Roccastrada Retreat
After the flight from the agriturismo, and my rest in the thermal spas, I found my way to an AirBnB in Roccastrada, a town between Siena and Grosseto.
I was a little concerned I wouldn’t find anything private, well-reviewed and available at such short notice, and for an Easter Sunday check in. But I did, and I spent almost a week at a beautiful, serene, safe little appartamento with the most generous hosts and a cat that acted like a puppy.
My stay here was such a nice affirmation after the blasted agriturismo experience. This family - Angela, Ezio and briefly their (adult) daughter Francesca - welcomed me to a beautifully kept stone house on the edge of Roccastrada. I got a little lost finding it and had to call Ezio and I will admit I was a little spooked! I was like well, here we go again, ugh. But no. No creepy vibes at all, which only reinforced my decision to trust my gut leaving the agriturismo. Ezio was a kind and respectful host, and with Angela, really made me feel at home: two slices of cake when I arrived, took me to get coffee and see the restored theater in Roccastrada, drove me to San Galgano Abbey and served as tour guide, and graciously allowed me to practice my derpy Italian. They invited to me to join them for dinner with friends twice, but I was tired and daunted by the prospect of speaking Italian for hours with strangers, so declined both times, but they were totally gracious.
And an added bonus in spring, when I am missing my garden, their property was lovely, looking out over the rolling hills and mountains in the distance. And Mimi the cat was a fast friend. When I was little, five maybe, I told my mom when I grew up I would move to Florida and have 11 cats so she could never visit me. Because she’s allergic and I suppose Florida was the end of the earth to me then. Unsure of what grave wrong she committed to make me banish her. My childhood art teacher, Pam, had a big white cat named Moonie. I can remember still the feeling of her fur as she’d slink out of my hands. But then time moved and cats fell out of favor. The allergies, the litterbox smells, the mischievousness; somehow they moved to the ‘bad’ category in my mind. Like I wasn’t going to hurt one, but I wasn’t going to have one. I thought I was allergic too but then last summer I went to the allergist and he did a patch test and I’m more allergic to dogs than I am to cats. So I’m rethinking that narrative I told about myself (sorry, Mom).
Ezio took me to San Galgano, about 40 minutes drive from Roccastrada in the town of Chiusidino, in his 16 year old black PT Cruiser, which he explained has a Chevy body but a German engine. First we had to stop at the cafe in town for a coffee. He got an orzo which is a roasted barley hot drink, no caffeine. He said he has to sometimes because he has too many real coffees every day. He told the cashier that he was taking the americana to San Galgano. It was nice to have a local guide to soften my tourist-ness. When we walked into the cafe, there were two blonde boys with their tall and equally blonde dad, eating ice cream novelties at a table at 10:30am. Ezio leaned over to me and stated a fact: “Deutsch.”
After coffee, we popped into the restored Teatro Di Concordi where a crew was preparing for what I thought was a ballet, based on my and Ezio’s Italian-English communication, but then there was a dresser, like a piece of furniture, in the middle of the stage. Found out later it was the set for a commercial to advertise that furniture, featuring an ex-ballerina, who was going to dance around the dresser for the ad. Ezio walked around like he owned the place, and I asked him if he was the custode of it, which is not the right word but he got it and laughed and said sort of, because he and his friends love theater and have a sort of amateur group.
After the backstage tour, we set out for San Galgano. He smoked in the car after asking my permission and buzzed around the hairpin turns. The roofless Abbey was eerie and grand. Ezio used the word maestoso, majestic. He pointed out that the architect put himself in the work: see the little face on the top left of the column capital in the photo below. We also saw the Chapel of Montesiepi, just up the hill from the Abbey, which is where legend says Saint Galgano stuck a sword into a rock and it turned into a cross. It’s a small Romanesque building with the sword-in-the-stone right in the middle. In a side chapel, Ezio and I saw a container on a stand over to the side, with a maroon satin cloth draped over it. Naturally, we lifted up the edge to see what was under and it was a couple leg bones in a glass box. Just stacked up in there like logs. And we both gasped a little, and then of course the slippery cloth fell right off to the floor and the whole box o’ bones was exposed. Ezio quickly recovered it, laughed and said scusi to whoever that was.
