WELCOME [xoomer.virgilio.it]



WELCOME

TO

FATTORIA RESTA

[pic]

BUoNCONVENTO, SIENA, ITALY

Contents

Fattoria Resta 3

History 3

Meet the neighbours 6

Practical information 7

When you arrive 7

When you leave 8

Water supplies 9

Laundry 10

Where to find things 10

Cooking 11

Cleaning 11

Garbage 11

Parking 11

Rain and thunderstorms 12

Internet 12

For summer guests 13

Tips on surviving hot weather, insect life, etc. 13

For winter guests 14

Heating 14

Eek! A mouse 14

Buonconvento 15

Local sights and events 15

Shopping 15

Restaurants 16

Bars 17

Stamps, bus and train tickets, car rental 17

Day trips 18

Siena 18

Other day trips 19

The seaside 20

Quick reference 21

Useful telephone numbers 22

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Fattoria Resta

History

The existence of Fattoria Resta is recorded as far back as 1236, the date appearing on a document testifying to a sworn statement made by a local count in the chapel. The existing villa (across the courtyard from us) was built in the sixteenth century, as demonstrated by the inscription under the eaves which you can read when the light is right: “E IO BIAGIO CICIERANI FATTORE E IO M° MARTINO DEL NERO FECE ANNO 1575” (I, Biagio Cicierani, the farmer and I, Master Martino del Nero, built in the year 1575). Another inscription in the cellar of the villa, dated 1573, praises the excellent local wine.

The main villa across the courtyard from our house is built in the mannerist style, with a sequence of full arches in what was originally an open loggia on the first floor contrasting with lowered arches on the ground floor, adding dynamism to the construction.

To set the building into its historical context, just look out at Montalcino rising to the south and think of the heroic resistance of the republican Sienese who retreated there when their city fell to the Florentines, and lived under siege for four years in the fortress, from 1555 to 1559. The village of Buonconvento was used as a base by the besieging army. The famine and destruction of that war was just fading from memory when the villa was built, in a new age of prosperity under the rule of victor Cosimo de’Medici.

Fattoria Resta was the historical centre for the whole of the ridge on which it is built and the ridge behind. The landowners lived in the villa and rented out all the other houses and farms to sharecroppers, who had to give half of their produce to the landowners as rent. In addition, they brought their grapes to the Fattoria to be made into wine, and their olives to be made into oil, then took half home with them and left half to the owners of the Fattoria.

The landowners would then have sold the surplus to merchants in Siena, only 25 km away on the Via Franchigena or Via Cassia, an old Roman road which had become a major pilgrimage route for travellers from northern Italy, Switzerland, and Germany heading to Rome. The village of Buonconvento grew in the middle ages at a spot on this pilgrimage route where travellers originally had to ford the river; they often had to stop and wait for the river level to drop, and in the early 12th century merchants began to set up on the spot to cater to their needs. When a bridge was built across the Ombrone River in 1359-1360, this provided an additional boost to the growth of the town, which was walled by the Sienese in 1366 because of its importance as an outpost for their defence.

Kings and emperors from Charlemagne on travelled this route to Rome, to pay homage at the tomb of St. Peter or be crowned by the Pope. Buonconvento is famous for a single episode in its history: Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg, in whom Dante had vainly placed his hopes for a better future, died here in 1313. Some say he had eaten a poisoned communion wafer.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a new type of traveller began to appear on the road passing through Buonconvento: the wealthy English or northern European intellectual on the “grand tour” which almost always concluded in Italy, in search of natural and artistic beauty and colourful local customs. The grand tour took travellers to Florence, Siena, and thence to Rome, making it inevitable that they should pass through Buonconvento. Montaigne dined and spent the night here in 1580, and was amazed by the amount of traffic on the road to Rome. Scottish writer Tobias Smollet had a little misadventure here in 1765, which you may read about on page 241 of the battered volume of his Travels through France and Italy on our bookshelf. Ten years later the Marquis De Sade was equally dissatisfied with his overnight stay in Buonconvento, complaining of a “detestable” inn but not specifying whether the adjective referred to the food or the accommodations. Things had improved by the time Charles Dickens got here, and was able to dine on minestrone, chicken, wild game and cheese.

By this time Fattoria Resta had become the property of the Conservatorio del Refugio, a charitable institution in Siena. I have found documentation in the archives of Siena demonstrating that this institution owned the farm at least from 1787 – 1923. Founded in 1580 to house poor orphan girls, the institution later combined with Ospedale di Monna Agnese, founded in 1260 as a hospital for unwed and widowed mothers, and widened its scope to include education of girls from both poor and noble families. Local landowners contributed donations and legacies to the institution until it became quite wealthy. Charitable institutions of this type owned farms such as Fattoria Resta in the countryside around Siena which provided them with agricultural products to feed the poor whom they were assisting and with a regular source of income from the sale of surpluses.

You can see the crest of Monna Agnese, an M combined with a cross, on the side of the main villa facing onto the street, in combination with the Saracen and snake appearing in the crest of the Saracini, an important Sienese family.

