Siena

Siena is a super neat medieval city. It really is quite a large city in size. Built on multiple hills, makes the places more up and down then San Francisco. To out that into perspective a smudge, we got off the train and walked into the station in search of a place to drop our bags. Didn't see anything so we went up the escalator assuming it would take us to the main part of the station. Nope, just to another escalator. After that escalator we were suddenly emerged into a two level food court, with yup an escalator in between. We didn't want to eat at the food court, even though we were hungry, so we went up another escalator in hopes of getting to the main part of the station. Turns out the main part of the station indeed was what we first walked out into. In total there were ten very long escalators that we had to take to get to street level. These varied between between a normal stained escalator and a flat escalator. When we got to the top we decided to continue with our packs, we only had a few hours and wanted to make the best of it. 

Luke found us a gluten free place to eat which was quite yummy. Was cute as I mentioned Siena is hilly, this restaurant embraced that and had table outside on the hill with unbrellas, and views of the main duomo. Was a great experience. 

After lunch we headed to the Piazza Del Campo. A unique shell shaped square, that doesn't make sense but it is shaped like a shell, that they use for festivities. A real cool place. We didn't spend to much time here, but we circled back and walked through it on our way out. 

 

From there we headed to the duomo. A very impressive church that we wished we could have gone into. Not enough time but mostly we couldn't with our packs. Well you gotta leave something for next time. Think it was built with Renaissance, the stripes, and something else. The fasade was incredibly impressive. A very picturesque church.

 

We came across many things. The buildings were super neat, medieval and cool. They had some that was just a strip of building, that ran for a while with many shops, but all the same building. Then sometimes we would be walking around and look up and realize there were 5 story buildings towering over us. It was crazy. We stumbled our way through as many streets as we possibly could in our short time in Siena. 

 

Along the way we saw many of these lights, they are the street lights. For some reason I really love them and think they are great. All the cities we have been to have taps that you can fill your bottles up, they are essentially fountains but much less formal. This wolf was one we stopped to fill up at I think the coolest we have see this trip. The carriage was something we stumbled upon in one of the open courtyards we walked into. As was the well, in the picture above, which by the way was a wishing well, so that was cool. And we saw an impressive hand drawn picture of Mona Lisa on the ground. Not to certain about the flag, but I imagine it is Siena's flag, especially because they seemed to be all around sometimes.

 

There also seemed to be a church on every corner. When you look at the map you see SOOO many and so close. These were just a few that we saw. Not entirely sure why they were picture worthy except for the bottom middle church is a medieval church. Or at least the one we know for sure is. 

 

Siena was great and a place we will certainly go back to. We both wish we had more time, but glad we at least were able to see what we could. From Siena we hopped on a cute little train, only 3 cars total, and made our way back through Florence, before hopping on a high speed train to Rome. The high speed is impressive only an hour and a half from Florence to Rome. Of course going speeds of 246 km, at least that was the highest I had seen. 

When we arrived in Rome we got to our hostel. There is a loft, but unfortunately we weren't able to fit into it with our packs so we had to walk a number of flites of stairs, which was less then enjoyable, especially because I was so done with my pack by the time we got to our place. It was only a kilometre from the train station but having worn it all afternoon I was done. 

A nice hostel, very spacious, with a good bathroom. The bed and pillows are drastically better then what we had in Florence but still not my preference. In a month we will be back in our quaint little place, at will feel quite huge to us, with pillows and a bed that will be so marvellous, I could probably sleep for days. 

We got to our place and got settled, and headed for a little bit. It was 8:30, now o always bein my camera, always, even when we run to the corner store, and unfortunately I was silly and didn't this time. Luke has been to Rome twice, so this will be his third time, but this is only my second. The first time was with school and was very fast paced. I am looking forward to the next two days. 

The buildings all seem to have such an old feel to them. They look like they are more older styled but they don't look old. Ha I am sure that doesn't make sense, but I know what I mean. Can't wait for the next 2 days! 

And so the adventure continues...