Italy trip report (long, with pics)

[JoeDimaggio]

No trip to Napoli or Palermo? You missed out on all the great southern cooking [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]. That northern stuff.... forget about it. But then again, not much to see in southern Italy either.

[daryn]

mmm eagerly awaiting florence portion

[BigPoppa]

I, also, would consider the afrodredmullet to be the highlight of the trip.

[kipin]

This trip report is most excellent.

[nolanfan34]

Part two - Siena

Tuesday afternoon we headed out on the train for the ride from Rome to Siena.

We primarily relied on trains to get us from city to city in Italy. The cities we went to were so walkable, with the train stations centrally located, which makes it easy. We bought train tickets as we went as well - they have automated machines which make it easy.

That reminds me of when we purchased our tickets to Siena. It was pretty busy, and I was wading through the ticket menus to get our seats, etc. The old lady was behind us, and suddenly she starts helping push buttons to speed things up, etc. I'm like WTF, but I guess maybe she's in a hurry, whatever.

So I finish up getting the tickets, and she has her hand out now, looking all sad, asking for 1 euro for her "help" with the machine. All right old lady, well played. Gave her some spare change.

So we rolled into Siena, which is one place where the train station is outside of town a bit. Our book recommended grabbing a bus, which sounded good because we didn't feel like walking 20 minutes uphill to the center of town. The challenge was, figuring out the bus schedules and where they were going was a little tricky when you don't know the street names and stops.

Fortunately, there was another couple at the bus stop who were obviously facing the same dilemna. The wife basically would ask each bus driver if they were going to Piazza Gramsci, where we wanted to go. After a few "no's", we finally got on a bus that seemed to be a "yes". Or so we thought.

Well, after looping around parts of the city for a few minutes, we realized the bus was heading out of town - to a town 10 miles away. After we realized this we had no choice but to get off at some deserted country road bus stop, and try to hop another bus back into town. Good times!

You try figuring it out:



After that detour, we finally made it into town and found our hotel.

Siena is a very interesting medieval type of city, with really narrow streets. Lots of shopping, food, wine, etc, and really a ton of young Italian students as well.

Average Siena street:



The big draw in the city is the large Duomo and square in the middle of town (name always escapes me for some reason). It's a huge plaza with a bunch of restaurants and people essentially hanging out, living the Italian lifestyle.




So after checking out the square, we hit the streets to see some shops, etc. Mrs nolanfan is a dental hygienist, and was very excited to find a shop that carried dental supplies exclusively! She always has patients tell her they can't find any floss when they travel, dirty liars.



We also found a couple of other good Truth in Advertising examples. Um, how much for cocktails?



Also, apparently to make pasta sexy, you just need alcohol. Lots, and lots of alcohol.



That night, we went out to eat, and I had one of the most confounding meals of my life. It still toys with my emotions, I tell ya.

We used a Rick Steves recommendation, and picked out a recommended bistro, which was supposed to feature some good food. So we were seated inside, and the waiting began.

After getting our menus, we waited about 15 minutes before anyone came over to take our order. The guy running the place had been chatting it up with another table (also Americans), but was essentially ignoring us. So finally he comes over to order, and we try to place our order. We were ordering an appetizer, and when my wife tried to order a secondi, he stopped us.

See, Italian menus are split up into appetizers, primi's, which are first courses, then secondi's, the heavier second course, with side dishes listed last. Traditional dining would dictate that you would eat in courses, but since it's a ton of food, most places will let you skip portions if you don't want them. For someone like my wife, there's no way she's going to eat a pasta dish and then want a filling steak dish after that, for example.

Anyway, wasn't happening at this place. The guy starts explaining that can't order an appetizer and then go to a secondi, we have to get a primi, etc. Now, if the place was packed and busy I can sort of understand his logic, need to maximize the use of the table, etc. But it was early in the dinner hour, and the place wasn't that busy.

So he leaves, and doesn't come back to take our order again for another 10 minutes or so. We decide to skip the app, and my wife gets a tuscan soup for primi, and braised beef for secondi. I get a ravioli, and a wild boar dish. And because some of the names are hard to pronounce, I make sure to point to the menu where appropriate.

The food finally comes out, and it's fantastic. My ravioli was a cheese and vanilla dish, which was an interesting taste combination, and really excellent.

