Siena Explosion
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Siena Explosion is included in Pastel & Pen: Travels in Europe, a non-collaborative collaboration between Gregg Simpson and me. Gregg supplies the artwork (see above), and I write the stories.
About the artwork: Inspired by the vineyards and olive groves around San Gimignano, Gregg completed Toscana just before we went to Siena and he almost blew himself up. To me, the piece looks like bits of landscape flying into space, which is a fitting image for my story, as you’ll see!
Siena Explosion
We emerge from a stifling, dark side street into blinding October sunlight that bounces off thousands of pink and white bricks in Siena’s Il Campo, one of the most entrancing piazzas in all of Italy, which is saying something. I am so overwhelmed that I walk right into the middle of the Campo and flop down onto the bricks. They are shiny and smooth after seven centuries of buffing by feet and hooves.
Our first connection with Siena comes on the heels of a near-death experience.
Back up 48 hours and we are driving deep into the hills outside Siena along charmingly bendy, tree-shaded roads lined with villas and affording occasional glimpses of the dazzling Tuscan landscape. Jazz plays quietly on the car stereo. We are heading to an AirBnB for three nights of Tuscan bliss—writing, drawing, walks past ripening vines, simple meals eaten al fresco.
Our host—I’ll call her Maria—has provided us with descriptive directions but no house number. We drive up and down a long road, our cheerful anticipation of the coming Tuscan experience rapidly dissolving into frustration.
Finally, I email Maria—texting being unknown to me at the time—and she miraculously emails back.
We are lost!
Where are you?
Lost.
We connect by phone, she patiently repeats the directions, and finally tells us the house number. We drive back up the same road we’ve just come down. Nothing. Another call.
She is getting impatient with the stupid Canadians, and I’m feeling a little less than charitable with her. Finally, she comes out to the road and flags us down. It turns out that the house number is visible only to cars coming from one direction but not the other. I point out, nicely, that perhaps she might mention that to her guests. She shrugs. We are only the second people to stay at her place. The first guests were French, she tells us, and evidently had a more finely tuned sense of direction.
The small apartment is a bit dank with a lot of mildew crusting the outdoor umbrella, but the view from the bedroom window is spectacular and we are tired.
A night spent under a bedspread that is damp and musty-smelling is a minor inconvenience. We have a small kitchen and, after a few weeks of traveling, are happy to stay put and make our own meals.
The kitchen is equipped with a gas cooker jammed next to a tiny fridge jammed next to a sink with no counter above a tiny dishwasher that doesn’t work. It’s quaint and we make do.
A sheet of glass covers the gas cooker. As I light the burner, I marvel at the ingenuity of humanity. I’ve never seen a glass-topped stove before, but what a novel idea! The flames lick the underside of the glass, and the water takes forever to boil, so I just keep turning up the gas.
We decide to stay in all day, postponing a sightseeing foray into Siena till the next morning. At lunch, I make grilled cheese sandwiches in a frying pan on the glass-topped stove. I’m impressed with how the glass prevents spills from reaching the flames.
Traveling is so enlightening.
In the afternoon, Gregg puts a pot of water on the stove to boil for coffee. I leave him to it and go upstairs to write at a small table I’ve set up to overlook the view.
Several minutes later, a tremendous cracking sound followed by a yell of terror rocks the villa.
What on Earth? I run downstairs to find Gregg standing knee-deep in shattered glass, his eyes wide with horror, a bloody gouge out of his left ear lobe, slivers of glass embedded in one thumb. I’ve never seen him look so shocked.
My first thought? The stove must be defective. After sweeping up the piles of shattered glass, I actually check the brand of the stove and look it up on the Internet. There are reviews stating that yes, indeed, that brand is prone to blow-ups.
Feeling very grateful that Gregg is not badly hurt, I fire an email off to Maria to let her know what’s happened.
Hi Maria
We’ve had an accident with the stove. The glass top shattered. Gregg was making coffee and had just one burner on. We are not familiar with gas and so we don’t know if there was something we were supposed to do, although it seems odd that the glass would shatter just making coffee. Were we supposed to remove the glass top?
Our Siena experience quickly deteriorates into a series of increasingly inharmonious emails between Maria and us.
She thinks we are idiots for not removing the glass before lighting the gas and demands we pay her €350. We point out that she never told us to remove the glass. She rebuts by pointing out that removing the glass is obvious. How can anyone be that stupid?
Apparently, we can.
Maria acknowledges a modicum of blame and asks for €250. I offer €100. Back and forth go the emails until finally we give up and lay the case before AirBnB.
The upshot is that all costs are paid by AirBnB, and we leave a day early to recover our Tuscan tranquility—and sense of humor—in a different location.
When I tell this story to North Americans, they are all breathless with horrified sympathy. When I mention it to Europeans, they look at me like I’m insane.
Travel is so enlightening.