Seeing Siena

As mentioned in this post, we decided to take a day trip from our little Tuscan villa to see the Tuscan hill town of Siena one afternoon. We hopped on a train, got off at Siena, then experienced the what-is-becoming-familiar feeling of not knowing what to do next. As it turned out, we had to cross the road from the station into what turned out to be a kind of shopping centre, but that had the word "Galerie" on it, so we immediately thought it was an out-of-bounds building, until we attempted to climb onto a bus leaving from right outside the station and had the driver wildly gesticulate towards that building when we tried to say "Centrale".

We entered the building, stocked up on a few more stacks at the little supermarket we found conveniently inside, and then proceeded to ascend what felt like 15 million escalators. Seriously, no joke, there were at least six 20-metre escalators, which as it turns out, enabled us to emerge eventually (only once we'd started questioning whether we were ever actually going to finish climbing) at the same height level as the town of Siena. I wish I'd taken a photo of the escalators.

But our transport dilemmas didn't end there. Once we emerged from the escalator building, it appeared that we were quite far from the old town itself. So we hopped on a bus, and had a multi-lingual conversation with a very helpful local (who didn't speak a word of English) who eventually managed to communicate to us that we were traveling in the wrong direction, to get off the bus, and then to hop on one going in the opposite direction.

Normally I wouldn't bore you with all of these details, but I honestly think Siena was the hardest place for us to actually find, since of course we couldn't stand the idea of finding a taxi and enjoying the ease of them simply taking us straight to our destination. I wouldn't want you thinking we had everything easy now, would I? Our life is actually very difficult, negotiating how to get from one beautiful place to another, I'll have you know.

We decided to hop off the bus somewhere along the way because we were getting hungry (of course), and spotted what looked like a pleasant park to eat in. And there we were.

Once we'd relaxed enough, we headed off in the same direction that the bus had been traveling, asking a few people along the way in broken Italian where Siena was. Of course we had to stop for a little window shopping when we hit a few little market tents.

And then virtually just around the corner, old buildings! Thank goodness!

And a few amusing shop windows. Tom's now considering a change of career.

And yet another cute little three-wheeler. They crack us up every time.

All of these wonderful sites were seen while trying to find our way to the main square (which is giant, by the way, so technically shouldn't be hard to find). We literally walked in circles trying to follow the signs to the main square, which honestly do lead you in circles. It's like someone said that Siena signs could only point you forwards in a clockwise direction, therefore instead of telling you to go back the way you came and take a different turn, they lead you around and around.

It's quite possible that we were transportationally disabled that day, thus all the problems, but needless to say, when we eventually found the main square, we were pretty happy with ourselves. And loathe to leave for quite some time. So we didn't.

We sat ourselves down at a restaurant and had a Margherita pizza (with extra fresh basil on request)...

And once the pizza was finished, we went and sat down amongst the pigeons (dark and albino alike, we're not racist)...

And enjoyed some strawberries. Let me take this opportunity to tell you that the strawberries in Tuscany are A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. I've never had such flavoursome strawberries in my life, and I think I'll be dreaming of them for years to come. Tom and I managed to consume literally 3 kilos of strawberries in the space of about four days in Tuscany. And enjoyed every minute of it.

And then of course, since we'd been having such a tough time of it, we had to relax a bit.

We eventually managed to convince ourselves to get up and explore a bit. We saw the fountain...

And giggled just a little bit at a pigeon sitting on a statue's head. Perhaps the strawberries had gone to our heads.

And experience our familiar 'can you believe we're actually here??' moment.

This is the lowest point in the well-drained square.

We then attempted to wander in roughly the right direction towards an area where we could catch a bus back to the train station, since there was no way we were missing the last train back to Certaldo.

We had another little giggle at this sign outside a restaurant, which read: "Dogs welcome. Children must be on a lead." An oldie but a goodie.

And of course we marvelled at the enormity of the wine bottles. I'd be interested in seeing someone finish that in one sitting.

We of course pretended to drink water out of cherub-hugged turtles' mouths. As you do.

And then we found this playground with a lovely view.

And settled in for another snack. Some might think all we do in Italy is eat. No comment.

We continued walking, while I started to have misgivings about the direction in which we were headed. Tom admired the well endowed statues. Sorry you can't quite see her assets from this angle.

And then we found a lovely little park near the university with a fantastic view.

And it was about then that we realised we were completely lost.

A helpful English-speaking student pointed us in the right direction, so we kept walking and
snapping. And eventually found the main square again.

And then headed in the right direction to catch a bus back to the train station, to take us back to Certaldo. Not before we found a fantastic chalk painting on the ground of the main square of Siena, though! Isn't it great?!