The crest on the side of our house facing the courtyard is of the Tolomei family; you can see others like it in Piazza Tolomei in Siena. I do not know what these noble families had to do with Fattoria Resta, but it is likely that members of these families were at the helm of the institution which owned the farm.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, local agriculture was renewed by better organisation and introduction of mezzadria, the share-cropping system. At this time the Fattoria Resta buildings, including our home, were renovated and expanded; the chapel now standing has a neoclassical façade and most likely was renovated in the early nineteenth century.

Our home bears the date 1831 over the front door, but was certainly here before that, as demonstrated by an 1819 map of the local area which we found in the Siena land registry office; you can see a copy of it on the wall downstairs. 1831 is the date of major renovation work, possibly the conversion of a building which was originally an olive press or other farm building into a home for the agent who oversaw the running of the farm.

The ground floor would originally have housed cattle, as the ground floor of the neighbours’ houses just up and down the road did until recently. One room of the house served as a country schoolhouse between the end of the second world war and 1965, when country schools were closed and schooling was concentrated in the towns following the advent of cars and buses. Alvaro (see “meet the neighbours” section below) went to school here, and middle-aged people who are strangers to us occasionally drive up the road and stop here to look at the place where they went to school and reminisce.

Meet the neighbours

The villa across the courtyard belongs to Claudio, the manager of the Altesino winery, located just off the road to Montalcino, and Anna Lisa. She is of American birth and speaks perfect English, so she may be able to help you if you need to ask any questions about the house or the local area. She is a winery tour guide, so she can give you lots of information on that topic, and she also produces a wine of her own from the grapes in our vineyard and the neighbours’ which you can see from our windows. It is called Martin del Nero after the builder of the villa next door. Ask Anna Lisa if you would like to arrange for a tasting or to buy some of the Fattoria Resta “house wine”! Claudio and Anna Lisa have three kids, Livia, Clara and Marco, and a live-in cleaning lady. Anna Lisa and the children all speak English. We are getting new neighbours at the back of Fattoria Resta, behind the church; Giorgio is a music teacher and Patrizia is a professor of Communication Sciences at the university in Siena.

The next house down the road, which you see to your right when you look out the windows, belongs to a family of farmers who work the fields around the Fattoria; you’ll see them going back and forth on their tractors.

Up the road in the other direction, past the cypress tree, there is one more house, which belongs to Maria Adele. Then you come to a fork in the road. If you carry on straight ahead, you will eventually come to the home of Alvaro and Iva, an older couple who still live the old-fashioned lifestyle: they grow all their own food, keep chickens, rabbits and pigs, and make their own ham, wine and olive oil. They heat their house and hot water with a wood-burning stove and cut all the wood themselves.

If you take the fork of the road leading downhill to the left, you pass a couple of uninhabited houses and then an agriturismo run by Germans. You can carry on up this road for miles and miles. If you turn left every time you come to a fork in the road, you will eventually end up in Buonconvento. This is a nice hike and quite long – it takes 3 hours or so – even though you can see the house almost all the time as you are walking!

Practical information

When you arrive

We try to be at the house to welcome our guests upon arrival, but if we can’t be there when you arrive or something goes wrong, you will need to know how to turn on and off the electricity, gas and water supplies. So here is a guide to the technical part of the house.

It may sound complicated, and it is in fact more complicated than a city house, because ours is an old house in the country. In this section we provide information on the gas, electricity and water supplies as a reference in case you arrive when we have been away for a long time and have left everything turned off, or in case something goes wrong and you need to figure out why. But mostly likely you won’t need to worry about all these things and can just put out the patio chairs and sit and relax.

If the house has been shut up and you have to get it in working order, the first thing to do is go downstairs and turn on the electricity. Push up the switch on the white meter in the box set into the wall next to the front door in the big room downstairs (Photo 2).

We will probably have left the water turned on for you. But if we haven’t, go into the garage (large funny-shaped key) and into the passageway at the back; turn right and go through to the end of the corridor. Turn the black handle so that it is parallel to the pipe. This is not the red tap but the black one under the spider webs…(Photo 3).

Next to the door to the new bedroom in the courtyard there is a gas pipe running up the wall. Turn the yellow tap so that it is parallel to the pipe to turn on the gas (Photo 4). Go upstairs and open windows and shutters. Fasten the shutters back with the flip-up metal stoppers so they won’t blow in the wind. Please flip down the metal stoppers before closing the shutters again, don’t force them over the bump! Turn on the fridge to setting 2 or 3.

When you leave

Please sign the guest book before leaving! It is the blue and white book on the hall table by the telephone. If you send us a photo of your group at Resta, we will also include you in our virtual guest album on our web site.

Below are instructions for turning off the gas, electricity and water supplies and leaving the house shut up safe and secure in case we won’t be there for a while after your visit. If you know we will be there soon, you don’t need to worry about turning everything off, but please do remember to shut off the gas and close all shutters and windows.

When leaving the house empty, if there is any food in the refrigerator or freezer, you will want to leave the electricity on. In this case, please unplug the television, stereo and electric piano in case of lightning storms.

If there is nothing left in the fridge, turn it off and leave the door open. Place a basin on the floor in front of it and insert the scraper into the slot at the bottom of the fridge so that water will run off into the basin as it defrosts.

Close all the green shutters and the windows properly. Place wooden garden chairs under the patio or indoors.

Shut off the gas (Photo 4).

