Day 40

Wednesday Sept 5

6:45am - woke up even though I'd set my alarm for 7:10. Booooooo.

7:40am - went to breakfast and ate pretty quickly. Didn't bother getting a cappuccino and the regular girl wasn't there anyway.

8:00amish - went to get the bus - and I could see my breath!!! Oh my! Anyway, got on the D bus and took it to the station. Took about 20 min. Tried to find the SITA bus station, I knew it was somewhere "to the left" of the station looking at it LOL!! Walked around a bit and finally found it. Hooray. Got a return ticket - 13 euros. Well I think it was just 6.50 each way and no discount for return. Whatever. It was a comfy coach so well worth the money. Not like taking a city bus or something like that

8:50am - bus leaves for Siena. Pretty ride but I think I doze off during a lot of it LOL.

10:15am - bus was supposed to arrive at 10:05 but was delayed a bit due to inexplicable traffic on the windy little roads up to the town. One of the advantages of taking the bus was that it arrives a lot closer to the town center than the train. And luckily there are little signs everywhere, like in Venice, telling you where to go. I decided to head for the Duomo first and get that out of the way, then check out the big big square. But first I wanted to find a little pottery shop someone had suggested on TripAdvisor. Found it, absolutely gorgeous hand-painted stuff in the Sienna style. Most of it was very expensive too, but I got a couple cute little magnets.

10:30amish - make it to the Duomo and walk right in. Admission was 6 euros, more than usual because right now they have the intricate marble floor designs uncovered. They are quite beautiful. I guess they are mostly old testament images but some were Siena-related I think. Some pretty paintings and a little chapel with 2 nice statues by Bernini. AGAIN there were signs ALL OVER THE PLACE TO NOT USE FLASH and everyone was using flash. Roarrrrrrrr. Anyway. But I guess if people don't tell them not to, they just keep doing it. I just wish people would realize the flash RUINS THE ART. This is really a pet peeve of mine. And the tour groups. When you can only walk through a little roped off area and the tour has stopped TAKING UP THE WHOLE PATHWAY, IT'S REALLY ANNOYING! Anyway I spent about an hour or so inside the church. Didn't bother going into the museum or Baptistry or whatever else there was there in the huge complex. As I left the church, the line now stretched REALLY long. Wow, I was glad I went in when I did.

11:45amish - made my way to the main square, Il Campo. Wow, it's huge. Lots of people bustling about, relaxing, sunbathing (even though it was cool, the sun was bright and skies blue). Wandered around it and the streets leading off it. Tons of little shops in Siena selling local specialty panforte (like a dense fruitcake, some shop had some samples and I found it absolutely nasty), little things of various tuscan wines and olive oils, lots of limoncello (which I found odd because it's not a Tuscan thing - guess they know the tourists like it?), lots of pottery, etc.

12:30pm - got hungry and was too lazy to try to figure out a nice place, so I had "fast food" pizza at a place on Il Campo - I could sit by the door and look onto the square and for 6.30 I got a huge piece of pizza (it was like 1/4 of a big American-size pizza), a drink and some fries. Pizza wasn't bad either! It was "pizza diavola" aka pizza with spicy salami aka pepperoni. I had wanted to try it to see what it was like so I figured probably ok to try at a place like this. Not bad. Not as spicy as pepperoni. Btw pepperoni pizza in Italy would just be roasted bell peppers or something. Heh.

1:00pm - walked around a bit more, into the little grocery/wine/enoteca shops and just looked around. Made it to a San Domenico (pardon my spelling) church, which was free to get into. Big and empty inside but some pretty almost modern-looking stained glass windows. Ok so the church is for Saint Catherine. But like, in the church in a display case, you can see a thing with her THUMB. Um, EW much? And then apparently in a little side chapel, above it is her actual head?? Okay, that just creeped me out. So I had to leave.

2:00pmish - I knew I wasn't too far from the bus station now, so I tried to find it. Somehow ended up at the stadium and had difficulty finding my way out LOL. Anyway found this set of stairs that let out to the street and bam right there was the station. Nice. 2:20pm and the next "rapida" bus was leaving at 2:50. so found a shady spot to sit, because I figured what would I do for just a few min.

2:50pm =- took the bus back, once again pretty sure I fell asleep on and off for a good portion of the ride. This old American couple behind me were interesting. The man was giving commentary on things and if I had had to listen to it for much longer I probably would've smacked him :D

3:55pm - bus arrived early, so I went to the train station where the city buses leave and found the bus to Fiesole, bus 7. Left at 4:20pm, not bad. Guess what, annoying old couple got on LOL. Luckily because I got on there at the station I got a seat. The bus got very full as it made its way up the hill. And it was UP A HILL. Didn't love it too much.

4:50pm - arrived at Fiesole, and couldn't really find the views. Then I felt some drops, it was starting to drizzle. The bus was leaving again at 5pm so after about 5 minutes up there, I just hopped back on. It was not for me. LOL. Unfortunately I had to stand but a half hour later I was back at the station and the D bus left right near it so I waited for that.

5:45pm - caught the D bus back to the hotel right around 6pm. Relaxed for a little bit

6:40pmish - went down to confirm the bus with the girl at the desk and she drew me a picture LOL They are so helpful and nice here. Was time for the "happy hour" so I had some olives (duh) and some other Americans were there. This couple was talking about Skype so we started chatting. They live just outside Houston and sounds like they have a lot of money and travel a lot, so yeah.

7:30pm - caught the Bus 23 to the Duomo to find a place to eat. I had the names of a few places around there that were supposed to be good, so I picked a direction. By the San Lorenzo church I found Regginella - they had all kinds of pastas, pizzas, etc. This is what I had heard, and it was true - the waiters were hilarious. They had the radio on and kept changing the station and were singing and dancing along. OK so most of the people eating there were tourists and speaking English but the waiters were funny about it. This british woman next to me said her meal was "simply spiffing" and the waiter was so amused he kept going around saying it LOL. I had a "tomato salad" which was some tomato with a little lettuce, carrots, and olives in the middle, and some pasta. Pretty tasty, total 17 euros including water. The waiter asked where I was from and I said I grew up near Boston, then he tried speaking in a Boston accent. When I told him it sounded more like a NY accent he tried to sound all Sopranos, then the people next to me were from Kansas and he starts going "howdy y'all" and then he says "no that's more Texas" LOL!!!!!! OK so it wasn't the best food ever but it was reasonably priced and the place was fun.

8:45pmish - was going to find one of the "Famous" gelato places but it was kinda chilly and then I couldn't even find it, so I walked down to across the ponte vecchio to see if I could catch the D bus. By now it was 9:25. Last D bus leaves the Ponte Vecchio at 9:15. Of course. LOL

9:30pm - start walking along the river in the hopes some other bus might be coming. Made it to the next bridge after the ponte vecchio, only a few minutes, and saw a bus 13 coming across the bridge. I knew bus 13 went to the square where my hotel is, so I ran and caught it. HOORAY! Back to hotel by 9:40.

Flickr was down tonight so I dunno when I'll be able to get pictures up from yesterday and today