Siena 26 Sept

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Siena Friday 26 September

As of today Geoff is officially retired. Yep, you guessed it today is his 55th birthday. We didn't plan any special events today, just make our way to the old town, look around, shop and come back this afternoon and eat at a local pizzeria.

The day started out well with a nice breakfast looking over the Siena countryside from our hotel dining room. The orange juice was a tad interesting, not quite as sweet as Fanta but somewhere along that spectrum. We had cereal and tinned fruit for the first time which made us feel very healthy, but finished it off with croissant / bread and jam. Oh well we'll get healthy when we get home. We then managed to buy bus tickets at a local tobacco shop (the WHOLE of Europe smokes and drops the butts in the streets!) and get a bus to the centre of the old town. We sauntered around looking at some very chic shops with prices to match, before stopping at the large open square for a mediocre lunch. You can't always pick fabulous places to eat as its a bit of a lottery. Up to now it has been more hit than miss, so we'll put the half warm food down to experience.

By around 2pm we were getting a bit tired and looked for the bus to take us back to the hotel. Our helpful hotel staff had said the No. 5 would be one of a number of buses that would bring us past the hotel. We caught the bus with confidence only to find it heading east out of Siena! After all the passengers had disembarked and we were about 8km from Siena the bus stopped in a large gravel carpark in the middle of nowhere. Not wanting to panic we approached the bus driver and asked (by pointing at the map) if the bus would be going back to the starting point in town. Initially the driver wanted us to get off until I insisted that back to town was where we wanted to go. This was obviously his rest point before retracing his bus route (thank god he wasn't changing to another route entirely) and eventually we ended up back where we started. We decided walking back to our hotel was the sensible thing to do as we were now very rested! Our little adventure took about 1.5 hours! When we explained our stupidity to the lovely girl on reception later in the day over a small drink she informed us there are 2 number 5 buses and we should have taken the one on the other side of the street. I console myself with the thought of poor travellers coming to Canberra trying to navigate our bus system to get to major attractions!

The rest of the day went quietly with dinner and a movie (on the laptop) finishing off a very exciting day. Happy Birthday darling.

Ciao

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Comments

[noni]

Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday Geoff, hope you have a good day, try some italian wine for us, they say the Rose is nice! Sue keep away from those short curly black headed italian boys, I have met one once in my life and they are cute, even worse are the greeks! Cheers

[Anne and Paul]

Happy Birthday
Dear Geoff and Sue Happy Birthday Geoff and welcome to the 55+ world although you got there a little bit early thanks to Kevin 07! Your blogs are a real highlight and such fun to read. Coffee in Manuka will be so boring after your experiences! Thank goodness you got back on the #5 bus but it doesn't sound as if you have made too many blunders along the way considering the travels you have undertaken. I look forward to hearing about Pais and your adventures on the Somme. Travel well and continue to have the time of your lives Anne