Nov 10

I had hoped to get up early this morning and run down to the fish market and make photos of the catch being unloaded. Gentle reader, please understand, that when I plan to get up early and do something, there is a very good chance that it ain’t gonna happen. Alarm at 6, snooze to 6:30, snooze to 7, snooze to 7:30 then just shut the damned thing off. Finally up at 8:10…there would be no fish market pics today, and it was a pity…it was a glorious day. A little warmer than the previous days, sunny, and cloudless. We hated to leave this beautiful city on such a wonderful day.

I headed down to my little internet corner to check email and see how many response I had from Siena. Of 7 emails, I had 3 responses, and one saying that the hotel in question was closed for the season (a pity, it sounded nice). Back at the room, I made a decision and typed a response, then walked back down the street to send it. However, another response came in before the first email went out, for a place right off the central square, cheap at 55E, but a bit spartan. Shared bath, up 3 flights of stairs, no lift. Oh, well, it’s only 2 nights, and it will give Lana a taste of a real traveler’s hotel. I took it.

After breakfast we finished packing, checked out, and headed for the vaporetto. There had been a transit strike yesterday, but they were back in operation today, which made life nice…we didn’t have to schlep our luggage over all those bridges or hire a taxi. Man, was it ever a beautiful day. Lana snapped pictures the whole way.

At the train terminal there was a small bit of confusion. On the monitors, they did not have the numbers of the trains listed, only the final destination. In our case, our train made 5 stops before it terminated in Rome. We were headed to Florence, but had to board the Rome train, and it nowhere mentioned (on the monitors, tickets, or train) that this was the correct train for Florence…everything said Rome. I guess it’s clear to the Italians. Anyway, the information booth told us to go to track 3, and the departure time was right, so we boarded.

The ugliest building in Venice - the train station.

As I got settled in, I became faintly aware of somebody loading a LOT of luggage on the train. "Traveling heavy", I thought. Shortly thereafter, Colorado Steve got on. We chatted with him and a couple from Okalahoma that was sitting across from us. Steve mentioned a bottle of wine in his bags, and I had a corkscrew, so a partnership was born. He asked if I would mind helping him with his luggage when he got off, and I agreed.

He and his traveling partner, Bob, had just spent 2 weeks on a Greek Islands cruise. They had brought formal wear for the cruise, and had shopped a lot. Translation…serious luggage! At the station in Florence, we lined their bags up at the door, Steve jumped off, and I pitched the bags out to him, bucket-brigade style.

Now to find the bus station. The guidebook said that it was one block west of the train station. <Sarcasm on> Not having my trusty compass with me <Sarcasm off>, I had no idea which way was west. "West is that way" Bob said, pointing to the right. "The sun is over there, and it's after noon." Obviously. However, in a moment of insanity, we ignored Bob and headed left, only to have to retrace our steps. Bob just smiled.

Headed East.

At the bus ticketing desk, I asked “Parlate Inglese?” A nod. “Due biglitti, rapida, Siena?” A nod. “Grazie.” A nod. This guy’s English was pretty simple!

We now had about 50 minutes to wait on the bus. All the bus stations have a little snack bar, and they all serve alcohol. There was a bottle of Chianti sitting on the bar, and, hey, we were in Tuscany! 4 glasses of wine at 1.80E apiece. Bob, who has run a high end restaurant in the Rockies for 40 years commented that this bus-station wine was as good as anything he had ever served in his restaurant! Gotta love that.

Da bar.

Da waiter (Bob).

Comparing notes.

Steve and Bob.

The bus ride to Siena took 75 minutes through beautiful rolling countryside, the hills topped with fortresses and castles, vineyards spilling down the slopes. The trees were showing fall colors, and even the soil was a rich ocher color. It was easy to see how someone named a color “burnt Siena”.

The bus dropped us at Piazza Gramsci in the middle of town. I cranked up the GPS, and between that and the rough map in the guidebook, we got our bearings and went our separate ways, headed to our respective hotels. We got a little turned around, since there were two streets, Termeni and Terme, that ran parallel to each other, one block apart. A friendly, Italian-only speaking girl at a coffee shop got us back on track…I just pointed at the address in the guidebook, and she came out from behind the counter and walked outside, pointing the way.

Casa de Antonella was three flights up a set of narrow, worn stone stairs. The aged wooden door was unlocked, and opened into a common area that held a large wooden table and a couch. The B&B had 5 rooms, 3 of which had the keys in the doors. There was no one home, and no note.

I tried the cell phone number that was in the guide book, but it was disconnected. We looked in the rooms that had the keys in the doors, chose one, and moved our luggage in. I wrote a note telling Antonella what we had done, then we left to go sightseeing. At the bottom of the stairs there was another number for Antonella emblazoned on the door plaque, so I called it, and got her. Her English was pretty limited, but we figured out that we could take any room that we wanted, and that she would be there by 8 AM the next morning to fix us breakfast. That whole episode had been a little strange, but we figured that the Italians were pretty casual, and that this little B&B was a self-service operation.

We ended up liking Antonella’s quite a bit. It was basic, but very clean. The two communal baths had small showers, stools, sinks, and bidets, and were spotless. Our room had a small terrace looking out over the rooftops, and all the rooms had frescoed ceilings and king beds. There was also a communal kitchen, so travelers on a budget could cook in and save some serious money. It was 55E per night, very cheap compared to the lodgings we had so far on this trip, but considering the exchange rate, it was still more than you would pay for a nice, new Comfort Inn or Holiday Inn Express in most cities back in the states.

Sunset from our terrace.

It was getting close to dark by this time, so we strolled down to the Campo to see the sights. Rick Steves says that the Seina campo is “the prettiest square in Italy”, and we could see why. There was some sort of festival going on in town (there was a band set up in one of the other squares, it appeared that they were protesting plans to put in an airport in Siena), so the streets were pretty crowded, but the Campo was big enough to absorb lots of people and not feel claustrophobic. It was a wonderful sight in the early evening light.

At 7, we walked back up the hill to McDonalds to meet Steve and Bob for dinner (no, weren't *eating* at McDonalds, only meeting there). On the way to the restaurant, in a little square, we came across a couple of wine stands that were clapped together out of scrap wood. They looked like lemonade stands that you would expect to see a five-year-old running, but they were staffed by young Italian men, and were selling novello wine in little plastic nutcups for 1E per serving. The wine was excellent.

Steve and Bob had gotten a recommendation for a place called Guido's, which we found in short order. This was a nice place, with pictures of celebrities who had eaten there all over the walls. The waiter was an elegant, classic Italian, erect and formal. Steve, remembering the wine we had just had, asked if they had any novello. The waiter blanched. “No. We serve no novello. Our chef, he will not even cook with novello. We only serve quality wine”. Having been put in our place, we asked him to put us together a couple of plates of mixed appetizers. What we got was two platters packed with salamis, prosciutto, and other meats, and a second with crusti (bits of toast with various toppings), artichokes baked in pastry shells, and a fresh cheese that looked like a pile of sour cream on the plate. Everything tasted wonderful. After that we ordered pastas, then desserts. The food and service were wonderful, and Steve and Bob kept us in stitches the whole evening. They are both well traveled and quick witted, a joy to spend time with. We really felt fortunate to have met them.

Dinner over, we decided to try to split a tour of wine country tomorrow. They had to head to Rome in the afternoon, but Steve said that he would call some of the tour companies and try to arrange something for the morning. I was to call him at 8 AM to see what he had come up with.