We arrived in Poggibonsi in the dark after many phone calls for directions to the guy who owned the place we were going to stay at. 

He spoke English well enough but it was hard to decipher over the phone, particularly, the names of places. He must have had the same problem with me. He kept asking me to speak slowly and repeat things. It was only after we’d been there for a couple of days that I realised, for example, that you don’t say Pogy-Bonzi but rather Podgy-Bongee.

The house we were staying in was an old farmhouse on a vineyard set right in the middle of Tuscany. The building was made out of stone and dated back hundreds of years. It was the biggest space we’d had yet. Still only three bedrooms but a huge living and dining room with high raked ceilings and a kitchen big enough to have two people stand in there at the same time. It took us a couple of days to realise that the big open space was going to mean less effective heating. It didn’t matter, we just rugged up more and wore extra clothes to bed. But we were glad we weren’t staying there in the middle of winter.

The kids were disappointed to find the large pool horizon with a plastic cover over it. Kai struggled to understand why he couldn’t go swimming even though it was only eight degrees. They soon got over it though happy to have enough space to kick a ball and places to explore. It was just like being back at home in the valley. They even found a hill covered in pine needles which they slid down standing on a piece of wood. ‘Practise for snow boarding,’ Jack said. He’d started to count down the days until we arrived in Switzerland.

The town of Poggibonsi is situated right in the middle of Florence and Sienna. It’s half an hour drive north to Florence, half an hour south to Sienna. We were staying for five nights, four days. One day to visit Florence, one day to visit Sienna and then two days for a much needed rest where we wouldn’t do much more than kick a ball and maybe visit an internet café in Poggibonsi.

Our second day in Poggibonsi was a Sunday. We decided it would be the best day to visit Florence, the least crowded. According to all the books and the pamphlets piled up on the sideboard in our old farmhouse, everything would be open, the churches and the museums. Our host, Anton, didn’t tell us until after our visit that Sunday was actually the most crowded day to go.

We found a car park deep under ground in the middle of the city, gave our keys to the guy who was manoeuvring all the cars and went out into the drizzle of the day. Before we went anywhere both Pete and I stood studying the car park entrance, looking at landmarks and sign posts, making sure we knew where we’d left our car so we could make an easy exit when everyone was over tired and grumpy.

I’d thought we might catch a bus in Florence like we had in Rome, see the city from up high, give Poppy’s legs and wheels a rest. But it wasn’t necessary. Florence was a lot smaller than Rome and very easy to walk around in a day.

We wandered through the markets first, long lines of stalls selling cashmere scarves, soccer jerseys, leather handbags and intricately patterned notepaper. I bought a pair of brown suede gloves that were lined with rabbits fur. Poor little bunnies. I say ‘little’ because they must have been to have such soft fur, although, I guess you do get the older ones, those angora ones, with soft fur. Or it’s possible, more than possible, that the guy was spinning me a story. Rabbit’s fur might have simply been another name for, ‘The softest thing we could find to shove in the brown gloves.’ Anyway the soft stuff did the job, warmed up my fingers enough to get rid of the pain that was starting in the pit of my nails.

We managed not to buy anything else even though the kids thought they each needed a soccer jersey, and Kai and Poppy thought it only fair that a small toy went with the soccer jerseys seeing they weren’t into soccer as much as Jack and Noah.

A line of street sellers had tagged themselves onto the end of the market. We were getting good at walking past them and the kids were starting to understand it wasn’t even worth asking us to buy something. Huddled under our umbrellas, that now had metal spokes sticking out from them, we headed to the Galleria dell’Accademia, where Michelangelo’s David is housed.

There were no queues to get in the door. This time we’d remembered to bring the kids Swiss ID cards. Pete showed them to the guy behind the counter and all the kids got in for free, the policy being that the art was there for the children of the European Union. Great policy, and it saved us a lot of Euros.

The sculptures and art made your feet stick to the floor, kept you staring and wondering, looking deeper, for more. There was a lot of Mary and Jesus again and all the other people who parade through the bible. A lot of blood and guts, sadness and fear, the emotion of the pieces was palpable in the small crowd that were standing with their necks craned.

It was David though that had us all stand still and then move slowly around him for fifteen, twenty minutes. Even Poppy and Kai hardly said a word, their small faces looking up, then over at the art students who were sitting sketching, and then back up again.

Jack, who had chosen art as one of his subjects for his first year in high school, was quiet for much longer than he would normally be.

When he did speak it was in a hushed whisper.

‘Look at his hands mum. At the detail, the veins, the finger nails. And it’s all so smooth.’

There was something about the sculpture that wouldn’t let you walk away, something that got inside you and twisted and turned in your heart. So much so that when we did walk away I insisted we come back for one last look before we went back out into the drizzle. I read somewhere, someone’s quote, but I can’t remember who, ‘Why, once you’ve seen David, would you bother looking at anymore sculptures?’ Walking around the rest of the gallery I understood exactly how this person had felt, nothing else quite held my interest, all I could think about was getting back to have one more look at David.