Then our secondi's come out, and the runner brings me the wrong dish. I try to explain I ordered the boar, and she takes it back. A minute or two later, the waiter BRINGS THE WRONG DISH BACK to the table, and explains to me that he thought I ordered that dish, and shows me his notepad where he wrote it down, like that will somehow convince me "you know, you're right, I really did mean to have the rabbit, I'll just take that instead". He begrudgingly took the dish back, and told me I'd have to wait now for a new dish, which I said was fine.

Finally my meal came out, and again, the food was incredible! It was such a weird experience, because on one hand the service was incredible slow and rude, but on the other hand we were having a truly fantastic meal. I'm still conflicted about the meal, as you can see. The nice thing about eating in Italy is you don't have to worry about tipping in a situation like this![/nittyness]

Wednesday

Wednesday morning, we got up and had to make a run to the grocery store. After the Rome experience, I was looking forward to this again. This is where I discovered the awesome Italian alcohol section.

Despite the fact that most other items are relatively expensive compared to the states, alcohol for some reason is fairly cheap. Case in point - This would be about $10 or $11 US - thank god this wasn't that cheap in college:



One Euro Chuck? Take that California!!



There was also a sweet lemon flavored vodka that was about 4 euro for a 2-liter, it was sick.

I was also excited to find something I had never seen before - the beer 3-pack!! This was about $1.50 US.



After our shopping trip, we had lunch, and headed over to the Duomo to check out the church and tower where you can get a good view of the city.

Outside of the Duomo, we spent a while watching people take pictures in front of it. European women are awesome, they come up with these really serious poses for their pictures, looking at the camera like they are just really disgusted that someone is taking their photo.

Awesome pose example:



We watched the picture taking display for a while, then checked out the church.

Took a bunch of pictures inside, but they didn't turn out that great due to the lighting. Regardless, it's hard to not be impressed by the size and grandeur of the place. Siena's Duomo has amazing marble inlay floors which we were lucky to see, because they're only uncovered for Aug-Oct.

Next, we headed up the tower to catch some great views of the city.



The view was really great, and you get such a sense of chaos looking at how the houses were built together, in a seemingly random pattern, that you can really feel what it must have been like in the middle ages in a place like Siena.

Your author enjoying the sun, trying to get more tan than Dids:



Unfortunately, as the day was ending, I started to get a migraine headache. This happens occasionally to me when I don't get enough sleep, and the jet lag took a little toll.

Point of the story - with little appetite, we decided to just grab a snack, and stumbled onto the one location where you can see the greatest concentration of Italian locals - McDonalds.

Seriously, the place was pretty packed, and there were basically no tourists in the place. And, the decor was really nice, like it was some sort of fancy modern bistro, compared to a US McDonalds.



Weird stuff!

Thus ended our trip to Siena. We went to bed, and planned for an early departure to our next stop - Florence, home of many Daryn look-a-likes.

[Peter Harris]

mmm i loved Siena. And Cinghiale (wild boar) is great. Shame to hear about the haughtiness.

I much preferred Siena to Florence.

[HammerinHank]

[ QUOTE ]
After refreshing ourselves, we headed back to our hotel, and found a little grocer for lunch. Picked up a couple of awesome panini's and beers, which were great. We were loving Italy so far.


[/ QUOTE ]

You drank BEER in Italy. Heresy!

[nolanfan34]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
After refreshing ourselves, we headed back to our hotel, and found a little grocer for lunch. Picked up a couple of awesome panini's and beers, which were great. We were loving Italy so far.


[/ QUOTE ]

You drank BEER in Italy. Heresy!

[/ QUOTE ]

No way, beer is big over there too. It was funny though, basically every cafe or bar I saw over there had the exact same selection of beer, with a few exceptions - Peroni, Moretti's, Budweiser, Heinekin, and Ceres.

Don't worry, we had plenty of wine, I'm getting to that.

[nolanfan34]

[ QUOTE ]
mmm i loved Siena. And Cinghiale (wild boar) is great. Shame to hear about the haughtiness.

I much preferred Siena to Florence.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, the boar was really excellent. Siena was fun, I think it would have been more fun without the migraine, we didn't get a chance to just hang out in the square that much that night.

Florence of course is the next part of the trip. It's so hard to compare cities because they're just so different, but I probably prefer Florence if we could go back again.

[Oski]

Great report so far! My wife and I took a similar trip in Sept. 2001. We also followed Rick Steves' tour books. I can't wait to see your TR on Cinque Terre. There's a good chance you stayed in Vernazza and possibly in the same place we did. Anyhow, keep up the good work, thanks for bringing back the good memories.

P.S. Our photo album probably looks 95% like yours (different people, of course).