somewhere.

On our last day we decided to fit in a one hour Pompeii visit as we drove towards Rome to say farewell to our car. We practically raced through Pompeii, heading straight for the closest good parts while tacking onto tour groups here and there to catch any interesting stories! Pompeii was a substantial sized metropolis in its time and it was buried in an instant. To give an idea of the scope and level of decimation, in our times it would probably be akin to the city of Brisbane being covered in Volcanic ash and wiped out in a matter of hours.

[Jahda: The sheer size of the excavation work was incredible. We saw bodies preserved in the ash which apparently rained down quite suddenly - some people were protecting their faces and a pregnant looking lady was trying to protect her unborn baby, all to no avail. We couldn't help but muse at humanity's tendency to see itself as indestructible and perhaps even to ignore warnings, only for whole towns or civilizations to be wiped out by disease or natural disaster.]

Leaving Pompeii, we jumped back on the highway towards the eternal city, Rome. As they say, all roads lead to Rome.

Amanda.