After we left The Galleria dell’ Academia we headed to the Uffizi gallery and were disappointed to find it closed. The kids on the other hand thought they’d had their dose of art for the day and did a little war dance in front of the closed door. While we were standing there deciding what to do instead, a lady came up, obviously intending to visit the gallery as well. She stood there staring, a look of disbelief on her face. Then she pushed at the door that was obviously locked. When it didn’t budge she stamped her foot and crossed her arms across her chest. I thought she might cry, but she turned and walked away instead, looking back over her shoulder a couple of times, as if in disbelief. It must disappointing when you’re only in a place for one day or one morning and the one thing you’ve been waiting your whole life to see is closed.

We decided to head to Ponte Vecchio next, a bridge built back in the 14th century, apparently the only one in Florence to survive the nazi bombing in world war two. A cobblestone road full of people reached up in a low arch to the other side of the Arno River. The road of the bridge was lined with two stories of shops. Most of the shops sold jewellery, keeping with the centuries old tradition of gold and silver being the only things sold on the bridge. The shops were all squashed together, the only gap being at the apex of the arch where you had a good view up and down the river of the old buildings built along it.

We grabbed a panine to eat before we went up onto the bridge and stood looking out over the river and up at the bridge. We’d squashed ourselves in amongst the street sellers who weren’t going to miss out on the throng of people who had flocked to the bridge for their Sunday lunch.

Across the bridge and along a street we found a palace, Palazzo Pitti. The kids weren’t keen to go in after spending so much time at the Galleria dell’ Academia, so I had strike a deal. We wouldn’t go inside the palace, wouldn’t look at any more art, we’d just wander around the Giardino di Boboli, the Boboli gardens. Oh, and of course there was the bribe of gelati on the Ponte Vecchio on the way back to the car. Everyone begrudgingly agreed even Poppy who was crying, agreed once she heard the word gelati.

The renaissance gardens weren’t overly green, I guess because winter had set in. Poppy was disappointed to see the grass roped off with signs saying you had to keep off.

‘But I want to run on the grass,’ she said.

‘I know, but you’re not allowed, that’s what the signs say.’

Poppy gasped a big breath in and I knew the tears were ready to spill over again.

‘But, if you were a princess then you’d be allowed.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, along time ago princesses used to live here and they were allowed to do what ever they liked.’

‘Even run on the grass?’

‘Yep, even run on the grass and I bet they were allowed to have what ever they liked too.’

‘Anything?’

‘Yep, anything.’

‘A pony?’

‘Yep.’

‘And ride him on the grass.’

‘I think they probably could have even ridden him up all these steps.’

‘Really?’ Poppy said looking up at me as she dragged her tired little legs up one step after another. The long line of steps looked like they were leading to the top of the city.

‘Yeah, really. You know, I think you’d make a pretty good princess. Would you want a pony?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘And would you run on the grass.’

‘Uh huh.

‘With your shoes on or off?’

‘Off.’

By the time we’d finished the princess story we were at the top of the steps looking back down over the city. Poppy and Kai spotted two cats. Poppy told Kai that one of the cats might be really, really old and might have been one of the princesses. Kai said he didn’t think so, but Poppy said she was almost sure.

We looked at a porcelain display in a building up the top, all the boys sat outside around a large rectangular pond, not caring about the drizzle. Poppy came in with us though, keen to see what type of plates princesses ate their dinner off. The porcelain was impressive. I was particularly interested in the collection of shells that had been made into lamps, ashtrays and sideboard bowls with the use of sculpted silver.

After we’d wandered down pathways covered in arches of vines, past fountains and sculptures we headed back to the Ponte Vecchio for the promised gelati. The crowd that had been on the bridge when we crossed before had thinned and there was no queue for gelati, although that might have had something to do with the fact that it was below ten degrees as well.

Everyone got a large scoop of the flavour they wanted and I stuck with the theory of having a taste of everyone’s instead of getting my own. Noah had peppermint choc chip one of my favourites; I had a mouthful and smiled at him.

‘Good?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, it’s alright, not as good as the one’s at the Bird Sanctuary though.’

I laughed, wishing I’d got his opinion on gelati in Italy on camera.

Our next day out was in Sienna. I hadn’t read up on Sienna and was in fact not that keen to go there. On our way to Poggibonsi in the dark, trying to read instructions written in half English and half Italian and trying to interpret the heavy accent of the guy I was talking to on the other end of the phone, we’d got stuck in thick peak hour traffic in Sienna. All I could see from the car window, besides the long queue of traffic, was a train station and a huge shopping centre that looked like one you would find in any outer suburb.

But Pete had decided there was plenty to see, and we were going. He was of course right.

The heart of Sienna has got nothing to do with train stations and huge modern shopping centres but it is instead one of Italy’s best preserved medieval towns. A maze of narrow cobblestone pathways twist their way up the three separate hills that make up Sienna. The pathways are lined with rows of linked houses and tiny shops made out of hand made bricks. Eventually all paths lead back to the main piazza, Piazza del Campo, the biggest piazza we saw in Italy. Big enough to run a mad horse race in every July and August.

