Taylor's Visit

Sorry I’ve been a little lazy with blog updates.

Two weekends ago Taylor came from Spain to visit me!! I picked him up at the train station Friday night and it was so nice to know that I got 2 whole days just to hang around with him. We went back to my apartment to meet my lovely roommates and have some dinner. I decided to show off my new culinary skills by making some veal picatta. Working in our closet size kitchen with more than one person is a little troublesome but we managed and turned out a fabulous dinner. After a lovely meal and conversation we headed out to our newly discovered local hang out, the Barron Rosso. Siena doesn’t have much nightlife but this place is usually pretty cool. So we grabbed a table in the back and chatted until the live band started up, a cover band with an interesting set list at one point transitioning Pearl Jam to Otis Redding . The odd choices made “guess the song” a fun game to play. I won surprising everyone with my random music knowledge.

Saturday we decided to be tourist in Siena and spend the day meandering around town without a real plan. We went to the Duomo as our first stop. I said before I don’t really like visiting churches but the Duomo in Siena is just beautiful! Now is also the time of year when they uncover the floors, which are amazing. There are many different inlayed marble designs in different place in the floor, some relating to bible passages and some relating to Siena. We spent quite a while in the Duomo. After leaving we took our time walking back to the apartment to get lunch. It was really neat to walk around with someone who doesn’t walk on these streets everyday it made me notice things that I missed. After some lunch we walked some more and ended up getting some gelato and basking in the sun in the Campo. It was a wonderful aimless and relaxing day.

Sunday we thought that a day trip to local hill town sounded like a great idea. After deciphering the bus schedule it looked like there was a direct bus to San Gimignano which is a beautiful little town about an hour away. We arrived at the bus station but there was no bus to San Gimignano at the specified time, so we asked a driver and he said his bus was going there we just had to change in Poggibonsi. I was confused but we hopped on and made the transfer and arrived in San Gimignano easy peasy. After arriving we spent some time exploring, and we walked up to the remains of a castle which was really neat and even had a few musicians playing medieval music too to add to the atmosphere. After walking back through an olive grove we decided to climb up the tall bell tower in the middle of town. The view from the top was just beautiful and definitely worth the climb and euros. After some more aimless wandering we decided to catch the bus back.

The first bad sign about our bus trip back was that the direct bus that was supposed to arrive at 3:30 didn’t come, then we thought that a bus to Poggibonsi should arrive soon, but no. We finally got on the bus at 4:25 thinking it would just be another easy transfer and we would be back in Siena in no time, wrong again. We arrived in Poggibonsi late and after taking quite some time to figure which of the 5 different schedules applied on Sunday we discovered we had missed the bus to Siena by about 2 minutes and the next bus was not for 2 hours. Usually being in a Tuscan city for 2 hours wouldn’t be so bad but Poggibonsi happens to be the ugliest city in Tuscany, I was told this is because it was bombed during WWII and lost all its old charm then. On a side note the last time I got stuck in Poggibonsi also happened to be while trying to reach San Gimignano when I came with my family and the Flo’s. We got turned around in a traffic circle and lost in Poggibonsi for about 45 minutes. How fitting that I get stuck here again. Finally it was getting close to the time the bust was supposed to arrive, but it was late of course but all I could think was that Taylor and I would be stranded in Poggibonsi. The bus arrived at last 15 minutes late and packed to the brim, but there was just enough room for us and our fellow Siena-San Gimignano travelers. Arriving back in Siena was such a relief and I learned a valuable lesson, don’t try and take the bus on Sundays.

Overall it was a fabulous weekend with so many great little places and views and moments. Even if Siena can seem boring, I really do love where I live. Having Taylor here was amazing and I’m so glad that he made the trip.