Lovely day today, beautiful skies over this vineyard

Thursday, fifth of June,

first part: preface to Siena

Two big attractions today: a midday meal of the ampleness that our readers probably think we’ve been partaking of all along, and a late-afternoon visit to Siena. I was so impressed with that town that I took loads and loads of pictures there, which I’m putting on a separate page.

It’s hilly country there where Radda is situated, and our first-floor room in the very pleasant Relais Vignale had the view you see to the right (big image, small).

Big image, small	Big image, small
Big image, small	Big image, small

After a relaxed breakfast on a roofed patio, we got onto Giovanni’s bus for a short ride to a town with a most famous butcher. He’s so famous that he prefers to control all images of himself, so forbids photography within the shop. He was pleased to offer us little snacks and glasses of wine, something I think you’ll not get often in your neighborhood boucherie. Nor will it have several shelves of books on the wall, as this one did. A very high-class joint indeed.

By the time wwe left the fancy butcher shop, the day had cleared off to nice scattered clouds, as you can see to the left. since the picture at the upper right in that block was taken under backlit conditions, the lancscape below was blocked.

We walked for a couple of hours, finally arriving at the town of Volpaia, where a fine and huge meal awaited us. As I often did, I chose not to take my camera to the table, so you’ll have to depend on Mark’s page for any pictures at all. The best dish was the saltimbocca, but all of what was put before us was delectable. We were all at one table, as usually had been the case, and there was an equally large table just by ours, with a bunch of young women from Montréal all traveling together. Before long we were all trading raucousnesses in pleasing conviviality.

It was good that our tables were under umbrellas, because the skies opened around the time that coffee and dessert came. Some went indoors, others stayed under cover outdoors. But then we piled onto the bus for a trip back to Radda, showers of the more welcome kind, and then another bus trip, to Siena this time.