Arrivederci Firzenze! Ciao Siena!

Today started off on the wrong foot as we overslept.  Our wake-up call never came and with no clock in our hotel room, we woke in a frenzy and ran around the room packing our things and frantically preparing for our last day in Florence and our transfer to Siena.  Another problem I found when I woke up this morning was some strange looking bug bite on my left leg.  It was so large and itchy that I could not bear the thought of wearing pants.  I threw on shorts, which led to more dismay just a short time later…

We finally got out the door at 11 a.m. (two hours later than we had planned), which put us at the Duomo right at the peak of tourist traffic.  Since this was our last day in Florence, we knew we just had to deal with the lines and wait it out.  The line to get into the church didn’t take very long after all, and we made it inside in less than 15 minutes.  As soon as we got to the front of the line though, the guard shook his head at me that I could not go inside in my shorts.  Vendors on the street were selling scarves to cover women’s exposed shoulders and arms, so I frantically tried to pay a vendor for one of his scarves.  An Italian guard came over to me, and I can understand Italian enough to know that he told me if I bought I would be arrested (or maybe he said banned?) from the church.  He lifted the gate for me to run out to the square and purchase a proper cover up.  What a disaster, considering I had been wearing pants all week, despite the intense heat, and knew this rule about entering churches.  The stupid, itchy bug bite really threw me off!  After scrambling to find a scarf in a place where I wouldn’t be arrested, I finally was able to enter the church.  It was beautiful inside!

Then we got in the line to climb the steps to the top of the Duomo (or dome).  This line did not move nearly as quickly.  We waited in line for at least 40 minutes before we got inside to climb the stairs.  The stairs were narrow and steep, but the climb was well worth it!  At the very top we saw the most incredible views of all of Florence.  The red rooftops and all of the views were just gorgeous!

After the Duomo, our time in Florence had come to an end.  We got one last sandwich and gelato, and immediately headed for the buss to Siena. The bus ride was beautiful, the road surrounded by green rolling hills. 

Our hotel in Siena was exactly as imagined—a rustic bed and breakfast in the middle of the Tuscan countryside.  We took a bus into the square, called Il Centro, and enjoyed watching the nightlife around us.  As Kyle put it, “This is the coolest square in Italy.”  We ate our first spaghetti pomodoro, which as basic as it sounds, was incredibly delicious tasting of basil and rich tomato sauce.

To conclude our somewhat “off” day in Italy, we caught the bus back to our hotel, just as the bed and breakfast manager had described, but our bus driver was busy chatting on the phone and blew past our stop before screeching to a halt over a mile later.  At this point it was pitch dark and we had no idea where we were.  She yelled something at us in Italian while motioning with her hand backward.  We assume that meant we needed to walk back in the other direction to reach our hotel.  After about a mile of walking in the dark with small Italian cars whizzing by, we determined that we had no idea where we were and nothing looked familiar.  Luckily, we came across an elderly man walking his dog, and again our Rosetta Stone Italian lessons came in handy.  “Dove il Palazzo di Valli?” asked Kyle, pointing at the hotel on our cheap map.  The man said “a destra!” and pointed ahead.  He simulated driving a car and told us it was “not far.”  Not far by car, we decided as we walked another half a mile to where we finally reached the gate of our hotel.  At least we ran across this nice man so we knew we were headed in the right direction.  I've never been so relieved to reach the gates of an unfamiliar hotel before!  Moral of the story is: when in doubt, take a taxi!