While Bruce Springsteen did pretty well out of ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ (not belittling the cause it highlighted) I wonder if it was recorded by a Cuban looking wedding singer with lyrics / punrics about Siena it would have gone further?!

For arriving here is so captivating it reminds me of when Shakespeare was describing Cleopatra’s arrival:

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: other women cloy
The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies;

You are unable to turn away from the complex beauty, hungry for more, gawking in awe while drifting along the streets in a daze as the music, architecture and magnificence draws you in.

This is a place of unabashed happiness, serene sunsets and tourists – tourists everywhere, yet it dampens not a moment…adding to the juxtaposition of bombarded designed houses yet the place is UNESCO protected, packed with people everywhere with people yet full of little places to discover and music that plays everywhere yet speaks only to you.

Continuing to experience the Ying / Yang of this Italian paragon I did all the tourist highlights which are as expected, until you get to the rarely visited Santa Maria della Scala. Next to the D’orsay, Roddin and Monet’s house and garden should this be inscribed…for it is a maze of delight, sorrow and surprise that I was lost in, yet instantly at home.

The Wounded Beauty display incredibly poignant, as they turned the hardship of the 26 + 30 October 2016 earthquake into an arrangement of art. An ‘earthheartartquake’ was the description of installation as they showed the grey wreckage and dust with rays of light and colour. If that was all it was – I had found a pearl in a barren sea, however there ended up being three more levels below that took me to new heights.

Time to feed the soul literally, not just metaphorically, as the English wordsmith commanded…

Give me some music; music, moody food
Of us that trade in love

The fare served on the plate was as skilled as one could yearn for, yet it matter little as (please excuse my mixed tales) it was like being in Camelot…

there’s simply not
a more congenial spot
for happily ever aftering than here in Sienalot.

Back to the album which I hadn’t forgotten about…you hoped I had? I dined next to a Sienna Miller doppelgänger and decided the next song to be Siena Days, so much better than Glory Days!

A wine tasting ensued, Unflitered Italy, and it was…through the countryside we ventured like there was nothing to loose…there wasn’t, except more weight upon returning home. The pinnacle was a private family vineyard sojourn at their outdoor dining table with the kids, family and neighbours. We chatted the afternoon away as I found common ground in teaching the kids new handshakes and in my appreciation of the artist Christo, shared by nonna. She was speaking Italian and I English…but we were speaking to each other in some articulation of an international language (assisted by a few reserve Chiantis).

Honeymoon, birthday, mid week escape…wait not a moment…you have to see everything here, the name even tells you to! Let me know and I will see ya on the streets of Siena.