Day 12 - Siena

We woke up to an absolutely gorgeous morning. After breakfast we jumped in the car and scooted toward Siena. Had I had all my camera equipment and the day off, it would have been perfect for photographing beautiful Tuscany. It rained last night and the weather is cool, with hardly any humidity. Unlike most days, the haze has disappeared and giving us one last day of picturesque views.

The trip was about an hour and it was an easy one. Chatting with the person at the hotel desk before we left, they mentioned the same parking lot that Guy had found online, as Siena was supposed to have problematic parking. This lot supposedly has hundreds of spots and always has something open. Until today. The parking garage gave us a ticket and the gate opened. The claustrophobic underground parking garage's digitized sign said it had two parking spots on level -2. The gate was open and we went in and drove the entire length without finding a spot. I backed all the way up and we drove it again as some cars had passed me and we were hoping someone had left. They had not. So putting my ticket back in the machine to get out, the gate opened and led us back outside. Fortunately we spied out another parking area on the way up, that was about a 10 minute walk, and we went back and parked there.

We were in Sienna probably close to 15 years ago and as we were walking in I wasn't remembering too much until I saw the Duomo. It's quite spectacular and almost like a miniature version of the one in Milan. You had to purchase a ticket to go in, but I went as far as I could and peeked inside before I was asked to go buy a ticket from the lovely lady with the metal detector. I got several photos and the sky is blue with puffy white clouds that made for a beautiful backdrop to a truly amazing structure. Guy said "You sure did pick a good day to come here," but after waking closer to the square we commented on how many tourists there were. And then there were more. Then even more! Then...the sound of a cannon and yelling. What the heck?  So Guy goes to see what I going on while I pop into a shop. He comes to get me, excited that today they were racing the horses around the square. He was just commenting that he didn't really know a lot about Siena except for the beautiful church and the horse races. Today is his lucky day. Kinda.

Getting closer to the action we see that the police are everywhere and blocking people from getting inside the square. We guessed that because it has already started you couldn't go in. We walked near some bleachers filled with people (hence several butt shots in my photos today) as I thought that might be as close as I get. A gentleman in a shop told us in pretty good English that we would be able to enter the square in an hour or so. So we walked around the shops and watched a bit of the race on TV. All the bars had their TVs on. We walked past several shops that overlooked the races and one in particular, a perfume shop, had the windows open facing the square with no one looking out. Guy asked if we could look out and they said yes. We didn't overstay our welcome, but got lots a great photos and thanked them for the birds eye view. Next, we stopped for lunch. Guy was in the mood for just a sandwich, but when he didn't see a shop that fancied him, we went ahead and sat in a restaurant to rest our feet and enjoy a break. We ate at the Osteria il Vicolo and I had ravioli with cheese in butter and sage. He had the carbonara, commenting that it was his best so far as they've all seemed a bit salty on this trip. The pasta was cooked aldente and he was happy with it. Afterwards we visited a pastry shop and headed for the square.

The racing was over and the crowd cleared quickly. There are 17 districts in Siena and each district is represented by a flag. People walked around all day with their flags draped around them like a scarf, clearly proud of their respective areas. The mood was fun as this was a day of excitement for the locals. When I figured out the TEP wasn't on, I got the wifi going again and Guy googled Siena to get us some details. Apparently they officially race two days per year. The next race is July 2 and then one in August. Three days before the big race are preliminary races. We are here on one of those days. The district can win a race even with a horse that has no rider. We actually saw that on TV today. One of the riders fell off, but the horse kept going. Poor thing. It had to be scared but came in at a strong second. 

As we headed out to the piazza to sit and enjoy our pastries, we walked across the dirt where the horses had just been and commented on how much work it is to haul all the dirt in, then to remove it. I'll have to read up on this a bit more later. So we sat in the center and watched the families play and young people kiss as it was the ultimate people-watching location. Our pastries didn't taste as good as they looked, and not that I needed a break from gelato (NEVER!), but we like to try new things and we still enjoyed the experience. So after a nice break, we headed to a shop, that had been closed earlier, for me to pick up a few items and we came across this a.m.a.z.i.n.g. chocolate shop where they lured me in with free samples and I walked out with a delightfully stuffed bad full of treats to bring home. I guess I had chocolate sucker written on my forehead.

Back to the il Melone I took a quick nap and Guy headed to the pool with his kindle. I joined him later to start the blog as tonight after dinner we'll pack up getting ready to drive to Rome tomorrow. It won't be too hard to pack up the purchases, because there haven't really been too many. **Family notice** Not bringing home much, so expectations need to be low. It's been a wonderful trip, but shopping hasn't been too excessive. I guess because it's a repeat trip and the towns are selling all the same stuff as before, there is no real excitement in the shopping. So chocolates will have to do. :)

Dinner tonight was once again at the Cantanapoli, same place as last night. They specialized in seafood and we were eyeballing everyone's muscles last night. So we went back tonight for the spaghetti vongoli, which we both had, which was delicious. We started with the crostini, which was toasted bread with toppings. There were four: tomato and cheese, mushrooms, ham and cheese and then one mystery topping. We think it was some kind of sausage in a sauce, but it was hard to tell. Either way it was tasty. For dessert I had chocolate and coconut mousse. It was more cake than mouse, but it was lovely and I demolished it. Ahhhh vacation.

Back at the hotel we hoped to get one more sighting of the boar, but perhaps they have fixed the fence or the piggy is just a night owl. We looked, but no luck. We went ahead and checked out tonight just to save us time in the morning and went back to the room and packed our bags. We have everything we need for the next few days in Guy's smaller suitcase and we hope the big one is now packed until we get home. Rome will be fun. We like just walking around and seeing everything again. Guy is going to google things to do in Rome, just in case there is something cool we've missed in the past. We've pretty much done all the tours, but it's such a fascinating place I just like walking around. 

So goodnight from Cortona, it's been a blast. Tomorrow...Rome.