San Galgano

Tuesday in Corona, and there about.

A typical morning at Jeanette’s starts with street noise starting around 7:30. Nothing obnoxious, just shutters opening and store deliveries. D gets up around 8, gets ready and heads down to the breakfast room. I get up around 8:45 and head down to join her. D has maybe eggs and fruit and a cappuccino or Jeanette’s home made pastries and a cappuccino. I have uno caffe, dopio. A double espresso. Then I spend the rest of breakfast declining breakfast. We chat with Jeanette and perhaps meet other people staying at the B&B. Then we toddle off for the day.

The main objective today is the Abby of San Galgano. The story goes something along the lines of “rough and tumble fighter during the 1100s has a vision of Archangel Gabriel and the twelve apostles who tell him to settle down and think about things. His mom, Dionisia tells him to forget that and get back to work but after the visions his horse freaks out and runs off with him to Montesiepe where he falls off. He is supposed to pray but he doesn’t have a cross so he shoves his sword in the ground and it gets stuck in a big rock. (miracle #1) Anyway he does some other miracles (19) then he dies, a bunch of people who like him build the round chapel over the sword in the rock and his tomb and an abbey down the hill. 4 years later (expedited processing) Pope Lucius III canonizes him.”

The sword is now encased in glass and surrounded by a chain so once again my plans to demonstrate my rightful place in the realm of the saints has been thwarted. There are many who think the Galgano story is where the King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table story actually comes from. The University of Pavia tested the sword and dated it to the 12th century. 😉 Could be I suppose. But what I do know is that the ruins of the abbey are amazing. After all the churches and basilicas we have seen, covered in carvings and gold, stuffed with statues and paintings and candles, the empty, silent ruins of the Abbey of San Galgano, roofless and open to the heavens, were as magnificent and stirring as any of them.

It was hard to stop taking pictures. I thought the little round chapel where the tomb and the sword in the rock were was pretty cool too. And there was a choir to give it a little extra ambiance. (OK, it was a little cat crying in the doorway but it echoed through the chapel and it was a cute cat.)

Back to Cortona for a bit of spinach calzone and to do what we have been saying for years we will do but for some reason almost never do; sit in the piazza and watch the people go by. Ah. This is the life.
Dinner time rolls around and we try a new place for us. Il Cacciatore (The Hunter). D has the pappardelle al chinghalle (wide noodles with wild boar sauce) and a salad. I have the coniglio (rabbit) with olives and mushrooms and grilled eggplant, peppers and zucchini.