A Weekend in Tuscany: Siena, Cortona, Pisa

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2/25-2/27 A Weekend in Tuscany: Siena, Cortona, Pisa

Well… here it is, the recollection of the first weekend off we as a group have. And I will preface this long entry with the statement that it did not dissapoint. I had heard stories and had been told by many that Tuscany is beautiful and a must do, must see experience and I am going to have to go ahead and agree with those claims. Absolutely incredible. Words will not do those towns justice, but I am going to try. I may try to sound like a legit writer at times and use imagery and all that jazz so if I fail miserably at making the words sound nice don’t judge me. But here it goes. So Thursday we finish class and go grab our bags and head to the bus stop. Thankfully we have already experienced the Verona train station so we know where and when we are going, no uncertainty there. The train ride over goes smoothly. There was a bit of a scare in the Bologna train station when we had to switch trains to get to Siena. There were two platform 6’s, a central one and a south one. We were supposed to get on the south one but we went to the central one first. We had gotten on the train and something didn’t seem right to me so I asked somebody (attempted to… they didn’t speak English!) if we were on the right train by pointing to our ticket. She said “no, no” and we immediately got off of the train and went to the southern part of the station. If we had missed that train we would have been screwed. Most trains come hourly and if you miss one you can catch the next train. However, this was a high speed train and our ticket was for the exact time and had the exact seat number on there. Thankfully we made it and we are headed to Florence to catch the train to Siena. Eventually we arrive at the Florence station (it’s a very fast train, mostly underground) and we can see the Florence horizon and its really cool looking. Because of class I can point out the Duomo and some other sights from our view. We get to Siena then at about four. We wander around for a bit and aren’t exactly sure how to get to our hostel. We all made a mental note that it would be smart to call in advance and figure out exactly how to get there from the major train station, we will absolutely do this for our next weekend trip we take. We ask a lady who speaks English which bus to take and she directs us to bus 10. We get on the bus after buying a ticket and it takes us to the center of town (Centro). I ask the bus driver about the hostel but he says he has no idea. At this point, I’m not really panicked but certainly frustrated. I’m imagining the worst case scenario, that we get off the bus and start wandering around and never find this thing. I guess we could have eventually called a cab but none of us want to do this really because we are cheap. Eventually this bus takes us to a random stop. According to one of the girls the bus driver motioned us off in apparent knowledge that the hostel was nearby. We get off and just start walking… in my mind, to God knows where. I am following the girls up a hill thinking we are just wandering around but then, somehow, someway we step into a building (I thought it was just some apartment complex) but it turns out it was the hostel! We had never been given specific instructions from anyone in terms of where to go. We literally, wandered… somehow… into the place that we were supposed to sleep that night. Another good thing we realized as a group when traveling through a country that you don’t speak the language to is never to assume that you will meet someone fluent in English that will give you instructions on where to go what to see and how to go about doing things once you arrive. We assumed that would happen. We assumed the guy at the hostel would speak English but guess what? He didn’t! Nope. None, notta, zip. Fluent Italian. After a series of hand gestures, a game of charades that included handstands and dancing around the room, we end up paying him, he gives us our sheets and I think he told us something about putting them in the bin when we were done with them. One thing I have noticed when over here regarding the language barrier is this. Italians love it when Americans attempt to speak and to learn their language. The rude guy at the hostel that made no attempt to speak our language or even slow down or play charades lit up when I tried to learn what a word in English was in Italian. We asked him for towels and he didn’t know what we meant so of course I acted like I was showering and then drying off. He then saw what we meant and said that they didn’t have any. I asked “come se dice… (drying off with a towel charade)” and he told me and then I repeated the word “asciugamano.” He smiled in affirmation, glad that I attempted. Our night is under way. As the girls go up and put their stuff in the room I use the time to buy a map and scope out our surroundings. We meet a nice English lady named Sarah who is studying Italian for three weeks. She tells us how to get to town and what to do (funny our assumptions ended up being right anyway!). We end up getting lost anyway because we followed the road signs to the center of town instead of the walking route that Sarah laid out for us. It just ends up being a longer route around town. All the while I’m looking down at the map trying to locate where we are because I paid two euros for the thing and I kind of want to use it. I find out later that this kind of bugged the girls because I always head my nose in the map… it was something to laugh about with them though. I think it is expected that American travelers get a bit overwhelmed in Europe and get lost quite often, but I realize how often I take for granted the fact that my dad knows how to get around and figures out the lay of the land very quickly when we go on family vacations. It does make it more adventurous getting lost and its always fun looking back on it knowing you went through some adversity on your trip. There is plenty more adversity to come… just keep