If we have asked you to turn off the water, go into the garage (large funny-shaped key) and into the passageway at the back; turn right and go through to the end of the corridor. Turn the black handle so that it is at right angles to the pipe. (Photo 3).

Turn off the lights downstairs and lock the padlocks on the doors.

Go into the big downstairs room, close the bathroom window and door, close the shutters and windows and, if you left the fridge empty, turn off the electricity by pressing down the switch next to the front door (Photo 2). Lock the front downstairs door and lock the padlock on the big wooden door opening onto the courtyard.

Lock the padlock on the large sliding gate on the garden opening onto the road, so it won’t blow open in the wind. You can leave the small gate onto the courtyard unlocked.

Leave the keys with the neighbours. If they are away or you have to leave at an ungodly hour, leave one set of the keys hanging on a nail in the top left hand corner inside the arch of the “doghouse” – the small archway to the left of the downstairs bedroom door (you can see it in photo 1). You can leave the other sets of keys inside.

Water supplies

I don’t want to make this sound complicated, but the house has different water supplies for different purposes. The kitchen sink has three taps: hot water and cold water on the left, and cold drinking water on the right. All this water comes from the aqueduct, but the drinking water is fresher because it comes straight from the pipe instead of sitting in a tank in the cellar. The tank serves as a reservoir in case of water shortages and to keep water pressure high. In the event of a power failure, you will have running water from the drinking water tap in the kitchen but not from any of the other taps or toilet, as they need electricity for the autoclave to pump water upstairs from the tank. The sink in the downstairs room also has a separate drinking water tap, on the left, as shown in photo 6. The tap water at Resta comes from Mt. Amiata, the extinct volcano you can see out the windows to the left of Montalcino, and it is very good to drink.

The reason for this complicated set-up is that in summer months, when water supplies are low, our water supply may be cut off from time to time. In this case no water will come out of the drinking water taps, but it will continue to come out of all the other taps as we have a 2000 litre reserve in a tank in the cellar. The water supply will come back on within a matter of hours or at most a couple of days; in the meantime, you can continue to use water from the tank, but don’t waste water (you have 2000 litres).

You can water the flowers and the garden if you are so inclined with water from the tap under the patio outside which comes from the well. In summer months, however, ground water levels may be low, so don’t overdo the use of well water or the well will run dry.

It takes the water a while to run hot. If you are not getting any hot water, try pressing the reset button on the hot water heater in the cellar. This is the top left button of the four small dark grey buttons on the control panel at the bottom part of the heater (you have to open the door on the panel to get to it). Hold the button down for at least one second to restart the hot water heater. It seems to shut off for safety reasons whenever the gas is turned off at the main switch so you may have to reset it when you arrive.

Laundry

The washing machine is very, very slow – it takes about two hours to do a wash! It’s reliable, so you can go out and leave it in action. Put a scoop of detergent (in the cabinet below the sink next to the washing machine; there’s stain remover as well) into the middle compartment of the drawer, turn the knob on the left clockwise to the desired temperature, and turn the knob on the right to B (or C for a slightly quicker wash if the laundry isn’t very dirty) and then pull the knob out. The machine has finished when the knob on the right is at F. You have to wait a couple of minutes after it stops before you can open the door. There is a washing line for big items at the bottom of the garden and a drying rack for small items which is usually kept on or under the patio.

The iron is kept in the wardrobe in the front bedroom. We don’t have an ironing board – I usually put a large towel over the end of the marble table or, in summer, over the green metal table out on the patio, then use an extension cord so I can iron with a view!

After you have a shower, dry the stone between the door of the shower stall and the shower stall itself with the bathmat or a rag. This strip of stone is a result of the builder’s miscalculation and is not supposed to be there, and it absorbs water which then comes out and forms a puddle on the bathroom floor!

Where to find things

Bedding and towels are in the left side of the wardrobe in the bedroom. During summer we keep some of the quilts in the wardrobe in the bathrrom downstairs. If someone is sleeping downstairs, they may want a lightweight quilt even in summer.

Cleaning things are under the bathroom sink. The iron and extension cord and are in the right hand side of the bedroom wardrobe. There are also fleeces and rain jackets here which you can use if you get unexpectedly cool weather. Medicines are in the bottom drawer in the chest of drawers in the front bedroom.

There are board games like monopoly, chess and trivial pursuit (bilingual), a portable badminton set and a bocce ball set on the shelves behind the curtains in the bathroom downstairs (bet you never would have guessed that one!).

You can take the big wooden table from the downstairs room outside into the garden. We often leave it out under the trees when we have guests in summer. It doesn’t matter if it gets rained on occasionally. It’s not as heavy as it looks – two people can move it.

You shouldn’t have trouble finding things in the kitchen – there are only two cabinets: one for dishes and one for food. There is a small fridge downstairs if you need extra room for storing cold drinks.

Cooking

The stove is gas, the oven electric. If the stove doesn’t light, check whether the gas has been turned off with the yellow knob outside (photo 4 above) or the other yellow knob under the sink and whether the FORNO switch has been turned off in the fusebox on the wall to the right of the stove (see below).

To turn on the elements on the stove you must turn the knob while pushing it down. You have to keep holding the knob down for a few seconds or the fire will go out – this is a safety feature. Sometimes you have to try two or three times before you can light the fire, especially if it has not been used for a while.

