We arrived in Siena at 10:00AM and took a bus from the train station up to the center of town, set up on a hill. We walked around for about an hour and saw the Piazza del Campo (Siena's shell-shaped, sloping central piazza) and the Duomo ( a lovely Gothic cathedral). We then took the bus back to the train station to go to San Gimignano. We got a train to Pogglibonsi and then a bus up to San Gimignano.
I liked San Gimignano so much better than Siena. It too is set way up on a hill, but you can get some nice views of the Tuscan hills, which you couldn't get in Siena. San Gimignano is famous for its towers, and 13 of the original 72 remain. Riding up in the bus we got a beautiful view of the town, with all the towers standing above the town. They have lots of olive groves in the hills around San Gimignano.
We went to get the 4PM bus from San Gimignano back to Poggibonsi and we waited for over an hour but no bus came. We started talking to other people who were also waiting, but no one knew what was going on, or even if we were at the right bus stop. Finally, someone from the car park came out and said there had been a road accident that had the traffic all backed up.
It was getting really crowded at the bus stop, so I suggested we hitch a ride. Shari thought it would be a good idea to just go in the car park and ask people as they were getting into their cars if they would give us a ride to Poggibonsi. So that's what we did, and a British couple gave us a ride to the train station. We got there at 5:40 and our train was supposed to leave from track 3 at 6:13 for Florence. There was also supposed to be a train on track 2 at 6:12 going to Siena. The train arrived on track 2 at 6:12 and we didn't get on it, only to find out that it had been our train, and the one for Siena was late.
It was very annoying that nothing was posted to let us know of the track change for our train. The Siena train finally arrived on track 2 at 6:20, and then we had to wait until 7:05 for the next train to Florence. I was not happy with all the waiting for buses and trains, and I was concerned we would be late getting to the concert.
We got to Florence at 8:15 and walked right over to the church with plenty of time to spare. The concert was held in a lovely Anglican church and about 40 people attended. I sat in the front pew because I like to watch the musicians play, as well as listen to the music. Both the pianist and the tenor were very good, and the tenor was quite dramatic as he sang the various arias. They were both young, mid-20s, and we got a chance to talk to them during the intermission.
The performance ended about 10:30 and we stopped for a piece of pizza on the way back to the hostel. Pretty neat to sit on a doorstep, eating pizza, on a Tuesday night in September, at 11PM in Florence.
10/01: Another good breakfast at the hostel and then off to Pisa. All we did take the train to Pisa, walk from the station to see the leaning lower, took pictures and walked back to the train. The tower was much nicer than I had expected, and they now let people walk up to the top (we didn't). It had been closed for a number of years while they shored up the tower and strengthened the ground around it. It is next to a lovely church. I took pictures but I don't think they will be very good. I should have waited until I was on the far side of the tower next to the church.
Next, we got the train to La Spezia where we got informaion on Cinque Terra (five villages) and then got the 4:00PM train to Manarola (one of the 5 villages of Cinque Terra). The villages are Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. The Cinque Terra is a Unesco World Heritage site and is a National Park and Protected Marine Area. There are step terraces sloping down to the sea, which are held up by 7,000 kilometers of dry stone walling, and the slopes are cultivated as vineyards that reach down to almost touch the sea. It is beautiful here and we have seen only one village.
Monterossa is the only village with a beach and promenade. Vernazza is located at the mouth of a river and is naturally protected from the sea by a rocky promontory. Corniglia is the only village not on the sea, but it is set up on a hill surrounded by vineyards. Manarola and Riomaggrioe, which cling to the rockface with their houses stacked up in a multi-colored mosiac overlooking the sea, are the most unspoiled villages of the five. I can't wait to do tomorrow's walk from village to village.
I do enjoy some of the sightseeing in the cities, especially when we do walking tours like in Rome, but this is the kind of place where I am happiest. Natural beauty and the out-of-doors always make me feel good.
We are so lucky getting into the hostel here. We tried to call the hostel, Ostello Terra, today and couldn't get an answer, so we decided just to show up. Well, we got the last 2 beds in a woman's dorm room and we are in a 6-bed dorm room, and the whole hostel seems clean and well run. All for 16 euros a night. We booked in for 3 nights and I am very happy to be stying here.
After we checked in, we walked back down the hill to pick up a few groceries and to use the internet. We had recevied an email form AirTreks this morning telling us there was a problem trying to deliver our Costa Rica plane tickets to Kevin's home address. Mail has been my biggest problems traveling, so of course I turned to Susan and Kevin for help. It turned out that FedEx had tried to deliver to the wrong address (even though they had the correct one). Kevin called them and they agreed to redeliver the tickets to him at work. Thank goodness I have Susan (and Kevin for the London stuff) to turn to when I have a problem. I told Susan that hopefully we will have only one more "mail challenge" when she sends our St. John confirmations and my bathing suits to Kevin in December.
I also wrote to Rosalma (the woman we met in Innsbruck who lives in Genova) this morning to see if we can visit her when we finish Cinque Terra. I also called Laura at the Don Quijote Spanish language school in Barcelona to tell her we couldn't print any of the attachments she sent in our email. One attachment was a credit card authorization form, but I told her to just charge our account now, or otherwise we will fill out a form when we get there. She was so nice, and said she would let the school authorities know we are traveling and can't send the form. She also resent an email without attachements, giving us information about our classses and the residence in which we will stay. I am so much looking forward to the classes, and staying in Barcelona for 2 weeks, and I can't believe we will be there a week from Sunday.
After Shari and I used the internet in Manarola, we walked back up the hill to the hostel and wrote notes (and I had some wine), and then we walked back down the hill for dinner. We sat in a nice little patio area of the restaurant for dinner. Shari had lasagna and salad, and I had fried peppers as a starter and then gnocchi with pesto for dinner. There was a young fellow from Luxemborg, Yves, sitting next to us and we talked with him throughout the dinner. It was a very nice evening and we got back to the hostel about 10PM.
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