reading. We find our way to the center of town but first we want to eat. We end up going in to what seemed like a pretty nice place and it was. We sit down and at this point are starving. They bring bread on the tables and we gobble it up. I order a pizza and of course eat the whole thing. I got some glares from the waiters and the manager when I went into the bathroom to fill up the glass with water because I didn’t want to pay for a drink. It was strange because I had done that before in other restaurants but apparently its just not tolerated or allowed over here. The old manager started barking at me in Italian, motioning to the sink, pretending to wash his hands. I start imagining what he might be saying, “NO! You fool! How many more Americans do I have to tell, you wash your hands with this water. You don’t drink it. We can bring you bottled water. Here. Hands. Wash. Order.Water. At table!!!!” We finish eating and end up getting charged for bread, two euros a person. We fell for the oldest trick in the book. Put the bread on the table, the Americans will surely eat it. They won’t read the fine print that we charge 2 EUROS A PERSON for bread! But that’s what it was! Regardless of the complications, the meal was excellent, we leave and find our way to the Piazza del Campo, the famous square in Siena where the Tower of Mangia is and two large horse races our held each year. They fill the entire square with dirt when this happens and the entire town and visitor watch these races. Ben and I go over to the Duomo and get a scope out of what the next days itinerary may be. Turns out there is a tour for 10 Euro to see the Duomo, the Museu d’ell Opera, the Baptistry, and the Cripta. We head back and chill with the girls a bit more and we all buy gelato… pistaccio in a cone… so good! We take a taxi back rather early to get a good nights sleep then. Keep in mind… I just finished describing Thursday. We all said it often, that we have only been here two weeks but with the amount we have done and seen it has felt like a year. I’m loving every minute of it. Friday morning. Wake up. Shower. Pillow case is towel. Breakfast. Bread, jam, and two cappuccinos (Jeanne if you are reading, I’m having continental breakfast flashbacks!) All I really know how to say to approve of what I eat, drink, or how I slept is “Magnifico!” So I said that to about five different people that morning and started making a list of things I want to learn how to say. The cappuccino gives me a great pick me up, and I enter extrovert mode and start chatting with as many locals as I can. The coolest interaction since that guy at Lake Garda last week comes with a group of Siena locals on the bus to the center of town. Lillie, one of the girls on our group with us, was the first to get the butt end of the crazy bus driving in Italy. As the driver slams on the breaks, Lillie’s feet get swept out from under her and she eats it pretty badly in front of everyone on the bus. She gets up quick and is unharmed, just really embarrassed. Her face is crimson. And we all laugh. Including her. Very hard. The three guys behind me look about in their early twenties and are laughing uncontrollably. I join them. One of them in broken English starts asking me where I am from. I tell them the U.S and that we are studying in Verona. After a bit more chatting I ask them their names in Italian (Come si chiama?). I wish I had written them down because I forgot but they introduce themselves one by one but when the third and youngest introduces himself the other two speak for him and point saying “Antonio Bandares.” I start laughing. They point to his hair and try telling me that he looks like Banderas because of his hair. I laugh in agreement and introduce myself. “Antonio” points to Lillie, asking me if she is with us and I say yes. Then he says “Boom boom boom” as if to give her that nickname. I laugh. As we get off the train I say nice to meet you to them individually and when I get to the third guy I affirm that his nickname is Antonio, just to let them know I understood that was their joking nickname for him and they all three laugh, then I point to Lillie and say “Boom boom boom.” They slap me high fives and then we part ways. The first guy tells me how to buy a bus ticket too because I had asked him. It was nice to break free from the bubble and interact with some locals. This is what I wanted more than anything before I came over and that morning gave me some more confidence to risk being goofy to try to interact. I met a lady in a tabacco store… she was old and her name was Rosanna. I met my waiter later that day and chatted a bit with him and asked what his favorite thing on the menu was, his name was Martino and he spoke good English. I think he thought we were English because I asked for chips with my sandwich and he told me they were different kind of chips than I would expect. I know in England chips are French fries so when I got potato chips like I would normally refer to as chips, I figured he thought we were English. From the tabacco store we and the girls headed to the Piazza del Campo. We know right where it is today so we immediately head to the Mangini tower and go inside. Its got this cool arched entry way when you go inside (see pictures), almost castle like. The girls decide they want to pay the 7 Euros to go to the top… all 400 steps and 83 meters. I am tempted to go with them but Ben and I decide to pay 10 Euro to see the Duomo, Baptistery, Museum, and Cripta (basement of the Duomo). As the girls go to the top, Ben and I snap some more pics and I meet a couple from Hong Kong. We then head over to the Baptistry which is a couple blocks away. Inside, the ceilings are painted and each wing has a section portraying 1 of 12 scenes that are derived from the apostles creed. In the center is the baptismal, which is where the baptisms took place. It is a marble structure with more Bible scenes carved throughout it (check out the pic with me in it). Several artists combined forces to carve this incredible structure including Donatello and Ghiberti (the guy that won the