When using the oven, the symbol appearing in the clock dial should be the hand (signifying manual), otherwise you have to use the oven with the timer. The clock on the oven makes a loud ticking noise and unfortunately we cannot turn it off without turning off the electricity supply to the oven; if the ticking bothers you, turn to the fusebox on the wall to the right of the stove and turn off the switch at the right end, marked FORNO. Turn it back on whenever you need to use the oven or the stove – you need electricity for the spark to light the burners.

The kitchen also has a microwave and an electric toaster. We have an electric percolator American-style coffee machine and an Italian stove-top coffee pot for making espresso.

Cleaning

Cleaning things are under the bathroom sink. There is a special soap for the terra cotta floor in a plastic bottle – put just one cap of this soap in a bucket of water and wash the floor with the string mop, squeezing out the mop as hard as you can first. (Excess water and detergent residues mark the floor.) The blue-edged cloths are for the bathroom sink and shower, pink/white for toilet. J-cloths for the kitchen are kept in the bottom drawer in the kitchen. The broom and mop are in the corner by the door or downstairs, because there is no cupboard big enough for them. The vacuum cleaner is stored downstairs.

Garbage

There is a bin just down the road which is emptied a couple of times a week. In Buonconvento there are separate collection facilities for recycling. If you would like to contribute, the yellow bin is for paper, green is for plastic, glass and aluminium cans all together, and brown is for organic wastes for composting. There are special purple biodegradable plastic bags for compost under the sink. You can put any kind of food wastes except meat and garden wastes in these bags and bring them to the brown bins in Buonconvento for composting.

Parking

We usually leave the car under the shelter down in the field when we won’t be using it for a while. That is our land so you can park there. If you want to park nearer the house, park on the street or on half-moon shaped belvedere. Do not park in the courtyard, it belongs to the neighbours.

Rain and thunderstorms

In our house as in many old houses, nothing is perfectly at right angles. This means the windows are not very watertight, and if it rains hard with wind blowing against the house, rain will come in under the windows. So if you are going out for the day and it looks like it might rain, or if you can see a good storm blowing in, you might want to close the green shutters and save yourself the trouble of mopping up puddles under the windows afterwards! (Hopefully by the time we print the next edition of this guide we will be able to delete this section: we are planning on putting in new double-glazed, properly sealed windows as our next home improvement!)

In the event of a thunderstorm please unplug the TV and stereo, and don’t use the electric piano or any other electronic appliances. Our neighbours once lost several appliances when lightning struck the cross on top of the chapel!

Internet

We now have wireless high-speed internet. The network name is Costa Wireless. (You may also get a weaker signal from Fattoria Resta, which is Anna Lisa’s network.) You can plug in directly with the yellow cable in the front bedroom, or use wireless anywhere in the house or even outside on the patio.

Password: b89292566d

Please turn off the router when you will not be using it for a while, when you leave, and whenever there is a thunderstorm. Switch off the power bar on the desk; when you leave, or if there is a thunderstorm, also unplug the router from the telephone jack under the desk… please!

For summer guests

Tips on surviving hot weather, insect life, etc.

The best way to stay cool in a heat wave is to get up really early and take advantage of the cool hours of the morning. Open all the windows and the door in the early morning to air out the house, then close everything up around 10 to 10:30. You may assume that when it’s hot, the best thing to do is open the windows and let some fresh air in; but actually, the air will be so hot outside that you will just heat up the house more this way. The best way to keep cool when it’s really hot is to keep all windows closed during the day and close the white inside shutters of the windows the sun is shining onto as well. If you will be going out for the day, leave them all closed and you will come back to a cool house. In the afternoon you’ll find it is much cooler downstairs. There are two sofa beds down there for siestas or sitting around watching TV or reading. In very hot weather it isn’t really bearable outside until 5:30 or 6 pm, so it is a good idea to nap in the afternoon, start getting ready to go somewhere around 5 and stay out until late in the evening.

When it is cool out again, open up all the windows and doors to let the cool air in. But once it gets dark, be careful about turning lights on when the windows are open, or you’ll find moths and bugs coming in. There aren’t many mosquitoes around here because it is so dry, but there are a few – just enough to keep you awake at night. We have a couple of “electronic insect terminators” which look like tennis rackets; you swat at mosquitoes with them while holding down the button and they get electrocuted!

If you find a small scorpion, don’t worry. It’s sting is no more dangerous than a bee sting. But if you do see one in the house you should squash it. We can have poisonous snakes in the area so if you see a snake, keep your distance!

None of these insects are dangerous, but if you do get a nasty sting requiring medical attention, there is a first aid medical station in Monteroni, halfway to Siena, and the nearest hospital is in Siena. There are doctors in Buonconvento and they don’t normally seem to charge foreigners in need of a quick consultation. Their office hours are published in the local newsletter – I keep a copy in the drawer under the telephone. There is a pharmacy at the end of Buonconvento closest to us, and when it’s closed, there will be a sign posted outside the door telling you where the nearest open pharmacy is. In the event of a medical emergency, call 118 and an ambulance will appear.

A final note about the heat: water plants only before 7 in the morning or after 7 in the evening. Otherwise the water on the leaves will magnify the sun’s rays and burn the plants.

