An incredible day in Chiusi!

 

Ciao!

I have been muddling over Chiusi for the past day or two, as there is much to see there and I’d like to see most of it!  There are several notable tombs outside of town, and three museums in town that all have Etruscan components – the Etruscan Museum (obviously), the Civic Museum, and the Cathedral Museum.  Certainly, makes for a busy day!  

A view from Montepulciano!

Row of Cypress' near San Biagio

Stunning top of funerary urn

Love the Sphinx

And the arms on the funerary urn

Beautifully painted and preserved sarcophagus

More paint

Very complex urn

My favorite tomb -- as left by tomb robbers!

Poor guys head holding up the huge sarcophagus lid!

In Labyrinth

Looking up at Roman column underground

Bats hanging upside down in cistern

Downhill in Montepulciano

Prosecco and munchies!

R's pics with tomato sauce

My eggs with asparagus and truffles

A little crepe, a little Nutella...

So … up this morning at the usual time, around 6-ish.  We were showered and ready to go about 8:30 am after a very limited breakfast of cheese, salami, blood orange juice, and crackers.  (The bread we bought yesterday from a very limited selection at Conad was as hard as a ROCK!)

Put things away and did dishes (this place actually has a dishwasher, but seriously, what’s the point? I’m going to run a dishwasher for two plates and two glasses??)  Out the door and heading toward Chiusi. It is only about 23 km over some truly beautiful back roads.  However, the very best thing about the trip was that we found that if we head down the street rather than up, which we did yesterday, we are effectively out of town in something like 100 meters!  Yeah!! But more on that later…

The weather is absolutely perfect; mid to high 70’s with a wonderful breeze blowing.  Robert wanted to first see where the tombs were, even though I told him we had to first go to the Etruscan Museum and get tickets … We found them easily, and of course they were all shut up and locked – with signage on the doors saying “Entrance through the Etruscan Museum” … 

It seemed like lazy Chiusi was just waking up about 9:15 when we arrived. There was actually lots of available (and some even free!) parking, with great signage.  We parked near the wall and followed the signs up the hill and in minutes we were at the Cathedral Museum, where I wanted to check the opening time.  This is where you sign up for the Labyrinth of Porsenna. 

As they didn’t open until 10 am, we headed across the piazza and into the already open Etruscan Museum. We were the only folks there; there were, in fact, more guards than visitors, but they were very helpful showing us the right path to take through their museum.

I had read that Chiusi’s Etruscan Museum was excellent, and it truly was.  We saw more remnants of paint on terra cotta and marble than ever before.  We bought tickets for both the museum as well as the tombs.  We finally figured out that the way things work there is:  1) you buy a ticket for the museum.  That includes two tombs in the countryside.  2)  If you want to see the Tomb of the Monkey (which we did), then that requires first a reservation.  Then a ticket.  So, the nice lady pulled out her reservation book, and it turns out we could join the 11:00 am tour, so we got those tickets too.

The Chiusi Museum isn’t huge, but it is well laid out, and there is a fair amount of English explanations to read.  It seems that in this particular area, around the 7^thC. BC, cremation became a very popular option and with cremation came an urn in which to put the remains.  At some point, artisans started making faces for the urns.  At first, they were rather odd faces, but over time, they supposedly became more and more realistic, as to really represent the person for whom they were supplying the urn.  We also saw another great urn with arms wrapped around it like handles.  I really get a kick out of those for some reason! 

In the lower level of the museum, they had set up a tomb based on photographs and drawings that had been done in the late 1800’s.  Apparently the “real” thing (painted walls) lives in Florence, but the sarcophagus was the real thing.  Excellent museum in all, and we finished by about 10:30 am.

From there, we went back across the Cathedral courtyard to the Cathedral museum, where we met the young guy who gives the Labyrinth tours.  They only run at 10 minutes past the hour, and then have a long lunch period, but he said we should be able to make it back from the tombs by the 12:10 pm tour, which would be fine.  So!  

Back down the hill and into the car and out into the countryside yet again.  Seriously, it is so incredibly beautiful here – between the vines and the poppies and the stunning stone houses – no wonder Tuscany photographs so well!  We found the tomb of the monkey with no problem … but then the lady who had sold us the tickets was late arriving …  There were three other people – Mom, Dad and teenage daughter – waiting with us, when – finally - the “lady with the keys” arrived.  

The really BAD part about the Tomb of the Monkey is that R wasn’t allowed to take any photos!!  None – zip – niente! But the tomb itself was very interesting.  One lady being entertained by funeral games with lots of servants to wait on her.  In one tiny corner, and almost lost to the world, is a monkey hiding in bushes.  R thinks that wasn’t terribly strange, as there are barbary apes in Gibraltar, and all sorts of animals had been brought to Italy from Africa in those days.  We were able to get a good look around, and then headed out for the Tomb of the Lions.  This one was actually not really worth photographing, as the two supposed lions had also been lost over the centuries.  

However, tomb 3 as it were, was great!  According to what we could make out in our very limited Italian was that this tomb, the Tomb of the Pilgrim, was basically one rich families vault over a period of many years.  According to the web, “Dug in natural sandstone, it consists of a long corridor where four small burial recesses and three chambers of various dimensions are opened. Most of the sarcophaguses and urns of the 17 original burials are still preserved inside it. In the last master chamber, the covers of many sarcophaguses, have been moved or lifted, meaning that the tomb has probably been breached even in ancient times.”  It was amazing – as if the tomb robbers had just left!  My favorite was when the grave robbers took the lid of a smaller sarcophagus and used this poor guy’s head to prop open the lid of a larger tomb!  Wow!  