rights to design those “doors of paradise” in the competition I blogged about earlier). The pictures don’t really do any of these places much justice but when you are in a place that is 800 years old you can’t not snap several, regardless of how they turn out. We then head to the Crypt (Cripta in Italian) which is basically an under ground area below the Duomo with frescoes on the walls. This place wasn’t fully uncovered until 1999 because it was filled in with debree 700 years earlier. Many of the frescoes on the wall are worn down to the rock, we weren’t allowed to snap any pictures in here. Several sections on the wooden floor were glass so we could look down and see at some points 30 additional feet below, where the base of the cathedral was. We could hear construction workers on the other sides of the walls as well. From here we head to the Museum of the Duomo, which basically houses some of the works that were originally in the Duomo. It is here that we run into another group from Oklahoma that is studying abroad. We follow them in and I visit with a few of them, it turns out they are in the middle of a class. Their teacher’s name is Kirk who is a young rather serious guy that is clearly very knowledgeable about the art in the museum. Ben and I felt like we were crashing a party, nerd style, because we were feeding off this guys information for free. I found out from one of the other students that this guy Kirk used to be a tour guide but got offered a job from the Oklahoma Dean who was touring Siena and thought Kirk was so good that he had to hire him. He starts explaining about this statue of Miriam (sister of Moses in the Bible) sculpted by a guy named Giovanni Pisano, and how it was a classical style, emphasizing the individuality of the person sculpted, this statue we saw used to be painted (polychrome) but of course it had worn out over the years. After he explained a little more about the statue, he beckons the class over to this stained glass window. At this point he noticed we were there and not a part of his class, so he begins telling the Oklahoma students that they will be tested on the material he is talking about, “which leads me to ask how I can send the test to you two guys so I can test you on it as well!” Everyone starts laughing and I respond, “how about I give you my email after the presentation.” I end up asking him if its ok if we listen in and he says that’s fine, as long as we don’t pick pocket any of his students. (He has had people listen in to his tours in the past and pickpocket while they listen in!) He starts talking about this stained glass window which is a circle divided into nine sections. The middle 3 sections (going vertical: see picture) depict three scenes from the Virgin Mary’s life: her death, her welcoming in heaven, and her overseeing a certain area while she is in heaven. The Catholic faith considers the Madonna immaculate. The outer four corners of the circle depict the four gospel writers and the symbol of the animal that their gospel represents (John is the Eagle, because his gospel is metaphysical, not synoptic like the other 3, it was said to soar over the others because of this. Matthew’s symbol is a man, because he had a jewish audience in mind and wanted to present the humanity of Christ and focus on the incarnation. Mark’s symbol is the Lion, because he wanted to emphasize the royalty of Christ. Luke’s symbol is the ox, because he wanted to show the sacrificial quality of Christ.) This window was originally placed above the altar in the Duomo. The light would shine through it symbolizing the light that the presence of God provides, he shines through giving life and transforming people and life. From here we go up some stairs and then sit at this large painting called “Maesta” by Duccio. It is about 8 feet wide and 5 feet tall, but it is just a section of what used to be a much larger painting in the Duomo. In fact it used to be 16ft by 18ft and hung near the altar. Apparantly, these painting were so big because they attempted to tell a story. In fact, that’s what they were called, “bibliopocas” meaning poor mans bible, so anybody could read it. Shown in the center of the painting is Mary holding Jesus. Several people surround her (amongst them being John the Baptist , John the Evangelist, Paul, Peter, etc.), representing the lives that were sacrificed for Christ. Apparently, the entire town played a role in the completion of this massive painting endeavor. Boxes were strategically placed around the city to accept donations in order for it to be completed, sometimes people added a section in their will to contribute to the funding efforts. It was really cool learning about this. At this point we head to the top of the Museum and it’s an amazing view of Siena from here. I snap a few with the Duomo and the tower in the background and get to talking with some of the students from the Oklahoma trip. Turns out a few were from an area I was familiar with in Dallas which made for a good conversation. From here we head to the Duomo, the best part of the tour. This thing is beautiful, and striped. The walls and columns outside and inside are zebra like. The pictures cannot capture its magnificence. Kirk only teaches us about the pulpit over in the corner further down the aisle, next to the Nave. Bishops would lecture congregations from these pulpits and read scripture from them as well. The one we see was constructed by Nicoli Pisano, who was the father of Giovanni Pisano. From here, we leave the Duomo and Ben and I part ways with the Oklahoma group, it was so great meeting them and it was nice to know we got a free tour! Ben and I end up running back into the girls near the Piazza del Campo, grab lunch (Pannini and chips!), and then head back to our hostel to grab our bags and depart for Cortona. We buy bus tickets in a tabacchi (tabacco store) and I ask the guy there in Italian how we get to the train station. He attempts to tell me in English. I tell him his English is excellent and his face lights up. Some more local interaction that I am just dying to