For winter guests

Heating

When the red wine isn’t enough to keep you warm, the thermostat is by the bathroom door. The temperature settings marked on it are not exactly accurate – we find that setting it to 17° when we are at home in the daytime and 13° at night is sufficient. When you leave the house in winter, please turn off the electricity, or the heating will keep coming on even if you leave it on the minimum setting.

If turning on the heating for the first time in the season, you will have to go into the cellar and turn the knob marked with a radiator symbol on the hot water/heating boiler.

If you can’t figure out how to make the heating work, call us.

The quilts on the beds are “four seasons quilts”: there is a thin layer, a thick layer, and they press-stud together to make an extra-thick quilt for cold winter nights.

Eek! A mouse

If you arrive in fall, winter or spring you will probably find that all the food in the house has been put in sealed boxes. This is to make sure that mice don’t find the house an attractive place to nest over the winter. The local mice are just very small, cute field mice, but they sure do make a mess! If you do find mouse droppings about or hear a mouse at night (they are very noisy), there is a “humanitarian mouse trap” in the cellar. Set it in the kitchen with a bit of cheese or chocolate on the hook and the door will shut when the mouse takes a bite. The next day you can take it far away and release it.

Especially in the fall, when mice are nesting, please leave no food at all in the house when you leave, or put all food into sealed plastic boxes or jars where mice can’t get at it.

Buonconvento

Local sights and events

The medieval walled town of Buonconvento is a lovely place to wander about. It has two museums: a museum of sacred art, on the main street in the same building as the tourist information office, and a museum about sharecropping and how the farmers used to live in the old days – up until the second world war, when everything changed and most of them left the countryside for the cities. This is called the “Museo della Mezzadria” and the door is right in the city walls, at the northern end of town. It is open Thursdays through Sundays only.

There is a small antiques market outside the town walls on the last Sunday of every month and the Saturday before it.

Special events in Buonconvento include a procession and sort of passion play held at 9 pm on Good Friday in which the townspeople dress up as Roman soldiers and Jews and re-enact the events leading up to the crucifixion in the streets of the town. The procession starts from the church and winds around the back of town outside the walls. In July the “Festa dell’Unità” features concerts, dancing and outdoor dining in the football field behind the train station. In August there is a series of multicultural concerts and shows held outdoors in Buonconvento and other nearby towns called “Festival delle Crete Senesi” and, best of all, toward the end of September there is a week-long “Festival della Val D’Arbia” when the people of each of the town’s four quarters set up outdoor restaurants in the streets and exhibitions of art, photography, and traditional crafts are held all around town. The restaurants are very popular and the line-ups can be long, so get there early (7 – 7:30) and be prepared to fight to get a table! It’s worth it to enjoy the farm produce and home cooking of the ladies of Buonconvento!

Shopping

For groceries, there is a big new Coop just out of town on the road to Bibbiano (follow the signs). Fresh fruit and vegetables are available from the greengrocer on the main road in town opposite Bar Moderno. The Consorzio Agrario (Farmers’ Union), which is the big orange building on the highway next to the playground, has a grocery store offering a good selection of wines, local specialties and top quality cheeses and hams, but it is more expensive than the Coop and has less selection. A number of specialty shops have opened recently on the main road in old Buonconvento. A Sardinian family runs a nice little grocery shop with excellent pecorino cheese outside the walls across from the ice cream parlour, which is also open on Sunday mornings.

Opening hours for the Coop are 8:30 – 1 and 4:00 – 8; smaller shops - and especially the local bakery – open even later than this in the afternoon in summer.

A weekly market has been held just outside the town walls since 1385. On Saturday mornings there are stalls selling fresh fruit and vegetables (cheaper than the shops) as well as roast chicken, cheeses, ham and salami etc. Other stalls sell clothing, shoes, toys, flowers.

Tuscan bread has no salt. In all other parts of Italy the bread is salted and tastes a lot better (in our opinion). The locals like it unsalted because they eat their bread with very salty food, such as the local ham. If you want salted bread in Tuscany, ask for “pane pugliese” (PAN-neh poo-L’YEH-seh).

Restaurants

All the restaurants in Buonconvento are good, they all have approximately the same price level, and all of them are used to serving English-speaking visitors, so you can’t go wrong. Dinner time is late in Italy in summertime: the restaurants tend to fill with foreigners when they open at 7:30 pm, then a second wave of Italian diners comes in at around 9.

The least expensive is Mario’s on the main pedestrian street in the centre of town, which is also our favourite for summer dining as you can sit outside in the square at the back of the restaurant in the evening. There is no written menu, but one of the waiters does a fairly good (and sometimes humorous) rendition of the day’s selections in English. The telephone number is 0577-806157.

A new favourite is Le Antiche Mura, in the city walls of Buonconvento near the big parking lot by the highway. Just opened this year by a family from Naples, the restaurant serves pizza as well as good pasta, meat & seafood dishes in a pleasant courtyard setting. Prices are very reasonable. 0577-806805; closed Tuesdays.

La Via di Mezzo is a wine bar and restaurant right in the middle of Buonconvento on the main pedestrian street which has changed management recently and improved considerably. The décor is very nice and you can also eat outside at the back; they have a good wine selection.

