Siena in the rain

They say that there's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. So this morning we dug out our winter clothes - boots, jeans, fleeces, waterproofs, hats and umbrellas - and drove in to Siena to explore some of the less well known areas of the city. I felt sorry for the visitors who had left their homes in China, Japan, America... with clothes appropriate for late-May :-(

One bonus of the weather is that it has fooled the porcini into thinking that it is autumn. Every shop and restaurant proudly displayed a basket of huge pungent funghi! We found a trattoria that had lit its wood-fired pizza oven for lunch. Mr HCB had "Flavours of Chianti" with porcini, prosciutto and pecorino. I had "Spring" with rocket, cherry tomatoes and mozzarella. The mozzarella was soft, creamy and tasty, made with the first flush of milk from the spring grass, and nothing like the tasteless rubbery balls in plastic pots that pass for mozzarella in England.

Today is the church feast of Corpus Domini in Italy (we call it Corpus Christi) and tonight in Siena there will be a big religious procession from the Duomo to the Basilica of San Francesco. It starts at 9pm to avoid the heat of the day - no danger of that today - I hope it stops raining for them...