have, complete. We get to the train station no problem and board our train. The ride to Cortona is quite scenic. The sun is setting on the Tuscan hills, if I could write poetry I would have here, but I can’t, so I didn’t. Tuscany reminds me of the rolling hills and countryside of Wisconsin a bit. The hills are a bit steeper and mountains are seen on the horizon, but it is very green, and very peaceful. We get to Cortona and the town is tiny. We missed our first train on the way there but it wasn’t a big deal because another one came thirty minutes following. We wait awhile for the bus and while we are at the stop we meet two girls that are studying from Canada. They tell us all about how great the town is and that there are actually 3 schools in Cortona, one from Canada, one group from Illinois, and another from UGA. They head up the hill on the bus with us. It is dark so we can’t really tell that we are driving up this narrow windy roads, the girls tell us its kind of frightening riding on the bus in the daytime. We get to Cortona eventually and immediately, in the Piazza Garibaldi, a friend of mine greets us and shows us to her favorite restaurant. We all eat there and I order a sausage and artichoke pizza and Ben and I split a liter of wine. It was absolutely delicious and perfect because at that point we are famished. We all end up hanging out in the one bar in town with several of the other students from the Cortona program, it is called the Lion’s pub. This town is so much different from Verona, its obvious already. It is much more quaint, much quieter, life is still. Its almost like a medieval village. The girls from the program (there are 45 girls and 1 guys… yikes!) tell us that the town loves the students from UGA. They have a bulldog memorial somewhere in town and they have gotten to know the school quite well over the years, seeing as it has been going on for about 40. We have a fantastic time visiting and jamming to American hip hop music (I still want to hear some Italian pop but American music is so popular here… it was the same in Egypt). We head back to our hostel pretty late. The funniest part of the night was watching about 20 Italian guys try to converse with Mary one of the girls on our group. They are just rambling to her in Italian expecting her to understand and she just stands there dumbfounded. I practically have to pull her away from all them, and while she is trying to talk with them I end up meeting one of the guys, sadly I don’t remember his name. I usher Mary away and say Buena Notte to them all! Our hostel is much nicer than the one in Siena, a much better bang for the buck. The rooms are bigger, the beds nicer, its certainly more welcoming. In the morning, Ben and I awake at around 9 and decide . we want to do the hike to the top to see the cathedral. The girls are long from being ready and Ben and I know that we are leaving before them because Pisa is on our agenda, not theirs. We tell them we are going to hike quick and then meet up with them to do lunch. There is one flat street on this town. The rest either ascend or descend. The girls from the Cortona program told us the night prior where to go to get on the path to the top so we find it and start trekking. This town looks like it just fell out of the sky and into the hills. Either that or it just grew out of the soil. The walls are Etruscan, and surround the city, blending into the hills. The paths are stony, yet drivable. As we make our way along the path, to our left are the town buildings, to our right is 50 miles of open sky and Tuscany scenery. The mountains are to the east, snow peaked, gleaming. A glassy lake is to the west, reflecting the sunlight. A few switchbacks later we make it to the top. There are two artists sketching the cathedral in their notebooks, but other than that, it is deserted. Further to the top is a fort, where some construction workers are busy. Save for the occasional drills and saws, it is silent. We rest at the completion of the ascent and take a few pictures, then we head back down. The one flat street takes us to the town Piazza, where locals congregate like they just got out of a high school class or something. Everyone seems to know each other. We end up running into the girls because there are only so many places you can go in a town this size. We sit on the steps to a church and order pizza at a local place. I get a cappuccino as well. A little boy checks us out and his dad ushers him away. We wander up and down the streets for a bit. Magazine and newsstands, barber shops, fashion stores, and souvenir shops constitute the majority of the buildings along this main street. Alleys heading uphill (on the left) and downhill (on the right) are thrown in here and there as we make our way along the path. Leanna and I agree that we can imagine Matt Damon doing some Bourne Identity like motorcycle stunt along these alleys. We half expect him to come flying down the hill, leap over us, and land on the other side of the street, heading down the hill on the opposite alleyway. As if this moment couldn’t get any more Italian, a man in a shiny leather jacket, young, starts playing the accordian. At that point I wouldn’t have been surprised to peer into a restaurant and see two dogs sharing some spaghetti. But I didn’t. However, in that moment, I was in a movie, or part of the town in some weird way. Its kind of hard to describe, but it was euphoric, nostalgic in some way, like I had been there before, like I was a local or something. A bit more time goes by and Ben and I agree we have to get a time picked out of when we should head out for Pisa. Our passports are still back at the hostel and after another 5 minute game of charades we tell the manager that we need to go into town and break change. We somehow get separated from the girls and “somehow” stumble into a travel agency where Laura Casella, an extremely helpful lady, speaks English and sells us a bus ticket from Cortona to the train station, and a train ticket to Pisa. If we hadn’t done this, I’m not sure if we would have made it to Pisa in time. We ask