I Poggioli (0577-806546) offers Tuscan specialties as well as fresh seafood and pizzas. For pizza, you can also go to La Compagnia in Torrenieri, the next village on the highway to the south, or to our local pub, the TNT in Bibbiano, well signposted. They do evening meals, pizzas and snacks, and have an amazing selection of Belgian beers. Ask your waitress to recommend the best beer to go with your meal or follow the suggestions on the menu (0577-807077; closed Tuesdays).

For a special meal and a pleasant evening out, I recommend Bagno Vignoni, about a 20 minute drive to the south. There are several good restaurants in the village. After your meal, soaking your feet in the hot springs is a must. Go for a stroll around the pool in the square, where St. Catherine of Siena used to go for a dip and Lorenzo de Medici had himself lowered into the health-giving waters in a special chair.

Another nice place to spend an evening is San Quirico, often neglected by tourists despite its two Romanesque churches, 16th century Italian garden and pleasant street of shops selling local crafts such as handmade jewellery and leather bags, old-fashioned bed linens that are really made of linen, etc. There are several restaurants in town; I suggest you try Ristorante degli Archi, or the wine bar next door, which both serve the wine from Fattoria Resta!

For more restaurant recommendations, complete with addresses and telephone numbers, refer to our do-it-yourself restaurant guide, kept by the phone for your convenience! Please don’t hesitate to add new entries if you try any restaurants not already covered in the guide, or add your own comments to existing reviews.

Bars

An Italian bar is something quite different from either a North American bar or a British pub. It’s a café for the whole family and you can have cappuccino, snacks, or drinks both alcoholic and non at any time of day. Some bars have table service and charge you extra if you sit down at a table. The charge may be quite high in bars in a strategic location such as those facing onto the Piazza del Campo in Siena. In others, you order at the bar and then go sit down, and there is no extra charge for use of a table. (This is the what Tim Parks calls the “right sort of bar” in the first chapter of Italian Neighbours, his book about being an Englishman living in Italy.) In this sort of bar it is polite to take your glasses back to the bar when you leave, as you are not paying for the table service. Bar Moderno (originally the local communist party clubhouse and still known as “casa del popolo”) is a local example of this type of bar. Bar Sport used to be but now they have put fancy tablecloths on the tables outside and introduced table service to take advantage of the tourist trade; you can however still sit at the indoor tables for no extra charge. There is another nice bar in the middle of the main pedestrian street in Buonconvento.

Buonconvento now has a good gelateria, around the back side of the old town, set right in the walls, on the end of town nearest us. Just before entering the pedestrian street that runs through town, turn left and follow the walls around to the back. There are also a couple of new takeout pizza places on the main street, where you can buy pizzas whole or by the slice.

Stamps, bus and train tickets, car rental

There is a post office on the road to the Coop, but you can buy postage stamps at any tobacconist’s shop .

Train and bus tickets may be bought at the Tabaccheria in town or the bar across the street from the train station. There is no ticket office in the train station. Don’t forget to punch your tickets in the yellow machine at the station before you get on the train; if it is broken, write BUONCONVENTO and the date and time on the ticket with a pen. If you get return tickets, you have to punch them again on the way back. Buonconvento is on the Florence to Grosseto line. It is about 25 minutes to Siena, 2 hours to Florence. In Grosseto you can make connections to Rome and to points all up and down the coast.

If you need a car and haven't got one yet, you can rent one from the mechanic behind the train station in Buonconvento: cross the railroad tracks at the level crossing just a few metres south of the train station, then turn right, you will see the mechanic’s workshop just before the end of the road (you can easily walk there from the train station). Telephone 0577-806027. They are affiliated with the Targarent network: targarent.it. Hertz and other major rental firms have their nearest offices in Siena.

Day trips

Siena

You will find several guidebooks about Siena on our bookshelves, and several copies of maps from the tourist office around the house. There is so much to say about Siena; here we offer just a few hints for the practical aspects of your visit.

Whenever you go to Siena, wear comfortable walking shoes. Traffic is not allowed in the centre of town (with just enough exceptions – taxis, delivery trucks, local residents - that you can’t completely relax as if you were in a pedestrian zone). As you will be approaching the town from the south, on the “Roman road”, you will probably park outside the Roman gate, Porta Romana, and walk into town from there. There is free parking outside the gate, and pay parking spots with meters around and inside the gate. Or, you can stop on the same road farther out of town, at Coroncina, where there is a parking lot with a park’n’ride bus service which takes you right into the centre of town. There are two lines, one of which drops you off at the highest point in town, in front of the Cathedral, while the other leaves you in the market square just behind Palazzo Pubblico (shown in the photo above). Buy bus tickets from the bar. This is the best way to cut down on the amount of walking involved.

One of the nicest things to do in Siena in the evenings is just sit in the Piazza del Campo and observe both local people and tourists from all over the world. There are restaurants and bars all around the perimeter of the piazza, and though I doubt any of them offer a good price to quality ratio they may be worth it just for the view!

