Siena
August, 2006 My cousin and I, lounging around one night in Rome, decided to visit Siena, an ancient village snuggled deep in the hills of Tuscany. The night before this undertaking, we thought it would be a good idea to stay up and talk into the wee hours of the morning about deep and serious things. That hurt when we got up early to hop a train bound north. Running late, we also decided not eating was a good plan. Ah well, we were in Italy. Who ever heard of gong hungry in Italy?
Siena was as charming as only Siena could be, beautiful, and cut by small cobblestone streets that wound tightly up the side of the mountain. We passed under ancient arches and between dwellings crammed along the street, piled one upon another, their windows opened to the street. We caught glimpses of the vast, rolling countryside streaked with hazy hues of blue and green as we made our way slowly to the crest of the hill. At the final peak, we paused to explore the stunning architecture of an ancient church standing like a sentinel above the hills and valleys.
All was going according to plan until we found the payphone and called a restaurant in Florence. This wasn't just any restaurant, it was, apparently, the best food in Italy. We were to meet our friends there at a specific time, but we had tarried too long in Siena and realized we were going to be late. Attempting to leave a message for our friends, we found the restaurant was closed for fiere-- vacation month in Italy. We had only one choice now: rush to Florence and meet our friends on time outside the locked restaurant, where they would surely be waiting.
We made our way down the mountain only to discover we'd gone down the wrong side. The steps we had taken in a matter of hours we now had to retrace in 20 minutes. Ravenous, exhausted, but not failing to see the humour of our situation, we re-crested that hill in record time and threw ourselves down the correct side, rushing down the final street and into the train station just in time to watch our train pull away. Crestfallen, we put together a plan. We would simply stay in Siena for dinner and make our way back to Rome on the last train. Back up the hill we went to get something to eat (at last). It was about 5:00 in the evening and as we wandered past multiple closed restaurants, we realized eating time in Siena began promptly at 7 and not a moment before. So we wandered and wandered and wandered until finally we gave up all hope of a full service restaurant and stumbled into the next open place we saw. I kid you not, we found ourselves in Pizza Land, in the middle of Italy. "God bless Pizza Land," quoth my cousin, who still says it now and again. Pizza Land was everything it promised. Full, and more exhausted, we returned to the train station for the return to Rome, where we discovered we didn't have enough money for the tickets. I swore I'd stuffed 30 euro in my pockets, but it was nowhere to be found. So we hunted, we dug, we scrounged, we turned our pockets inside out and gathered every coin we could find. Putting it all together, we were five cents short. I turned my pockets out again and discovered two 2-cent pieces and a penny, only to find that the ticketing machine didn't accept anything smaller than a five-cent piece. Desperate, I ran toward a man selling maps and struggled to find the word for 'change.' Things were a little bit fuzzy by then. Finally, cambiare?! sprang from my lips. The map seller laughed, but I walked away victorious, a shiny new euro-nickel in hand.
On the train, my cousin and I wandered into what we later learned was first-class (where we should not have been) and tried to fall asleep across the empty seats. By the time we reached Rome, it was late enough that the buses had stopped running. And so we dragged ourselves across the Eternal City, through the Roman nightlife, over the Tibre River and into the apartment, where we went to our respective rooms, silent, sullen and sore. Without hesitation, I flung myself into bed and left the waking world to its own devices. Yuri and I related this story to our friends the next day in explanation for why we never made it to Florence. Looking at me, my cousin nodded wisely and simply said: "Best trip ever."
Siena was as charming as only Siena could be, beautiful, and cut by small cobblestone streets that wound tightly up the side of the mountain. We passed under ancient arches and between dwellings crammed along the street, piled one upon another, their windows opened to the street. We caught glimpses of the vast, rolling countryside streaked with hazy hues of blue and green as we made our way slowly to the crest of the hill. At the final peak, we paused to explore the stunning architecture of an ancient church standing like a sentinel above the hills and valleys.
All was going according to plan until we found the payphone and called a restaurant in Florence. This wasn't just any restaurant, it was, apparently, the best food in Italy. We were to meet our friends there at a specific time, but we had tarried too long in Siena and realized we were going to be late. Attempting to leave a message for our friends, we found the restaurant was closed for fiere-- vacation month in Italy. We had only one choice now: rush to Florence and meet our friends on time outside the locked restaurant, where they would surely be waiting.
We made our way down the mountain only to discover we'd gone down the wrong side. The steps we had taken in a matter of hours we now had to retrace in 20 minutes. Ravenous, exhausted, but not failing to see the humour of our situation, we re-crested that hill in record time and threw ourselves down the correct side, rushing down the final street and into the train station just in time to watch our train pull away. Crestfallen, we put together a plan. We would simply stay in Siena for dinner and make our way back to Rome on the last train. Back up the hill we went to get something to eat (at last). It was about 5:00 in the evening and as we wandered past multiple closed restaurants, we realized eating time in Siena began promptly at 7 and not a moment before. So we wandered and wandered and wandered until finally we gave up all hope of a full service restaurant and stumbled into the next open place we saw. I kid you not, we found ourselves in Pizza Land, in the middle of Italy. "God bless Pizza Land," quoth my cousin, who still says it now and again. Pizza Land was everything it promised. Full, and more exhausted, we returned to the train station for the return to Rome, where we discovered we didn't have enough money for the tickets. I swore I'd stuffed 30 euro in my pockets, but it was nowhere to be found. So we hunted, we dug, we scrounged, we turned our pockets inside out and gathered every coin we could find. Putting it all together, we were five cents short. I turned my pockets out again and discovered two 2-cent pieces and a penny, only to find that the ticketing machine didn't accept anything smaller than a five-cent piece. Desperate, I ran toward a man selling maps and struggled to find the word for 'change.' Things were a little bit fuzzy by then. Finally, cambiare?! sprang from my lips. The map seller laughed, but I walked away victorious, a shiny new euro-nickel in hand.
On the train, my cousin and I wandered into what we later learned was first-class (where we should not have been) and tried to fall asleep across the empty seats. By the time we reached Rome, it was late enough that the buses had stopped running. And so we dragged ourselves across the Eternal City, through the Roman nightlife, over the Tibre River and into the apartment, where we went to our respective rooms, silent, sullen and sore. Without hesitation, I flung myself into bed and left the waking world to its own devices. Yuri and I related this story to our friends the next day in explanation for why we never made it to Florence. Looking at me, my cousin nodded wisely and simply said: "Best trip ever."
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