Laura some questions about her life, she has traveled many places, including California and New York. From there we head back to the hostel. We walk inside and it appears that nobody is there. Our bus literally leaves in 20 minutes and there is no sign of the guy from earlier. I keep yelling “Ciao.” Still no sign of him. Ben notices a note on the door that says he will be out until 2:30. We panic. It looks like Pisa will either not happen, or happen in the dark, and a late late return to Verona will happen. Just then, the guy returns from a room in the back of the hostel and we quickly pay him (thankfully he has change!), he gives us our passports, and we RUN to the bus stop. We made it. We take our train to Florence, then we almost miss the train change at Florence (we only have a 10 minute window to change), but again we are fortunate and we make it there. The ride to Pisa is long (about 2 hours) but we get there at about 4 o clock. At the Pisa station, we go to the kiosk to buy our ticket back to Verona, but Ben gets 20 euro eaten by the machine. It was as if a series of extremely close calls was destined to end with a complication actually following through. Eventually we hop a bus and get to the piazza where the tower is. I had been told Pisa was tourist central but I didn’t really know what that meant. Now I did. There were more Asians and Indians at this place than Italians. But the tower is in view and its larger around but shorter than I expect. Ben and I are like two kids at Disney world for the first time. We start taking as many goofy pictures as we can. We end up spending about an hour there. I buy a souvenir, a mini tower of Pisa to put on my travel collection shelf where I have the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the Washington D.C monuments, and other mini icon trinkets to where I have been. We hop a bus back to the train station, proud and content that we crammed so much in on this trip. It was a perfect orientation of Tuscany, especially for rookies. Aside from a few close calls we didn’t really undergo any major setbacks, plus we got the hang of the whole train system as well. Our ride back is eventful in itself. This weird guy approaches me on the train back in a very friendly but too friendly for comfort manner. I wish I could describe the situation to me in more detail but just picture an older gentlemen, old sweater, old man pants, forcing himself way too quickly into my personal space on the train. Ben and I both agree this man is the typecast serial killer… in any movie. He wears an old sweater, old baggy dress pants, loafers, glasses, hooked nose, balding head, hair around the sides. He is spider like, insect like actually. Like a cross between a praying mantus and a fly. As he boards the train he eyes me. I give him a head nod as he is walking to sit behind us and he stops for a brief moment, and stares at me with a weird smirk. Almost like he is checking me out in some way. He does not break eye contact, but I do. He sits behind me and at this point I am slightly relieved. 10 minutes go by and he ends up coming to join me. No joke. He steps right up by me. And puts his face 4 inches from mine. There is definitely something wrong with this guy, something mentally off, and though I don’t want to make this seem more dramatic than it may have been, Ben and I both agree that this guy couldn’t have been up to any good. I make small talk with him because in my mind I am telling myself “don’t act suspicious. Play it cool. Just act friendly towards him.” He’d talk to me in Italian and I’d respond that I didn’t understand. Thankfully, he got off at a different stop from ours… much sooner. In that moment I realized the importance of traveling with a partner. If I had been alone, I would have left. I would have made my way to a different train car. I couldn’t imagine being a girl and something like that happening to me. Though I wasn’t really frightened at the time, just kind of weirded out, thinking about this later and telling it to my roommate gave me goosebumps, but hey, it added some flavor to the trip. Two more stories, then the four hour blog experience will adjourn. We get to the Verona stop and head towards the buses when this Asian girl comes running up to us. Her English is broken and she is hurriedly stating “Napoli! Napoli!” She points to a ticket and I assume she needs me to help her get a ticket to Naples. We head over to the kiosk and I go through the process, the next train to Naples boards in 15 minutes! She gasps as she sees this show up on the screen. I go through the process and the first machine does not accept her cash. We try another and it too refuses. By the time I try the third machine I am pretty much Jack Bauer disarming a bomb, but we get her a ticket with about 8 minutes to spare and she runs to the gate thanking us in broken English profusely. Ben and I agree that it was easy to empathize. We have been in her shoes the last two weeks, and helping her brought us joy. We head to the bus then and basically take the wrong one. We think its taking us close to our residence but of course it doesn’t. Nope. Outskirts of town. So we ask 3 guys (mid twenties) where we are or how we can call a cab. Of course my phone doesn’t work to call the cabs number so the guy does it for us. While he is waiting on the phone for the cab driver, he offers to sell us some pot. A lot of pot. He also throws a cocaine offer in there too. We politely decline and he heads off in his red damaged volkswagon, the cab pulls up just then. Turns out we were on the other side of town, and we met a bunch of drug dealers. It was an all too fitting conclusion to the weekend, and it was rather nice to sleep knowing I was safe and sound and had an incredible experience. I’ve been here two weeks, and the eventfulness of the trip so far has made it seem like two years, its truly unbelievable. This week we head to Venice and tomorrow we get our tour of Verona complete with the history and entrance to the third largest Colisseum in Italy. Thanks for reading and stay posted for future blogs!

