A memory from May 2008

Marta has just visited Italy - including Siena, which reminded me of another rainy day!

May 06 2008
Perhaps the least enjoyable day of our holiday. But still, the less successful visits are often more fun to write about.

Siena sotto la pioggia

(I hope the Italian is correct - it's supposed to be a silly dig at TS Eliot's use of other languages, just to show I'm not a monoglot.)

The guidebook shows
sunlit postcard views
the campo from the torre,
the palio.
Twelve horses career around the sloping square
for glory and honour,
Flags blazing gold and red on black,

sharp shadow shapes.

Today

we park.
Five escalators
clatter and clank

us up to steep streets,
narrow
cobbled and
gleaming dank

tall buildings
huddle

to hold the sun at bay
although
today

why bother?

The campo
reflects the palace tower
in hints of light and shade.

Umbrellas sprout,
generous fungi
bright, determined, cheerful
despite the clinging drizzle.

They wait in lines
or play a game of dodge
along the streets.

Washing at high windows
so picturesque
above the tourist throngs
so wet.

The duomo's marble is fresh washed,
its glorious gilded frontage,
backed by a crane.
They are everywhere
in Tuscany this April.

A covered market place,
shelters crowds from the drips;
kids run and throw food,
or wait for a bus.

Below a sign
via dei malcontenti
I stop and pull a face.