The Siena Incident
Trip Start
Jan 09, 2011
1
11
27
Trip End
Feb 06, 2012
Siena, Tuscany, Italy
Thursday, January 19, 2012
So today we decided to take a day trip to Siena. Apparently it's a picturesque little town that has a beautiful courtyard that once a year has one of the most dangerous horse races ever. Thankfully, we're not going during that time of year. So we arrived at the Florence train station with plenty of time to spare, went for a walk and bought an umbrella, and then purchased our ticket. We headed over to where 3 Trenitalia employees assured us the train would be at and with several others(mostly tourists like us), we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Then the train showed a 5 minute delay. So we waited again. 5 minutes became 10 minutes up on the board. Then after another 5 minutes, delayed became cancelled. So we wandered over to the Trenitalia office to try and get a refund for our ticket. No go on that. Apparently they don't do refunds if the single ticket is under 10 Euros. You basically have to accept that they stole your money, or take the next train. So, we took the next train.
I'm going to be writing a very angry and comprehensive email to Trenitalia when I return to Canada, and they can't possibly screw me again. I'm getting tired of the utter uselessness that this nationalized company provides. Seriously. These idiots make me wish I was waiting on hold to talk to "Dave" from customer service. At least "Dave" isn't a pompous, useless asshat. Next time we come to Italy it'll be on a group tour, so someone else has to deal with these idiots. I'm one encounter away from a meltdown and a trip to Italian prison. Grrrr.
Anyway, we arrived in Siena without further incident, and it's a beautiful town. Nora will be featured in some more asian people's vacation photos. We walked to the Piazza del Campo, which is where they have insane horse races twice a year in July and August, which are characterized by numerous horses dying in falls. Luckily, we visited in the middle of January, and no horses were to be seen, just a huge plaza with numerous restaurants and shops along the edges.
After taking in the view of the plaza, we wandered into a gelatto shop. I had mango, Jayne had chocolate. The mango was kind of bland, but still good. After that we began a short walk to the Duomo, a gigantic gothic cathedral.
Now, the Duomo is immense, and made to look even larger by being wedged into a small plaza. It completely dominates everything around it, and owes the fact that it's still around to the black death. Seriously. The people of Siena were going to expand it until the black death swept in and killed the majority of the town. After that they could never find the funds or the workers. It was only in modern times that they finally discovered that the foundation wouldn't have been able to support the weight of the planned addition. So three cheers for the black death I suppose. The cathedral was incredibly impressive, and rather inexpensive to get into. We wandered in, and took in the sheer size of the building. It was imposing, and had a black and white striped pattern that for some weird reason put "Walk like an Egyptian" into my head. It was no where near as gaudy as Il Gésu was in Rome, and had a very calm and solemn feel to it. I really enjoyed it, and it made me forget about the headaches incurred by Trenitalia in our adventure to get to Siena to see it. It's probably one of the coolest cathedrals I've been to, and I've been to Canterbury and Salisbury. Very awesome. Siena was a total must see.
Now we're heading back to Florence, or Firenze as the locals call it. The guy at the train station got confused when I called it Florence. The joys of living in Saskatchewan - the name so large it only needs one. The plan is to get some pasta and then head back to the B & B and get cleaned up for bed. If you're reading this those goals have been achieved.
Cheers!
Mark
Fun Fact:
We took 8 escalators from the train station to the top of Siena's walls(where the path to the city centre began).
P.S.
According to the weather channel we might experience our first batch of bad weather - in the form of rain - tomorrow. Fingers crossed that the sun sticks around and the rain goes somewhere that it's needed. Like Naples. That town needs a shower.
