A Quick Visit to Siena and Arezzo

What do you do when the street-side wine vending machine doesn't work? We learned this and a few other things as we made a little trip to Siena and Arezzo to celebrate our 27th anniversary.

Steep Siena

It's astounding how many different, attractive cities and towns are in close proximity to each other here in Tuscany. As the Italian crow flies, it's only a bit over 50 miles from Lucca to Siena. We traveled by train and Siena's charms are hidden upon arrival. But after a steep walk uphill, it's clear why Siena is such a popular destination. It has so many grand buildings and it's pleasant to walk up and down the meandering, steep centuries-old streets. We climbed the tall tower, Torre del Mangia, overlooking Piazza del Campo and took in great views of the whole region around Siena. We visited a few museums (e.g., there was a Vivian Maier photography exhibit there and we're fans of her work), had a few nice meals and enjoyed chatting with the locals. Maybe the people in Siena are more gregarious than the Lucchese? We had extended conversations in a few shops with proprietors who were extremely kind in trying to speak slowly in Italian so we could understand them. Like many Greek shop-owners, they seemed more interested in chatting than in tending to other customers in the shop! We left knowing that we'd enjoy going back to spend more time there.

Airy Arezzo

After a couple nights in Siena we headed over to Arezzo by bus through the extremely twisty, scenic Tuscan roads. Arezzo has a smaller historical center than Siena or Lucca, but it's attractive and the locals seem friendly there, too.

After a few days of eating out, we opted for a simple veggie dinner at our cute rental place. We decided to pick up a bottle of wine and searched for a nearby vintner. On the map we saw that the closest shop was actually a wine vending machine! Why wouldn't there be such a thing in this wine loving country? We popped over to the vending machine and it contained 50 or so different bottles of white, red, sparkling, and even a few liqueurs. We decided on a wine and then learned, unfortunately, that you need to swipe an Italian identification card to complete the purchase. The vending machine is next to an apartment building, and a family returning to their abode there ascertained our dilemma. Soon, the dad dashed upstairs, grabbed his ID card, and returned to help us complete the purchase. But before we bought the wine, he went full sommelier on us. He gave us an informative survey of the wines in the machine, asked us what we were eating, and based on that advised us not to buy what we had intended to get and suggested a few better alternatives for a light veggie meal. I think he even got misty eyed when he described Brunello wines to us, though he didn't think it was a good choice for our dinner. We opted for his suggestion (turns out he made a great recommendation!) and his young daughter, after waiting patiently, got to see the fun part where the vending machine extracts the wine bottle from the shelf and gently carries it to the retrieval spot.

Back in Lucca

The weather forecast didn't look so great so we opted to head back to Lucca on our anniversary. We made a reservation at a Lucca restaurant for fear of being turned away. Places fill up here and we've been turned away before because we're not in the swing of making reservations like the Italians do. We arrived Sunday night at the restaurant just as it opened and we were the sole guests for the 2 plus hours of being there. It was a rainy Sunday night in Lucca. Was that why the place was empty? The staff didn't have anything else to do other than watch us, but luckily we enjoyed the food and could offer compliments.

Melting Pot Language Learning

Last week, Sam started taking Italian language classes at the local adult learning center. She's in a small class with a mix of foreigners from the US, Albania, Sri Lanka, Argentina, Morocco, and elsewhere. Often beginner language books describe a seemingly unlikely mix of foreigners, but now Sam's living that experience firsthand!

As the weather warms, visitors are starting to be a more regular sight. We've seen large groups of teenage school kids wandering around in Lucca. Today we left our place to go for a walk and ended up surrounded by such a swarm. The kids weren't speaking Italian, though, and Sam soon realized it was a class of Greek kids. We chatted briefly with some cheerful Athenian youth, who were excited to learn that we've lived in Greece, as our brains scrambled our bits of Greek with our new bits of Italian language.