Look

The Campo is the tourist center of the small city of Siena. The tower, billed as the tallest secular tower in Tuscany, stands here. Moving around the edge of the Campo one can see restaurants, tabacchi, souvenir shops, gelateria, and cafés, the necessities for most visitors to the area. It is the last one that we are concerned with here. Standing at the base of the tower, and looking toward 3 o’clock, we will find Key Largo, a small café, Rick Steves tells us. He recommends this particular café because one can sit without paying an additional charge. On this Sunday morning, we see five students, college-age, sitting in a row along the balcony of the café. The three boys and two girls all sit with notebooks and alternately write intently and stare out into the Campo, now filling with an assortment of tour groups, sun bathers, and families with young children.

If we move closer to the balcony of Key Largo, we can begin to hear snippets of the students’ conversation.

“Look,” points out one of the boys, “The shadow of the tower has moved since we got here.” In the 15 minutes the group has been sitting up there, the shadow has moved so that now it only covers about half of the group that had been sitting in its shade. A tour group with a flag has also tried to take advantage of this thin road of shade through the Campo. Others don’t mind the sun; a few have even brought towels to lie down on.

Two girls are walking toward the Campo now, each with a towel tucked under one arm and a bag slung over the opposite shoulder. They settle on a sunny spot on the north side of the Campo, not too far from the coffee drinkers at Key Largo. The girls spread out their towels, one green and one blue, bright flashes that break up the stony quilt of the cobblestones.

They are in close proximity to the constant stream of tour groups that make their way here for a two minute history of locale before continuing on to the Duomo, further up the hill.

They troop in with matching lanyards, following a flag, or sometimes, a closed umbrella. The next group that we see is a group of Japanese tourists. We know this not because of the mass of black-haired heads, but because all the women are dressed impeccably, wearing gloves and hats, and are constantly flapping fans. As their guide stops in the shade of the tower, the rest fall into line, creating a perfect rectangle within the larger shadow.

Turning back to Key Largo, two of the boys on the balcony are immersed in a conversation about Campo wildlife: pigeons. A group of them have gathered in front of the café, the attraction being a piece of bread that one of the sun bathing girls dropped; she felt sorry for them.

By the time we look back to the center of the square, the tour group has gone. There is nothing to indicate they were even there. The two girls, before positioned so perfectly to absorb the rays of the sun, now feel the shadow of the tower as it brushes over their feet. Is it time for lunch already? The girls roll up their towels, tuck them under their arms, and head away from the Campo and its shadow.

When we look back to Key Largo, we see the students have also noticed the time. They make note of the change in the shadow in their journals, and one by one, stand up and turn, bend their heads low to avoid hitting them in the doorway, and plod down the stairs.

“Ciao,” says the barista, who knows them after their second visit.

Ciao.