THE ROAD TO SIENA...

Another early wake up call this morning at 6am. The extra 15 minutes was gold! Funny enough were starting to sleep early and we agreed on a rule – no coffee after 3pm. As hard as this is, it’s the only way I’ll get sleep.

Half asleep we dump our suitcases outside the door and stroll downstairs to the breakfast hall again to deal with another Italian day. While loading up the table with munchies we spotted Good Old at the coffee machine looking completely lost again. I don’t understand. How hard can it be to press a button on the coffee machine? We watched her in amusement.

The Coffee Machine & Good Old below

We loaded up for lunch before returning back to the room to prepare for the day. We board the bus around 7:20am for Florence via Siena. Within 20 minutes I pass out on the bus to be dreaming away. I have random moments where I wake up to hear Lucy pouncing on the camera button without lifting her finger. I think she managed to capture a whole gig of sunflower photos.

Sunflowers on the way to Siena

I’m forced up when we pull into an Autogrill stop. Lucy and I are walking to the Autogrill when she complains it smells like shit. I turn around and say “Welcome to Florence”.The whole city stinks of piss. The minute we hit Autogrill I hit the bar for espresso’s. Lucy and I knock one back to realize we actually enjoyed the taste of it. We question whether or not to hit another one. We stroll around Autogrill to suss out what we can buy. Of course we spot the alcohol section and immediately get tempted. Lucy pulls out her camera to take photos left right and center.

Eventually we jump back onto the bus to head towards Siena. I try to nap again but this doesn’t happen due to the espresso. Somewhere along the trip Lucy points out something to me. I turn around to see what she’s been staring at for the last 10 minutes.

Lucy states it’s like a claw hence Meet Clawfeet…

Clawfeet

We both know Matt would drool all over it with his weird obsession about sucking on peoples toes. Clawfeet’s husband came with many names. Lucy claimed he looked liked a guy from a Colgate Ad where as I stated he looks like his from the Golden Girls TV Series. Hence Clawfeet husband is Colgate guy slash Golden girl’s guy. Yes I know we have issues with people.

We arrived in Siena to start exploring in the limited time we had here. I had heard so much about Siena over the years and how beautiful it was. I was pretty impressed with the small village. It was a typical Italian hill top town with its narrow streets and warm friendly locals.

Siena Streets

Below - A local woman waving to us

A freak from Siena watching us...

More of Siena Streets

Cabbage Patch lead us half way and showed us where the Duomo was for thoses interested. Of course we were. Who would come to Siena and miss seeing the Duomo. We quickly raced towards the Duomo for our photo shoot.

We managed to find the Duomo to take our photos and yes this looks like it’s under construction too. We tried entering the Duomo to realize there was a mass on and we couldn’t enter so we had to take photos from the outside.

Duomo @ Siena

Once we finished taking photos of the Duomo we headed to the town centre to explore. We took brief photos before setting up a picnic in the middle of the square. Unfortunately we had no blanket or a picnic basket. We only had the stolen breakfast wrapped in 50 tissue papers and the sun shining on us.

Siena Square

Above - NV @ Siena Square

Below - NV @ a water fountain in Siena Square

Below - An old couple filming a documentary with a 1920's camera

Once we had lunch we started walking around and thought about climbing the tower. Lucy discovered we had to pay to climb the tower and the fact there was a queue we decided to give it a miss. Instead we hit the streets to explore. We spent more time running after dogs. Lucy’s theory was she should get photos for Good Old so we can see her have an orgasm over them in front of us. God some where along the road we discovered a monster dog for Good Old.

Old Siena Streets

Soon we realized we needed a toilet so we ducked into the nearest bar for coffee. We ordered coffees and Lucy wanted gelato as well. I would have to say this was the worst coffee I had in Italy. It wasn’t that nice and it wasn’t served at the warm temperature that it was supposed to be. Instead it was boiling hot.

We hit panic mode when we realized we were almost out of time here. We raced out of the bar to get completely lost and realize nothing looks familiar. We managed to find the same bar we had coffee in to ask for directions. Some random chick tried giving us directions and surprisingly we followed it for a change to find the meeting point.

We arrived to the meeting point trying to capture our breath. While trying to catch our breath we started talking to Good Old & Ron. Good Old started chasing some dog that ran away from her. She looked totally confused on why a dog would run away from her so she sneaked up on the poor dog and practically attacked it from behind.

Meanwhile Ron who walked around with a walking stick decided to purchase a new one. While walking back to the bus Ron off loaded his old walking stick to the Scottish woman who seriously needed it. Even though Ron off loaded his old walking stick he informed us that he would miss it as he can't use his new walking stick to slam it onto his students desk. Hence we discovered Ron was a school teacher. I think he teaches history from memory. Lucy stated he would be the perfect teacher as he forgets half the things he says. You could easily convince him you handed an assignment in when you didn’t.

Oh and did we know that there was 4 or 5 other Australian couples on the tour - I THINK SO!

We eventually got back onto the bus for our next stop – Florence.