Siena...

Friday:
We checked out of our apartment in Florence and walked to Santa Maria Novella train station with some trepidation. There is a snap train strike, and we really don't know whether our train to Siena will be running or not. The train station is chaotic, and we just have to wait and watch the board for service announcements. The 11.10 train to Siena was cancelled, and our train was at 12.10; fortunately, ours was not cancelled, and we had a comfortable ride to Siena, about an hour and a half.

We've booked an apartment outside the old city walls, and it's about a 10-minute walk from the train station. We checked in with no problems, and it's a great modern apartment with a kitchen and balcony overlooking the countryside.

We walked to the nearby supermarket and stocked up with supplies as we're here for 13 nights. It's a nice change to be able to cook dinner and enjoy an aperol spritz at 'home'.

Saturday:
A nice relaxing start to the day with bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee at the apartment. Gayle video called Donna and got the Canberra update!

We set off to do some exploring and walked up to the entrance to the old city, Porta Camollia, an enormous stone entrance. It's probably about 1.2kms, so an easy walk. We walked the main thoroughfare, via Camollia, taking in the beautiful sights leading up to Piazza del Campo. We had last visited in June 1997, and my memory was hazy at best.

The piazza is still stunning and bustling with humanity. They have horse races here twice a year, which is hard to imagine given the slope of the piazza. We meandered around the windy, hilly alleys with lots of interesting vistas to take in. We walked up to the Duomo. It's quite spectacular and probably more impressive than Florence's, in my opinion.

We wandered around for quite a while, getting our bearings and taking note of restaurants and bars to return to. We walked back to the apartment to avoid the heat of the day - as lot of places close up for an hour or two around this time. Very sensible!

We started looking at our photos from 1997 - we didn't have a lot as that was the olden days of actual film cameras. I have scanned them and it was fun to see the same places we visited back then and now.

In the evening we had a snack and aperol spritz before heading out to a local bar, Bar Impero. It had really good vibes so we'll undoubtedly be back again. Afterwards, we wandered up through the old city to see all the sights lit up at night. Photos were taken.Baca lagi