We’ve seen a lot of tombs in the past week and it is surprising how much they differ from one area to another.  Those around here seem to have more evidence of painted sculpture, including the sarcophagi, than elsewhere.  That may be an accident of preservation but the tomb designs are different, too.  Here we have long chambers cut into the rock and ending in multiple rooms for interment. 

After this, we hopped back into the car and went back into town and back into our parking lot, climbed back up the hill and were EARLY for our 12:10 pm tour!  This tour also included entry to the Cathedral’s museum, which included some Roman inscriptions and mosaics.  But the best part was the Labyrinth.

Lars Porsena was from Chiusi, and according to Wikipedia (that source of all knowledge): “Lars Porsena came into conflict with Rome after the revolution that overthrew the monarchy there in 509 BC, resulting in the exile of the semi-legendary last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus.[Superbus was Etruscan.] The deposed monarch, whose family was of Etruscan origin, tried and failed to retake the throne a number of times before appealing to Porsena for assistance.   Lars Porsena agreed to help.   At that time Clusium[Chiusi] was said to be a very powerful Etruscan city.”

“At this point, however, the histories diverge. According to most mainstream Roman accounts, including Livy, Lars Porsena attacked and besieged Rome, but was sufficiently impressed by particular acts of Roman bravery in defending the city that he chose to make peace.   Other accounts, however, suggest that Lars Porsena actually succeeded in subduing the city, and that the Etruscans were only driven out some time afterwards.   None of the accounts, however, suggests that Tarquinius Superbus was returned to the throne. Thus, if Lars Porsena did indeed capture Rome, he may have done so with the intent of controlling it himself, not restoring the former dynasty.” 

The story now is that buried somewhere under the current city of Chiusi is the real tomb of Porsena – and with it his buried treasure!  But so far, no sign of it has ever been found.  The Labyrinth is a collection of Etruscan-dug tunnels including an Etruscan cistern and aqueduct and they were very fun to visit!  First of all, it was COLD down there.  Fortunately, I was able to borrow a jacket; Robert loved it!  It was interesting looking at the well from below rather than from up above, and the final tunnels had a fabulous population of bats living there! We definitely disturbed their sleep, but hopefully, as tours do not go on all day, they’ll be able to be themselves by nightfall.  They were much larger than our Arizona myotis bats.  We finally ended up coming out into the old bell tower; a very nice tour!  

By this time, we were definitely ready for lunch, but I still wanted to check out the hours of the “Subterranean City” tour that is run from the Civic Museum. These are more Etruscan tunnels, and I think there are more artifacts there.  Will let you know tomorrow!

We came upon a small piazza with a very nice looking restaurant.  As we were looking at the menu, one of the ladies dining outside told us that they had a menu in English – so we joined them for a bit. This was a married couple from Alabama, and believe it or not, the guy is an astronomer!  Talk about small world!  They begin a photography tour tomorrow from Chiusi.

We ordered a pizza to share, with a large bottle of sparkling water and two glasses of Montepulciano red to wash it down. The pizza had a white sauce with basil and cherry tomatoes – and unfortunately, we had just about cleaned up the plate when Robert remembered we hadn’t taken any pictures!  So!  Sorry, no pizza pictures today!

Back to Montepulciano about 2-ish pm.  Now, when we left the apartment this morning, we headed down and out of the city.  It was a piece of cake.  Rfigured that as it’s only about 50 feet from the gate to our parking place, that we could do it in reverse!  I had been dreading the possibility of two vehicles meeting at the gate, but fortunately, right after I saw the “do not enter” sign post, the road was clear and through the gate the wrong way I went! Made it to the parking place unscathed! Yeah!

At this point, I wanted to take a walk around Montepulciano and see what there was to see.  There are truly so many stunningly beautiful viewpoints, it’s hard to find an unpicturesque part of town!  So, I grabbed our map of the town, and first headed up to then head down … I did find the main shopping street, and while there were lots of people, it wasn’t a mob scene at all!  The gelato shop was fairly empty actually and I sat on the steps (being on a hill, there are steps up and steps down everywhere; just depends on your perspective!) and ate my gelato.  Wound my way back towards our apartment, through the Piazza Grande.  That’s where the “hop-on/hop-off” bus tour begins each day, and then makes three other stops around town.  I’m thinking that we will do this on Monday when museums and sites are usually closed.

Back to the apartment about 4 and on to the blog.  If we’re hungry tonight, as we didn’t have a lot of lunch, we’re thinking about going back to San Francisco.  More exploring tomorrow!

m

xxx

Just back from our supper at “our” Enoteca Bistrot in Piazza San Francisco.  Went down – or actually, now that I’m thinking of it – UP! About 6 pm and sat at “our” usual table.  I wanted to start with Prosecco, so we had two glasses of Prosecco with their regular starter – olives (which Rloved), peanuts and potato chips – which I loved!

Then, R ordered their pici (homemade thick Italian noodles) with tomato sauce, and I had the eggs with asparagus and truffle shavings … YUM!  I got two sunny side up eggs with asparagus finely chopped, along with the truffle shavings.  Excellent!  And Rate every bite of his picias well.  For dessert, R had the Vin Santo again, along with the biscotti, and I had their crepe with Nutella.  I hadn’t really cared so much for their “chocolate cake” so thought I would give the Nutella option a try.  I mean, who doesn’t love Nutella?!  At any rate, it was wonderful, all washed down by a bottle of Montepulciano Nobile.  YUM! Place really filled up, but no problems at all!

Lots of love

m

xxx