Trip to Europe - Part 7: Driving to Siena

"Turn around when possible."

It is the insistent plea of our GPS unit, with her British voice; I dub her Mary Poppins. We program the GPS to take us to Siena, but we want to go a different way, down the lovely Route 222. Our vehicle is not helping, a diesel Nissan mini-van with itty bitty tires - climbing the hills and switch-backs. The roads are just as we imagined: narrow, slightly crowded, terracotta and stone buildings at the edge. It's drizzly and a bit foggy in patches. We stop for lunch at Montagliari, a scenic vineyard that also makes balsamic vinegar. It's tidy and well kept by folks who know and care about their craft. They are talkative and engaging. Lunch is simple and wonderful: spinach ravioli in a cream sauce with walnuts, apple tart with ice cream and balsamic to finish.

We pass through Greve in Chianti and the surrounding country side in drizzle and clouds. The landscape rewards us at every turn.

Finally we arrive at Siena's city walls. "Turn around when possible." Poppins seems to think it's okay to drive through gates - it is not. There is a hefty fine those who violate the ZTL - you must have a permit to enter. Calls to our innkeeper direct us, in broken English, around the city in the opposite direction from Poppins' initial plan. Things that look like major thoroughfares on the maps are in fact more narrow streets. Squares that should be intersections are mazes of directional arrows.

We finally find the parking structure and pop out the top of it. We realize the problem is not just the confusion in the horizontal plane, but the vertical. The city is way up there. Poppins did not mention that.

A walk part-way up the hill through the Roman walls, luggage in tow, and a series of escalators takes us into the old city. We finish the day at Antica Osteria da Divo, for an anniversary dinner featuring truffles: risotto with pecorino and white truffle shavings, stuffed pork with truffle sauce. Amazing.

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