Siena

This morning we departed the steep slopes of the Cinque Terre and headed inland towards Siena. It just so happened that one particularly famous town was on the way. Any guesses?

Needless to say, Dawn was not the only tourist holding up the Leaning Tower, which, fortunately, has not yet fallen down. It's interesting that the tower is only famous because the Italians are excellent designers, but not quite as excellent at building foundations. From Pisa, we continued on secondary roads - aka winding, hilly and convoluted - through the Tuscan countryside that was not short on scenery.

The occupants of our car were pretty much in awe as we got our first glimpses of Siena.

As it turned our Hotel, the Chiusarelli, was a heartbeat away from the previous scene

and right across the street from this church.

By the time we checked into the hotel, Tony was going down for the count. He was feeling a little punky this morning and I suspect the windy drive didn't help. So the three remaining survivors headed out on foot to explore ancient Siena, with history going back to 900-400 BC. Our first major site on the walk was the Campo square, the location of the the famous horse race once a year.

The panorama above, is a good reason to take the iPhone pano shots to capture the entire square. The next major attraction in the old town is the Santa Maria Church, which we didn't go into because they wanted 7 Euros a person. The Italians love to charge for a look at their churches, something the French don't do and I have a problem with that.

This was an amazing walk, especially since we had to regularly dodge vehicles zooming through the narrow streets. They haven't really grasped the concept of pedestrian walking streets.

Of course, no walk would be complete without some serious window shopping. In this case, it was fine Italian leather shoes.

By dinner Tony had not arisen, so the three of us headed to the restaurant in the hotel. The menu was nicely in English, so we felt comfortable ordering, not that I necessarily trust the translations. Dawn and Jackie shared a millefeuille of vegetables with basil sauce while I had Bufalo mozzarella with something?? There was no reliable translation available. For mains Dawn and Jackie had grilled chicken thighs with rosemary and mustard, while I had beef with mushrooms. Both dinners were large and we had difficulty finishing them, but we all shared a custard ice cream with a coulis of berries for dessert. With dinner, we drank a red Poliziano from Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, which is not far from here. After dinner we headed out with the camera to capture some night images of Siena.