Day 110: Friday, May 6, 2011

How perfectly Italian.  Tiny streets lined with the Italian flag.

This morning we woke up to the Tuscan sun shinning brightly through our apartment window.  We opted out of the 10E breakfast which consisted of a croissant and coffee and hit the road immediately.  We had a lot of ground to cover today: Sienna, Chianti Wine Tour, and San Gimignano.  As we approached Sienna, we could see the towering walls circling the entire city.  Sienna was much bigger than Lucca, so when we found a parking spot, we made sure to "save location" in our GPS to avoid getting epically lost in the inevitable maze of a city.  As we walked through the walls, we were immediately bombarded with hundreds of little shops selling anything and everything.  There were purse and wallet shops, wine shops, pasta and bread and cheese shops, pillow shops, pottery shops (of course), and everything in between.  We walked up the main strip, stopping in pretty much every store.  It took us about 30 minutes to go 100 yards!  We realized we had to pick up the pace a little bit, so we started to pass by some of the shops that looked identical to the one next door.  We finally made it to the Duomo, which was spectacular to say the least.  The uniqueness of the structure made it beyond exquisite...the entire thing was black and white stripped.  We took our time walking around the outside of it before making our way inside.

One of the many, many, many pottery shops

After spending a sufficient amount gazing at the zebra inspired church, we made our way to Piazza del Campo, the huge piazza right in the center of Sienna.  It is a huge circle outlined with many restaurants, a few shops, and a bell tower nuzzled right in the corner.  We sat our little butts down right on the pavement for a few minutes, enjoying the beautiful weather, European culture, bustling piazza, and each others company.   

Momma and I in Piazza del Campo

Piazza del Campo

Sienna bell tower in Piazza del Campo

On top of the tower!

After the piazza, we climbed a tower next to the Duomo which offered some of the most spectacular views of the vineyards that surrounded us!  We climbed a narrow, enclosed, cement stair case for about 10 minutes before reaching a narrow platform a couple hundred feet off the ground.  We thought we had reached the top and we were more than impressed with the views we were getting.  We were informed a couple of minutes later that there was another set of stairs leading to an even higher platform, and we were excited at the possibility of an even better view.  And that doesn't even begin to describe it.  After we waited for a couple people to make their way down from the upper deck (because the surface area was so tiny it could only accommodate a few people at a time!) we spiral stair cased  our way up to the top!  And if possible, the view was 100x better.  We could see for miles upon miles upon miles.  We gazed at the rustic tile roofs on the houses below and the endless vineyards that reached all the way to the horizon.  Tuscany has to be some of the greenest country left on this earth.  There wasn't an industrial park, or black smoke, or even a car to be seen.  It was about as serene and peaceful as it could get!

After we made our way back down to the ground, we all wanted to grab a piece of pizza then head back to the car.  Or once again, that was the plan.  For some reason none of us had our bearings at all and we were completely lost.  And our attempt to "save the location" of our car failed...it was nowhere to be found in the GPS.  We walked in circles for about 20 minutes before asking for directions, but even the directions we got were unclear and seemed incorrect.  We decided to just get out of the walls that surround the city, then take it from there.  But even that proved to be a bad idea; we had absolutely no idea where we were!  Thank god we at least took note of the hotel that we happened to park next to, so we could use that as some sort of a landmark as we were desperately trying to make our back.  After many failed attempts, we eventually determined that bus number 2 or 5 would drop us off near the hotel.  So we walked to the bus stop and waited...and waited...and sweat...and waited a little longer...and sweat a little more, until the bus finally came!  There were buses stopping in front us every two minutes, bus number 3, 7, 9, 10, number 3 again, number 9 again, basically every number besides 2 or 5.  It was unbelievable.  When we finally did get on the bus, we realized that we could not have been further from our car.  It was about a 20 minute bus ride to where we were parked, I really don't know how we got so turned around!

When we finally got back in the car, we headed off deep into the vineyards so we could taste authentic Chianti wine.  We had read about a couple spots in one of the tour books, so we set the GPS and off we went.  We stopped in one town that was barley a dot on the map and popped in for a quick taste!  It wasn't as authentic as we had hopped.  The building we did the tasting in was really modern; it was an all white, concrete building with really state of the arc wine tasting equipment.  It didn't feel like we were in the heart of Tuscany!  We tasted about five different wines as we listened to the connoisseur tell us more about what we were drinking.         

From there we went to a teeny tiny little town that was about 10 shops in length.  As we walked through, many had open doors and free wine tasting available.  It was an adorable little street with the friendliest locals.  We bought some strawberries from a fresh market and walked through, tasting a sips of wine here and there.  I bought a bottle of wine for Kevin and his parents at one of the little shops here; I thought it would be cool to bring back authentic Chianti Wine, straight from the Chianti region in Tuscany.

Afterwards, we headed to San Gimignano, another little Tuscan town buried within the hundreds of miles of fields and vineyards.  It was more of the same thing, an teeny tiny little city packed wall to wall with authentic shops.  We walked the streets, blended in with the locals (not), and then stopped for dinner.  After dinner we headed back to our hotel.  We were exhausted from a long day of go-go-go, so we were all more than happy to crawl into bed!  

Sissy and I in San Gimignano