A great place to eat lunch that no-one knows about is the Grattacielo. It’s a tiny little place (the name, meaning “skyscraper”, is ironic). To get there from the Piazza del Campo, take Via Banchi di Sopra – Siena’s main street for shopping and promenading - until you see a vaulted, dark lane going off to your left with a newspaper stand in it. The Grattacielo has outdoor tables in the shade of this vaulted lane in summer. It’s an “Osteria”, meaning they serve a good Chianti on tap and cold snacks to go with it: various types of salads, vegetables in oil, cold cuts and cheeses. You can make a meal out of it – all the foods are in a display case, just point to whatever looks good and specify if you would like it in a sandwich (panino) or as a cold platter (piatto freddo). Lots of new ice cream places have sprouted up in Siena in recent years. Nannini in Via Banchi di Sopra sells ice cream as well as delicious panforte, ricciarelli, cantucci and other local specialties to eat there or take home. It is also the best place to go to the toilet in Siena, perhaps in the world: where else do you descend a marble spiral staircase just to go to the loo?

Other day trips

You will definitely want to go to Montalcino, the hilltop town you see from your windows. Stop on the way to taste the Brunello in some of the wineries. Our neighbour Claudio’s winery is very close to where we live, in a very beautiful old villa, and has English-speaking tour guides who will let you taste all the wines. It is called Altesino; take the road to Montalcino, but turn off to your left on the first gravel road. It is marked with “Altesino” signs. If you see Claudio or Annalisa around the house, you can ask them to reserve a tour for you. Or call 0577-806589.

In July there is a jazz festival called “Jazz and Wine” in the fortress in Montalcino. Sip a glass of Brunello while listening to jazz. It can be cool up there in the evenings as Montalcino is at 600 metres, so take a jacket. A good place to eat in Montalcino is “Il Grappolo Blu”, the owners of which appear in Isabella Dusi’s books Vanilla Beans and Brodo and Bel Vino. It’s pretty small and crowded, so you may need to reserve if you want to eat there. Another good restaurant is “Le Potazzine”, in the square behind the town hall, near the tourist information office.

Another 10 km from Montalcino is the beautiful medieval abbey of Sant’ Antimo. The monks say mass in Gregorian chant every Sunday at 11:00.

Pienza is another must: built as an ideal town in the Renaissance on commission of Pope Pius II, who was born in the town when it was just the humble little hamlet of Corsignano. Ideally, start your visit at the dark, medieval Pieve di Corsignano, where the future pope was baptised, and then climb the hill of progress toward the Renaissance cathedral built on the pope’s commission, flooded with the light of reason.

On your way to Pienza, a good side trip is down the road which turns off to your left about 2 km before the town, marked “S. Anna in Camprena”. This is the name of the ex-monastery you will find about 5 km up this road, where the monastery scenes in The English Patient were filmed. Art and photography workshops are now held there. If you like cheese, watch for the signs pointing up a gravel road on your right marked “S. Polo”. There’s a cheese dairy there where you can get the best pecorino cheese, made from 100% sheep’s milk. The ideal accompaniment to a glass of Brunello! The friendly owners will vacuum pack it if you want to take some home.

Montichiello is another beautiful little village to visit near Pienza. It is very small and there is nothing in particular to see, which makes it a relaxing change – just wander through the lanes, watch the sun set over a drink in La Porta, a wine bar which also serves food, by the city gate with a beautiful view over the countryside, and take the children to the playground across the way. From Montichiello you can drive back a different way, stopping for dinner by the ancient Roman baths of Bagno Vignoni (see Restaurants section).

Montepulciano is more of a challenge: it takes longer to get there, and once you do, you have to park at the bottom of a big hill and walk up to the cathedral at the top, or take a bus up and walk down. There are lots of nice little shops and bars to peek into on the way! At the bottom, where you leave your car, there is a big park with a bar for cold drinks. You can bring sandwich things and have a picnic in the park. Montepulciano produces another well-known wine, called Vino Nobile, though it is not so noble as Brunello. All the local wineries have wine-tasting outlets in the town.

Florence is accessible by train, leaving Buonconvento at about 8:20 in the morning and getting into town two hours later. Leave your car in the parking lot behind the Buonconvento station – take the first right after the railway crossing going into town, cross over the railway tracks again and the parking lot is next to the soccer field on your left. You can walk along the tracks to the station. The direct return train leaves Florence at around 5 pm, arriving in Buonconvento at 7. (Check schedules at the local train station or on the internet.) This gives you just enough time to visit an art gallery and maybe another site of interest, go for a stroll and get back to the station. There is now a system whereby you can make a reservation to get into Florence’s major attractions ahead of time on the internet instead of standing in line.

Don’t omit a visit to the Monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore just 7 km away, featuring frescos by Signorelli and Sodoma. There is no admission charge, but you must be dressed modestly even in the summer heat, or a monk will chase you out: no shorts, short skirts, sleeveless shirts or low necklines. A shawl around your shoulders may be enough to get you in. (In fact it is a good idea to carry one all the time if you are going to be visiting churches in hot weather.) On some days the monks open other parts of the monastery to the public, such as the library, pharmacy, etc. There is a nice little shop next to the monastery selling things monks make – herbal remedies, soaps, honeys, liqueurs, etc.

The road from the monastery to Siena via Asciano through the clay hills is very scenic.

Murlo is a tiny walled village near Buonconvento with a very ancient history. The Etruscan museum houses some impressive findings from local archaeological sites. At Miniere di Murlo there is a nature trail built along the bed of the old railway that served the mines, which makes a cool, shady walk even in mid-summer. There are picnic tables near the start of the trail. Or you can walk all the way to the other end and enjoy a hearty, rustic meal at Brunello's restaurant in La Befa.

