Laaazy day...

Laazy day! Had breakfast and kind of lounged about until we got hungry enough to look for lunch. We’d noted a cool looking pizza place yesterday and returned to get one slice with hot dogs and one with iberico ham (or some derivative) plus a sandwich. Nom! This was actually thick pizza crust too, much more than we’ve seen thus far. So a good experience! On the way back we went into a wine store looking to get some Fragolino, but the owner – who seemed very legit – told us that it was actually illegal to sell Fragolino but was ok to produce or give it away. The reason for this had something to do with an inability to determine the amount of methanol in each batch, which can lead to blindness or even death. So unless I run into someone who wants to gift me a bottle (or if I go to a restaurant that goes against the rules again) I pretty much can’t buy any. Interesting! Which means that our favorite osteria was really going the extra mile, or something? Or maybe I misheard? Kind of confusing but I guess it adds to the trip!

That done, we stopped by a pharmacy to get a refill on Advil…yup, it’s chores day. Unfortunately they don’t sell the name brand here, or even bottles – I got a 24 pack of individually separated ibuprofen tablets for 8.23E. Bah! Next time I travel to Europe I’ll know to bring a huge amount of Advil. Similarly, Peter was looking for paperbacks to read and they all cost between 10-20E – insane! Imagine paying 11E to read “T is for Treason.” It’s that bad. We walked away pretty defeated but what can you do. Fortunately we were by the cool candle place from yesterday, and this time they were making one of the really complicated candles – peeling and styling and all. Very fortuitous! So we stayed and watched for a while and it was quite cool to see the tools they use and hear about the process. They heat up the dip-dyed block and then have about 15 minutes to slice and style (for the big ones – less for smaller candles) before it hardens too much again. Hooray for neat demonstrations.

A bit further down we saw an bunch of escalators with no clear signage as to where they were going. This being our lazy day, we figured we would take the ride…at least four sets of escalators later, we were at the park by the Fontebranda! Kind of random, kind of magical…definitely strange to find an escalator in the middle of a medieval city such as Siena, but I guess someone thought it was a good idea. We got to spy on the weird fish again so it worked out ok! After a while we headed back up, got some more things for breakfast tomorrow, and headed back to do some more laundry and nap. We might have done some cool things but it was still primarily a lazy day!

After a long while it was time to go out and eat again. We (well, mostly I) thought it would be fun to be gourmands for a night and go to this really fancy, “best meal of my life” rated place (by food mag editors no less!) in Siena. We passed a full band playing in Il Campo, which was cute, and then entered a very nice but homey feeling restaurant called Cane e Gatto on one of the older streets of Siena. After some dried fruits and house prosecco, which was probably the best we’ve had thus far, we got an appetizer plate of all sorts of regional specialties – chicken liver, cheese in honey, melon and prosciutto, some kind of quiche, and bruschetta. All of them were great, and I never would have thought to pair honey and cheese so that was cool. Next was a mushroom cream soup, which tasted ok to me so I assume it was excellent for those who like mushrooms. Then they brought out some handmade gnocchi, which were melt-in-your-mouth excellent with a fantastic pesto-tomato sauce. Probably the best gnocchi we’ve had! Then came the meat course, with beef and truffles on one half and chicken in a very flavorful sauce on the other. Both were very, very good – definitely a highlight of the meal. Then it was dessert time, and after they poured a fruity white dessert wine they brought out a plate with tiramisu, strawberry shortcake (ish) and the kicker – mint mousse. Thus far I had been trying to just enjoy it without comparing to Osteria Bea Vita but this made it a direct comparison…and (shh, don’t tell) the Osteria’s was better. So yeah, we left positive reviews in their guestbook because they brought it over for us to sign, but the end verdict was that it wasn’t three times as good (maybe even not AS good, for some things…although on par for other things) as the Osteria. It was a lot of tasty food, great service (all the ladies got orchids!), and tasty wine pairings though. In the end we decided that we were kind of done with the fancy expensive gourmet experience, but now we know what it’s like and it’s not like it was a waste of a meal – it was great, just not as good of a value as Bea Vita. Oh well, now we know! And as Peter says, we can eat pizza for the rest of the trip. Maybe not, I think, but it seems like laying off impulsive things might be a great idea for now. I’m appropriately sleepy though so that’s enough for tonight!