A Melonball in Paradise

Greetings from Sienna. We arrived in Tuscany late yesterday afternoon, driving up to our farmhouse, Casa Adriana, at Montestigliano. We fled Rome and drove the freeway on a sunny day. It is cold here, but bright. We will be billed for our use of heat at the villa. In Rome, we were billed in restaurants for the use of glasses and silverware, so we are not surprised that heat costs.

Rome has left me speechless, so I will turn to talking about anything but Rome except to say that those ruins are too cool and that basilica is the best basilica I’ve ever been in. And hats off to Raphael and thanks for painting yourself into School of Athens. And thanks to our tour guide Rosanna for putting the School of Athens fresco into a context that brought it more alive than I could have hoped for. I wondered why Raphael would paint the Greeks and now I see the larger message.

Tuscany spreads before us. We spent the day in Sienna, part of it in their splendid plaza after walking through the narrow streets and guessing how old the buildings are. I can only imagine what the interiors of the buildings are like. My question remains: why, in the buildings that surround the plaza, are the verandahs built from the second floor only? Is it a question of balance? Is it because the second floor houses a large common room and Tuscans who were visiting would spill out onto the verandah to drink and chat? Why not the top floor? Buildings around the plaza are 5, 6, 7 stories high…why not put the deck off the penthouse?

I am a fashion conscious individual and am sorry to say that I brought some of the wrong clothes. The Italians sure know how to dress. I’ve never seen so much brown and olive and such a lack of your bolder colors. Nobody here looks like a popsicle, except perhaps me. Territory Ahead outfitted me with among other things a melon colored sweater, which I wore today. Tall boots are a big thing here and are oftentimes tucked into the boots (sorry Vanessa). You won’t see sweatpants and matching sweatshirt, nor anything in pastel or stripes. On one of our excursions to the Bellevue Mall Territory Ahead, Kathy chose an apple green confusing weave sweater, which fit me to a “t”. I bought it but returned it unworn a week later, a wardrobe choice that I thanked a certain higher power for when I entered one of the many fantastic churches here in Italy.

You will remember my dislike of crop pants expressed daily on our road trip through Texas and Oklahoma. I have seen only one pair of crop pants and, yes, perhaps it is a seasonal thing, but I am sure that these Italians do not show up anywhere in fruit-colored floods. As we closed out last year’s roadtrip, I delivered on what I promised – I designed America’s Ugliest Outfit. I have spotted Italy’s Most Cool Outfit and almost asked for the autograph of the woman wearing it.

The churches are incredible and we are still at the point in our journey where we go into every one we see. There is something to be said for churches outdoing each other. The one that gets my highest mark is the church celebrating St. Minerva. It had relics and marble and all kinds of reminders of how Sorry we should all be.

Italy is paradise and I am happy to be here. We are working on internet access, which is turning out to be more difficult than we had imagined. That’s why our blog is off to a slow start. But we expect to blog on a much more regular basis. Ciao!
Peggy