May Day, May Day

Siena, Italy - Italians take May Day seriously, especially the transportation sector. The receptionist at the hotel in Florence examined the bus schedule for a full five minutes, hemming and hawing as she tried to decipher it. She finally made a mysterious phone call, then hung up the phone and declared that there would be no buses running to Siena today. She offered to look up the train schedule, but I was not really impressed by her research methodology, not to mention her conclusion, so I declined.

As we approached the train station, I saw a bus parked in front of the entrance. It was the same company that is supposed to operate the route to Siena and other parts of Tuscany.

"Is this the bus to Siena?" I asked the driver in Italian.

"There are no buses to Siena today," he answered.

"None?"

"None. You have to take the train."

I entered the train station, which was packed. The line at the ticket window seemed to be miles long, so I decided to have a go with the automatic ticket machine, which would at least show me the train schedule.

What luck! The machine informed me that a "train-line" bus would depart for Siena within a half-hour. And, for the first and only time in my personal Italian train history, I was actually able to use one of those machines to buy a ticket.

But now I was confused: the train ticket machine had sold me a bus ticket on a day when everybody agrees there are no buses!

I took my ticket back out to the front of the station, where the driver was still standing beside his bus. "Do you know where this departs from?" I asked, showing him my ticket.

He glanced briefly at my ticket. "It departs from here in half an hour."

"From here?" He nodded. "To Siena?" He nodded. "But why did you tell me there are no buses to Siena today?"

The driver shook his head. "But that's not really the bus," he insisted, pointing to my ticket. "That's really the train to Siena."

No engine, no conductor, no tracks. "But it's a bus."

"But it's the substitute for the train."

Maybe the bus driver was a little bitter about having to work on May Day. Or maybe - as is so often the case in Italy - I was just not asking the right question. Which in this case would have been "Is this bus the train to Siena?".

Anyway, I didn't care what you call it as long as it would get me to Siena. Which it did.

We couldn't help but wonder if the city of Siena has anything to do with the Crayola colors "burnt sienna" and "raw sienna". These shades of orangey-brown are found throughout the city, in the buildings that clamour up the hillsides and line the cobblestone streets. Did Crayola name their crayons after a Tuscan town?

I decided to investigate this question. I learned that sienna is a kind of clay that contains natural pigments in these brownish hues. Raw sienna is the unprocessed pigment. When it is treated with heat, it takes on a more reddish hue, or burnt sienna. Once used for cave paintings, the pigments are now used to produce oil paints (but probably not crayons). In centuries past, the region of Siena, Italy was a major source for this pigment.

A visit to Siena offers a journey back in time - not only to the 12th century, the heyday of the Sienese political prowess and architectural magnificence - but also to the 1970s, the heydey of my crayon creativity.

Aside from the Crayola-colored skyline, there is an over-the-top ornate duomo and a spectacular scallop-shaped piazza. Moreover, one can see some relics of St Catherine of Siena, patron saint of Italy. (In Rome, we had visited the church where the rest of her body is interred, but her withering head is on proud display over the alter of the Church of San Domenico, right here in Siena.)

Most importanly, Siena serves as a base from which we will explore Central Tuscany. Provided - of course - that I manage to ask the right questions!