Refer to the guidebooks for more information on local sights – we have a few left behind by past visitors. The best one in English is probably the Rough Guide to Tuscany and Umbria; our copy is a bit out of date, but it has good restaurant recommendations and practical information as well as historical background and information on the sights.

The seaside

It’s not that far away: an hour and half’s drive away in Castiglione della Pescaia, near Grosseto. There are beautiful sandy public beaches a few kilometres to the south of town; park under the umbrella pines and walk through the pine groves to the beach. These beaches are deserted if you can get there early in the morning, and start to get crowded around lunch time. If you want an Italian-style day at the beach, rent an umbrella at one of the bathing establishments in town. In either case, enjoy a seafood lunch or dinner in one of the restaurants in town and go for a stroll through the old town on the hilltop afterwards.

If you don’t want to drive all the way to the sea, there is a nice public swimming pool in Buonconvento, behind the football field on the opposite side of the train tracks from the old town.

Quick reference

Arrival:

• Turn on the electricity: open the downstairs room. Flip up the electricity switch in the box near the front door of the downstairs room.

• Turn on the gas: the yellow knob on the pipe outside the bedroom door downstairs should be parallel to the pipe.

• If the water is not already turned on, go into the garage (large funny-shaped key) and into the passageway at the back; turn right and go through to the end of the corridor. Turn the black handle so that it is parallel to the pipe.

• Open green shutters, flipping the metal fasteners down, and then fasten them back so they don’t blow in the wind by flipping the metal fasteners back up again. Flip the metal fasteners back down again when you want to close the shutters, don’t try to force the shutters over them.

Heating:

• Thermostat is by bathroom door. If turning on heating for the first time in the season, turn the knob with the radiator symbol on the hot water/heating boiler in the cellar.

Cooking:

• To turn on gas elements, press down while turning knob. If no gas comes, check that the yellow tap under the sink is on (parallel to floor). If there is still no gas, check that you have turned on the gas on the pipe outside the cellar door.

• If the loud ticking of the oven clock bothers you, flip down the switch marked FORNO in the fuse box on the wall to the right of the stove, and flip it up again when using the stove.

• Drinking water is from the tap on the right.

Laundry:

• Put detergent in middle compartment of detergent drawer in washing machine downstairs.

• Turn temperature dial clockwise to set temperature – turn programme dial clockwise to B and pull it out.

• Laundry will be done in 2 – 2 ½ hours. Washing machine has finished when on F. Before opening the door you must wait 2 or 3 minutes for the door lock safety feature to click before you can open the door. Do not attempt to force the door.

• Hang small items on laundry rack. You will find it under the patio or in the downstairs room. Put it up on the patio with a metal patio chair against it so the wind won’t blow it over.

• Hang large items on the line at the bottom of the garden. Pegs are in a basket in the hallway.

• Iron is in the wardrobe in the front bedroom. Place a large towel over end of marble table or metal table on patio to use as ironing board.

Internet:

• Network: Costa Wireless

• Password: b89292566d

• Turn off router when you when you leave and if there might be a thunderstorm. Switch off the power bar on the desk and unplug the router from the telephone jack under the desk.

Departure:

• Please sign the guestbook – blue and white book on the hall table by the phone.

• Turn off the gas by turning the yellow handle on the pipe in the courtyard.

• If we have asked you to turn off the water, go into the garage (large funny-shaped key) and into the passageway at the back; turn right and go through to the end of the corridor. Turn the black handle so that it is at right angles to the pipe.

• If you have left the fridge empty, turn off the electricity: go into the big downstairs room. Push down the electricity switch in the box near the front door of the downstairs room. In cold weather always turn the electricity off, to make sure the heating does not come on while the house is empty.

• Leave keys inside the big room downstairs (you don’t need a key to lock the padlock on the door).

Useful telephone numbers

You can use our phone to call us and make local calls. Please do not hesitate to call us at any of the numbers listed below if you have any questions or have trouble figuring something out. If you have your computer, send us an e-mail to let us know how everything is going.

Your phone number at Resta: +39-0577-807247

Silvio and Joanne in Chiavari: 0185-305749

Joanne (mobile phone): 348-5532563

Silvio (mobile phone): 340-3751369

Silvio (office in Genoa): 010-53749434

Resta web site: fattoriaresta.too.it

Joanne’s e-mail: joanneroan@virgilio.it

Silvio’s e-mail: silvio.costa@isosistemi.it

Emergencies:

Ambulance: 118

Police: 112

Fire: 115

Plumber – in case of problems with heating or plumbing: Roberto 335-735-9768. Neighbours can call for you if you have trouble explaining in Italian!

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Entrance to Fattoria Resta courtyard

Our house is just off to the right

The walk to the “pigs’ house”

Photo 1: New bedroom & doghouse

Photo 2: Turning on the electricity

Photo 4: Gas tap

Photo 5: Drinking water in kitchen

Photo 6: Drinking water downstairs

Photo 7: Hot water reset button

Parking areas

Knob for turning on heating

Porta Romana. Pedestrian zone starts here – time to park!

Palio excitement in Piazza del Campo

July 2 and August 16

Sant’Antimo

Altar, Pieve di Corsignano

Monte Oliveto Maggiore

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