We headed straight for the Palazzo Publico which looked more like a palace than a town hall. There was a tall tower coming up off it with a large bell at the top. The kids were convinced you could climb it. They were right. We bought tickets which would let us not only climb the tower but also wander through the Palazzo Publico. The kids insisted on doing the tower first.

Both Pete and I had to duck our heads as we entered the narrow staircase that twisted up and up. It was steep enough to feel like you were walking straight up a wall. I told the kids to stay with us but there was no hope of that, Jack and Noah were having a race and Kai was trying to keep. Poppy though, I had tightly wedged between us, Pete in front and me behind.

It took us a good ten minutes to get to the top. When we did I was out of breath and confronted with a bell more than ten times my width and twice my height, and three of my children hanging over the old stonewalls saying, ‘Look,’ as they pointed things out in the town below.

I took a deep breath, grabbed my fear of heights and tucked it tightly in my pocket, and said, ‘Don’t lean over,’ keeping the ‘please’ to myself.

The sign at the bottom of the stairs had said you were only allowed to stay at the top for fifteen minutes. I’m not sure how long we stayed up there, maybe it was half an hour, maybe a bit longer but it didn’t seem to matter, it was off season and only one other person came up and went down while we were there.

The kids were fascinated with the long narrow lines of interlinking rooftops that were covered in tiny tiles. The rooftops ran along the cobble stone streets in what looked like a maze, spreading out from the main piazza and up over the three hills. The kids followed the lines with their fingers pointing out schools, tiny hidden soccer fields, backyards shared by four houses. They found the huge church perched up on a hill and another tower, this time with a bridge. The kids pointed out the people walking on the bridge which wasn’t as high as us but was definitely miles up and said happily that we would have to go up there too.

We spent the day wandering through the Cathedral, the crypt underneath it and several art galleries. The best part though, besides the bell tower, was the Palazzo Pubblico. The inside of this Gothic building was covered with frescoes dating back to the 14th century. The frescos were unusual for the fact that they weren’t all focussed on religion, but instead depicted much of the town’s history. There were intricate battle scenes showing not only the armies but also the territories they were protecting and invading. Nearly all of the battles were against Florence. We did go up the bridge that the kids had spotted but it was a bit of let down after the dizzying heights of the bell tower. The view wasn’t as good, we were only up there for ten minutes before the kids were asking if we could go down and get gelati.

The next morning we packed up early ready to leave. Our host Anton and his father came out to say goodbye. They asked us if we’d enjoyed our stay, wanted to know what we’d been to see. We told them the stay had been great, that we’d been able to catch up on some much needed rest and had been to see Florence and Sienna. Anton wanted to know what we’d thought of Florence.

‘It was good, I wasn’t as impressed as I thought I would be. I loved Sienna though.’

‘Not a good day to see Florence, on a Sunday, too many people,’ I didn’t tell him that this would have been good advice to give us when we arrived. ‘Besides that,’ he said, ‘Florence has changed over the past ten years, it’s not the same.’

‘In what way?’ I asked.

‘Its lost…’ Then he said something in Italian, stuck for the English word.

‘Its heart?’

‘Exactly. It’s lost its heart.’

I’d felt what he was talking about as I walked through the streets in Florence but thought it was probably better not to insult his local city.

Anton’s father who didn’t speak English was saying something in Italian over and over again. ‘San Gimignano? San Gimignano?

I smiled and nodded.

‘Oh, so you went to San Gimignano as well?’ Anton asked.

‘Oh. No, no, we didn’t go there.’

Anton translated to his father. His father put his hands up in the air and looked at the sky and then started saying SanGimigano again pointing at a hill in the distance. Anton pulled a map out of his pocket and unfolded it, showing us where San Gimigano was and a handful of other towns that we should visit. Great if we had another week and our kids weren’t sick of being dragged through towns. But not so good when we only had one morning to go and a bunch of kids who didn’t want to set foot inside another church or art gallery even if it meant no more gelati.

In the end we decided San Gimigano was too close to not at least go for a quick walk around. The kids moaned and groaned but only long enough for us to force the word gelati out of our mouths. The town was similar to Sienna but on a much smaller scale. We did one church and one art gallery.

I knew we couldn’t push it any further when Poppy said,

‘I wish we were at the Pines.’

We were walking down a cobble street. Poppy was holding my hand trying to roller shoe. There were tiny shops on either side of us selling hand made ceramics, patisseries with delicate pastries and delicatessens with chunky dry sausages. Christmas was just starting to become evident in the shop windows. Not in a ‘Kmart hurry up and get the decorations up’ sort of way, but in a careful way that showed a lot of time and consideration about how the decorations were made and where they were placed, and how the tiny lights twisted in between them. With all of this around us, walking down a narrow street in a gothic city, Poppy wanted to be at home at our local shopping centre.

‘What?’ I asked her, sure I mustn’t have heard her, sure she must have said something about pine trees, not our local shopping centre that was full of fluorescent lights and laminated floors, with out one window looking out onto the packed car park.

She looked up, ‘I said I wish we were at the Pines.’ And then she went back to trying to negotiate the cobble stone road with her roller shoes.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 8:24 pm and is filed under Switzerland Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.