And that was Siena! We had a fantastic time, and enjoyed it immensely, even if it was only for a few hours one afternoon. Read this post to find out what we did next.

Living La Dolce Vita

After paying our exorbitant 10 minute, 25 euro taxi fare to get from San Gimignano to our accommodation nearby, we entered our room and stopped in our tracks. Even at night, it was beautiful.

With a gorgeous loft bedroom. We had to hang a towel over the beam at the top of the stairs because I kept hitting my head on it, it was that loft-y.

 We woke the next day to a beautiful Tuscan morning, and could hardly believe we were there. In the Tuscan countryside. In a villa littered with rose gardens. Looking over rolling hills of vineyards, crested by conifers.

Seriously???? It's textbook Tuscany, and we were living it!

Our room was in the two storey section you see peeking out on the right there, looking out over that view.

We managed to hitch a lift with one of the staff into the closest town, Certaldo later that day.

First item on the agenda? Posting our warm clothing from Gallipoli and a few souvenirs home. Poor Tom was suffering carrying all of that gear around each day.

It's amazing how even the fairly simple task of trying to send a package in a post office becomes a massive challenge when no-one speaks each other's language fluently. It becomes this giant game of charades, punctuated by random not-quite-right-but-good-enough-to-get-the-meaning-across words, where everyone gets extremely excited when they finally understand what the other person is trying to tell them. It was really good fun, actually!

We then rewarded ourselves for mastering the postage challenge by wandering around the cute, quiet town of Certaldo. Even their road crossing signs are cute!

This was an absolutely gorgeous park along the main street.

They must have some secret magic rose-growing formula, because the roses here seem to grow like weeds!

Next item on the agenda? Of course, food!

And then while we were on the subject, we decided to visit the local supermarket to stock up on snacks. After all, one's stomach is never quite satisfied in Italy!

This wall of scanners floored us for a bit.

Mmm... prosciutto...

The boxed prawns we decided to give a miss.

And then of course, how could we miss trying the gelati!

Since there are no public transport routes to our villa, we had two choices:

1) Catch a taxi; or

2) Walk the 3 kilometres back.

Of course we chose the latter, being the cheapskates that we are. The locals found the sight of us walking along the side of the road with a camera pretty entertaining, and insisted that we take their photo. In retrospect, we should have asked them for a lift!

We decided to take a 'shortcut' that seemed to lead in the right direction, which about doubled the distance we had to walk, and then we reached the bottom of the giant hill leading up to the villa.

Of course the view was a good excuse to stop and brace ourselves for the climb.

And then we climbed and climbed and climbed.

Still not there yet...

This sight was very welcome once it came into view.

And then we collapsed once we reached our room.

Actually no, then we decided to create our own European washing line.

And enjoy the spoils of our trip to the supermarket, for a picnic dinner on the floor of our room.

The next day dawned just as bright and clear and beautiful as the last.

And then we discovered the pool!!!

We decided we deserved a relaxed day after our trek the previous day.

Tom decided to practice his action shot photography.

And then joined me in relaxing.

Before spending the afternoon on the terrace, gazing out at the view.

That evening, we were pottering around just about going to bed, when we realised that having left the windows to our room open all day, we'd received a visitor!

The poor thing had no chance of finding his way back out again, so we had to help him. We first tried to pick him up on one of Tom's shoe inner soles (of all things), which worked for a while, but he didn't like being carried toward the window.

So then I tried the hands-on approach. Unsuccessfully. The result was high-pitched screeches from both the bird and me.

So then I had the ingenious idea of throwing a pillow case over him (inside out of course, must be hygienic) and carrying him outside.

That was remarkably successful. He was a bit shell shocked for a while, but wasn't there the next morning, so we took that as a good sign.

After all that drama, we had to relax a bit more the next morning.

Later that day we got another lift from a staff member into Certaldo, from where we took the train to visit the hill town of Siena (more about that later). After which, we returned to Certaldo absolutely starving, and tried one of the local restaurants.

We then had to make the taxi vs walking decision yet again. And guess what? Like the idiots we are, we went with walking. Again. Through some miracle, some fellow guests at the villa spotted us while driving back, and took pity on us. I really don't know how I would have made it up that hill again that night, so thank goodness for friendly tourists!

On our final day, we enjoyed yet more perfect sunshine, and took advantage of the Internet until the final moment, when we were given our last lift into Certaldo.

Where we then we had a train station picnic...
 

And admired the uniforms of the train conductors. So very Italian.

 And then our little Tuscan holiday was over! Florence next!