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Siena
something cool in Siena that I don't know the name of Here's installment #2 of my last vacation!
Libby and I left Rome Monday the 15th for Siena, Italy. The main reason I wanted to visit Siena was because it is the birthplace of my saint, Saint Catherine of Siena. Libby had already visited Siena and loved it, so it was ok with her. Our original plan was to spend one day in Siena and then visit San Gimignano. The directions to our hotel were a bit frustrating. We ended up having to walk about a mile, uphill. When we finally got to the hotel and into our room, we were in no mood to do all of the sightseeing in one day and then quickly see San Gimignano before getting to Florence, so we decided to skip San Gimignano and spend two days in Siena. It was a good thing we did too. After we cooled down and caught our breath, we left to catch the bus into town. We were walking around for a little bit when it started to rain. We had no umbrellas. We didn't know what to do. It was not a good day. So we just decided to head back to the hotel and hope
Duomo
the Duomo in Siena that we didn't go in because we had to pay for better weather the next day.
The next day, Tuesday, we had to check out of our hotel. It was then that we found out that the train station does not have lockers...so we were stuck with our luggage for the entire day. There was still so much I had to see because we had really only seen two things the day before, neither of which had to do with St. Catherine, who was the whole reason I wanted to visit Siena. We came up with a few options...#1 we drag our luggage around Siena, umm no thank you...#2 Skip Siena, head to San Gimignano and deal with the same problem...#3 Leave for Florence earlier than planned. Option #4, the bestest travel buddy ever...Libby...agreed to wait at the train station with our luggage while I saw the St. Catherine stuff. That's what we went with, so we hopped on the bus to the train station where I left Libby and our luggage. I rode the bus forever (in a few circles around the city) during my quest to see St. Catherine that day. I finally got off the bus at the Basilica Santo Domenico. This church was around when
Basilica Santo Domenico
the church that holds St. Catherine's head Saint Catherine was alive and she went there a lot. Inside, is Saint Catherine's Chapel. This is where her head is. What's really cool about it is that her head hasn't decomposed as much as it should have. She lived during the 14th century and I have seen many other body parts of saints that look nothing like the head of St. Catherine. All the other ones were black and shriveled, not hers. In my rush to get back to Libby, I didn't remember to find St. Catherine's Sanctuary...I think it was the convent where she was a nun. Oh well, I'll just have to make sure I go back sometime in my life to see it 😊
Once I finished, I went back to Libby and we got on the next train to Florence. Our train arrived around 4:00, but we weren't supposed to take the shuttle to the hostel until 7:00, so we waited in the train station. Around 6:30 we went out to where we thought the shuttle was supposed to be...and that's where we found ourselves when 8 rolled around. Apparently there was some miscommunication over the shuttle pick-up location and we couldn't get a
Florence
the Duomo in Florence hold of the hostel. It was getting dark we couldn't take a cab because the hostel was pretty far out of Florence, so we had to get a hotel for the night. We were not happy campers.
The next morning, Wednesday, we finally got a hold of the hostel (by email and then cell phones). There was another pick-up at 2. We had a few hours so we put our luggage in storage and ventured into the city. Libby was going through Duomo withdrawal, so I really had to get her there. The Duomo is a big church. It was amazing, the outside was all green and pink marble. There was a really big line to get inside, we think there was mass going on, so we didn't go in that day. Instead we found our way to the Galleria Academia to see Michelangelo's David. There was another really big line, but we made friends with the three Canadian women behind us in line. David was beautiful and so much bigger than I thought. I thought he was going to be a life-size statue. Nope, he was like 10 times that size. The line took a lot more time
Tuscany
view of a little town on the other side of the valley from our hostel in Tuscany than we thought it would, so we head to hurry back to the train station, grab our luggage, eat some lunch, and try to find the shuttle. We finally found it, with more cell phone communication and were on our way to the hostel. There were two other people taking the shuttle, they were also from Canada, we all hung out a bit for the next few days. The drive to the hostel was crazy. Lots of winding mountain roads again, but imagine it with Backstreet Boys and Motown as the mood music. We were all trying really hard not to laugh too hard. The hostel was amazing! It was a renovated Tuscan villa...so cool! They just opened at the beginning of April. They didn't charge us for the night we missed (hooray) and gave us all a welcome glass of red wine. One of the staff took us on a little tour of the villa. Then he took us to our room. Libby and I had a suite. There was a bedroom with one really big bed and a bunk, and then a living room area with two couches, a fireplace, and a bunk. It was crazy, but so
Me and a Cat
Me petting the kitty cat at our hostel. it was the first cat I had pet in 3 months! cute! After settling into our room, we checked out the free internet and had our dinner of pasta, delicious. Throughout this time we kept talking with the Canadians. After dinner, one of the staff, Will, opened up the bar and two girls from New York joined us. It was a fun night.
The next morning, Thursday, we made plans with the Canadians to go for a bike ride. We biked for a while, but it was difficult on the hilly mountain roads. For the rest of the day we just hung out and messed around on the internet.
Friday, we wandered around the villa for a while, taking pictures, before getting the shuttle back to Florence. We put our luggage in storage and went to the see what Florence had to offer. We went back to Libby's Duomo; we got to go in this time. It was pretty cool (can you tell I'm getting tired of writing these things out? my vocabulary is nonexistent). Next we walked to Ponte Vecchio. It's really old...built at the end of the 13th century! There are buildings now along the side of the bridge, its interesting. There really wasn't much else we
f 053
walking around the gardens of the villa wanted to do so we walked to a park and rested there for a bit. We soon decided to head back to the train station to wait for our night train to Nice. We were in the waiting room when I got a little suspicious. I had been keeping an eye on the departure board, but our train wasn't showing up on the list. There were trains listed before and after it on the board. I checked the tickets again and found out we were supposed to leave from a different Florence train station! We grabbed a cab to the other train station and made it there with plenty of time to spare. We finally got on the train. There were six people in our compartment, but we were all girls around the same age, so not uncomfortable in the least. The chairs pulled out so we could kind of lay flat. Somehow Libby and I got the least amount of space and kept getting smooshed against the window...it was not comfortable at all.
That's the end of Italy! Next installment on France coming soon!
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