There is a road in Siena province I call ‘the beautiful road’. I know it is a beautiful road because the map that knows all things says so.
I was looking around the Università degli Studi di Siena in 2000 and I thought “I could love this place.” I signed up promptly on the dotted line and bought – as is my habit when moving somewhere new – a local road map: ‘Siena: Carta Stradale della Provincia’ scale 1:150,000.
This map had been used, abused, torn, sellotaped back together, highlighted in yellow and folded upon fold many many times. I loved that map. With it I’ve cycled and driven along back roads that don’t even warrant a name, even on the map that knows all things. Good times.
This year my map to the beautiful road fell apart. Time to buy a brand spanking new one of same – they have an ‘edizione digitale’ now. It seemed appropriate to buy it in the same bookshop as before, the ‘Libreria Senese’, Via di Cittá 62.
When staying in Siena parking is a nightmare. Well, trying to park close to the wall, or just inside the walls and not having to pay or move your car after an hour. My recommendation is stay on the east side of the city around the Porta Montanina or the Porta Camollia within the orbit of the Coop, the station, Due Ponti and roads out of Siena to the Crete Senesi. The western approach to Siena around the new extra ringroad and the convoluted mess near Porta San Marco is to be avoided if you want to keep your sanity.
Finally, the Via N. Bixio is a bloody godsend if you are ever stuck in parking extremitis.
A few days with the map of all things and you are set. To find the beautiful road (and others of similar merit) you first need to be ‘furbo’. Like the knights of the grail quest – even with the map in hand – to find the beginning of the beautiful road is no easy task. There will be trials and false roads. There will be tempting signs. Ignore all of those and remain true.
The SS2 is the main road out of Siena to Le Crete and the wine towns of Montalcino and Montepulciano. It is very pretty between Montalcino and Pienza with the famed church of Chiesa di Santa Maria di Vitaleta (a UNESCO world heritage site) hovering tantalisingly on the horizon. But, don’t take that road. Head with gay abdandon towards the autostrada E1/A1. Ignore the rational reasoning that the E1 is a bloody big road. After getting on the beginning of the 73 leading eventually to the E1 do not be swayed by the seductive turn off to the 223 (leading in part back to the SS2 via Cassia) to Grosseto. Nope, just head on through ’til you you are just about to get on to the entrance ramp of the big old 73.
And lo, there like a mirage is a tiny slip road to the right, amidst a great upheaval of roadworks on the 73/326 and SS2. You think it can’t possibly be your road. It’s signposted Arbia and Asciano. Dive out of the traffic here heading to Arezzo, Sinalunga and Rome and take that mysterious little slip road for it is the beginning of the beautiful road. At Asciano turn towards Saltafabbro to the Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore. Here the most beautiful picnics can be taken.
Marvels really await.
There is also the cross country road from Monteroni d’Arbia on the SS2 to Asciano through Campagna that is hilly, wooded and stunning. It’s a paved road but it has no name on the map of all things. The strada bianca just outside Radda in Chianti at Villa to Albola through the vineyards of Il Poggerino is truely vertical. You feel a mule would be more suitable. The road from Buonconvento on the SS2 through the Murlo villages back to the 223 is deserted and quietly beautiful.
The road above the sublime Cistercian Abbazia San Antimo (where we listened to the white robed French brothers sing in Gregorian chant) from Castelnuovo dell’Abate to the 323 (to Bagno Vignoni) is the monster twister of switchbacks and hairpins winding down to the valley floor then back up again over the outlying ridges of Monte Amiata. It’s stunning and treacherous. One time we found a Fiat 500 that had slid off one of the top bends and into a field in a sudden Summer rain storm. An elderly lady looked on quite bemused as four strapping lads on their way home from football training were calming manhandling her car and carrying it back to the road.
One time there were sheep as well.
The back road (another strada bianca) from Monticchiello to Montepulciano is again beautiful, nary a signpost mind, but followable and deserted. This year I noticed a new sign at the Montepulciano end (a yellow sign) via the Colle al Vento. We’d spotted the road from a distance the day before – then closed – being used to shoot a car commercial. A helicopter was weaving madly above it, flattening the green wheat widly. Four times a sports car wove around the hairpin bends down the hill and back up, frammed – very flatteringly – by roadside lines of dead straight cipressi. The pilot sometimes flew side-on to get the best shot. It made me feel sick just watching it. Driving it the next day it was impossible to photograph from the ground. I’m sure it made a great ‘macho’ commercial though; me, I felt sick after just two circuits.
The point of my ramblings: maps are so much more than paper.
