We said three attractions; the third one is everything else.\u00a0 By all means, have yourself an apertivo<\/em> in the piazza<\/em> at sunset and admire the warm color of the campanile<\/em>.\u00a0 Stand in awe of the richness of the cathedral, not only above you but at your feet.\u00a0 And then walk around the town.<\/p>\n A good starting point would be the Shrine of Santa Caterina (or Saint Catherine), Italy\u2019s patron saint.\u00a0 This is the house she grew up in, today decorated by murals of her life and works.\u00a0 Even non-Catholics should be impressed.\u00a0 Then, when you walk out, turn left and then left again up the step-street called Costa Sant\u2019Antonio.\u00a0 You\u2019ll pass \u2013 or better yet, you won\u2019t pass \u2013 a tiny restaurant called Osteria La Chiacchera \u2013 perched on the stairs.\u00a0 It is so steep that front legs of the tables are six inches longer than the back ones.\u00a0\u00a0 At La Chiacchera they are dedicated to keeping the rustic cuisine of Tuscany alive, so you can have rabbit with olives or pork riblets and potatoes that you won\u2019t find elsewhere.<\/p>\n If you turn left down an alleyway called the Vicolo Campaccio from the Costa Sant\u2019Antonio, you\u2019ll come to the Basilica San Domenico, which is the repository for relics of Santa Catarina.\u00a0 Frankly, we think it has much more to admire from the outside than in the interior.\u00a0 Now turn around and admire the view of Siena stretched before you.\u00a0 There\u2019s a row of restaurants straight ahead, all pretty popular.\u00a0 Among them is Pomodorino, our favorite pizzeria in Siena (in fact, in all of Italy).\u00a0 We\u2019ll leave the quality of the pizza to you, but it has unquestionably one of the best view of any pizzeria in the world.\u00a0 (Other opinions are welcome.)<\/p>\n The view from Pomodorino<\/em><\/p>\n Siena\u2019s main drag is the Via di Citta, which runs behind the Piazza del Campo and can be reached from it up a little staircase to the Piazza del Campo.\u00a0 At that intersection is a gelateria <\/em>called La Costarella that Steve liked better than any other in Tuscany. Then turn right onto the Via di Citta and you\u2019ll come to the massive and forbidding but nonetheless inspiring Banca Monte dei Paschi.\u00a0 The recent financial crisis has not been kind to the bank, which is now endangered.\u00a0 It would be sad if it doesn\u2019t make it because it has been there since the Renaissance.\u00a0 As pretty as it is by day, it is magnificent at night.<\/p>\n Banca Monte dei Paschi at night<\/em><\/p>\n The antiquity of Siena is evident in the fact that it is still a walled city, perhaps still awaiting another barbarian invasion.\u00a0 What amazes us is the countryside comes right up to the walls.\u00a0 More so than in our other travels, it gives us a sense of what it must have been like to live in a great medieval city.\u00a0 And as with so many Italian cities, there is art everywhere, on piazettas, on the sides of buildings, on any random street corner.\u00a0 The trick for the visitor is not to get jaded, to realize that ancestors from another age so loved their city that they adorned it everywhere.<\/p>\n A Sienese street by night<\/em><\/p>\n Because Siena, like many Tuscan towns, is built on a hilltop, many of the streets are very steep which by night makes them very romantic or a bit scary, depending on your mood.\u00a0 Either way, you know while you are there that you are amidst something very ancient and very rare.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The city of Siena in Tuscany has a particular\u00a0 advantage for wine tasters.\u00a0 It is in a central location with Chianti to the North, Montalcino and Montepulciano to the east, Bolgheri to the west and Maremma to the south.\u00a0 Of course, it has the drawback of not being close to any of these famous winemaking … Continue reading The Back Streets of Siena<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":558,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions\/558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"20140914_103647\"](\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/20140914_103647.jpg\")
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