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Photos

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the gang in piazza il camp

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San Dominica cathedral

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Top of the Cortona Hill. What a hike!

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We had fun with these pics!

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Group of girls from the Oklahoma study abroad trip we met! (Callyn, Toni, and Natalie)

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The tower of Mangia.

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Gelato!

Comments

[Mom]

Just Two Weeks!!!
JB, If anyone ever tries to tell me it's not worth going somewhere for just 2 days because it's not enough time to see something, I would prove them WRONG by showing them your blog!!! I can't believe how much you've seen and done in just two weeks. Well, I can't believe how much you do in just a few hours. I love the history lessons you give too and all the great photos. Love you, Mom xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

[fred]

il coperto!
hi there! great post but...you didn't fall for the oldest trick in the book at that restaurant. All Italian restaurants charge one or two euros for il "coperto". It's like a fixed amount everyone pays (tourists and italians alike). This covers bread, grissini, olive oil, a clean tablecltoh and decent cutlery that you find on the table ("coperto" means the stuff covering the table). So I don't think you were scammed! I worked in a tourist office in Italy for..well..too many years and I've heard of so many angry tourists having mad rows with waiters over that thinking they were overcharging them! hihi! funny!

[JBThiel]

haha yeah... well i didn't mean to make it sound like we were scammed... but many ignorant tourists (like myself) certainly are surprised when that two euro charge happens, and its something we wished we would have known. Definitely good to keep in mind though... I now know its a custom over here... along with the you can't drink tap water at a restaurant custom.