well we are almost to the single digit countdown until we return to the states and if i start talking about that i'm going to cry while i type this so i will just stick with talking about the day trips we have gotten to do these past couple weeks. i know a lot of you think we don't actually have homework to do and all we do is travel, but we have been crazy busy with end of the semester group projects and we are actually going to have to study for our finals. so mom and dad, if you are reading this, you should know that i am learning a ton. and not just about how to travel in different countries.
katie bug and i were fortunate to get a train pass before we came here. there are a lot of mixed reviews and opinions on if these guys are worth the money so if you are looking into getting a eurail, let me know and we'll chat in detail, but i'll just say it has served us well and paid for itself in the first 4 days of travel. but now that the semester is winding down, we have a few travel days left and we have been trying to squeeze in some day trips within italy, even if that means taking our study material with us…. or my laptop so i can catch up on my blogging….
last week katie and i went on a trip that completely went all wrong and yet it was so much fun and we loved the little adventure it ended up being. one of the things i will miss most about italy, and especially tuscany, the region florence is in, is the countryside. when people come to italy for just a few days they want to hit up the big cities…venice, milan, rome, florence, naples, etc. and i don't blame them. but some of the most beautiful places we have been are the hill towns…assisi, siena, san gimignano, and the place we had the wine tasting with my mom when she was here at the beginning of the semester. the smaller cities are awesome, still have so much history and art, and some of them sit up on a hill and you can see for miles from them. my cup of tea.
before i came here i had never seen the movie "under the tuscan sun" and even after coming, my mom still discourages me from watching it because of the terrible storyline. but i wanted to see it because it was set in this region. still haven't seen it and probably won't but my friend jenna recommended going to cortona, the town it's set in, for the day if we had time. we thought it sounded like a good idea so we looked up in our handy dandy rick steve's guidebook and saw that there are actually several other little towns in that region that we could possibly see while we were in that area. Montepulciano and Montalcino are two cities known for the wonderful wine they produce and Pienza, we heard from our new a&m friends we met in cinque terre, is worth visiting because they are known for their pecorino cheese. we saw that they were all fairly close so we decided we were going to try to make it work where we saw maybe 3 of those cities that day and we would just figure out the train once we got there. so our first stop was cortona.
i. love. cortona. it sits on the edge of tuscany so when you look out over the countryside, you can see into the region next to tuscany, called umbria. when i checked the forecast that morning before we left, i saw that it was suppose to be sunny and 70, with a 10% chance of rain. perfect, we thought. we were tired of seeing so much rain in florence, sunshine would be nice for a change. we got to cortona and figured out that we have to get on the bus to go up to the city center to walk around. as we were waiting for the bus, it just so happened to start raining. perfect. no rain jacket, no umbrella because i'm stubborn and was trying to go the whole semester without buying one, and we are standing outside of a roofless bus stop. however, the drive up to the city was beautiful and the sun actually decided to start coming out. when we got off the bus we got to take a couple of pictures of the landscape then we were going to check the times for the bus down and there was a sign in italian of course that we think tells us that the main and only road going up to the city center will be closed all afternoon from 1:30-5:30 for buses. so if we drove a car up there we could get back down or if we wanted to take a taxi, but other than that, we wouldn't be able to use the buses to get back to the station.
we decided to use our guidebook to lead us to some of the main things there is to see but we weren't very successful. we got to see a cool market in the main piazza since it was saturday and we walked down to see a church but it was closed. by the time we walked back up the hill, it was time for lunch. normally in italy the waiters are all about getting you in and out as fast as possible especially when it comes to lunch. it doesn't make a difference if there are 2 or 20 of you, they ask you what you want to eat, bring you your food, and bring you your check. no socializing and no messin around. usually. today they decided to take a loooonnnngggg time to bring me and katie our food and our check and by the time we got done eating, we had enough time to grab some gelato at gelateria snoopy (yes it's a real place and yes we will always find time to get gelato) and hop on the last bus down to the station. we were looking forward to seeing more but we figured we'd try to get to the other cities and stay there a little while longer.
our next stop was supposed to be montepulciano. we read in our guidebook that we were supposed to take a train to the small station in chiusi then you can get to montepulciano from there. well we heard there was a bus that gets you to the city since these cities are off the main lines and they're small cities so buses are available but buses tend to take longer and get stuck in traffic and all that so we were hoping it was all going to get figured out. when we got off the train in chiusi, katie and i walked by a train schedule board to see what time the train left to take us back to florence. instead, we found out that we could take a train to montepulciano. heck, why not just take a train? it's probably faster and we didn't have to pay since we were using our train pass. easy decision. well, we pull up to montepulciano a mere 30 minutes later but we find out soon after that there is only one bus a day from montepulciano station that takes you to the city center (7 pm) and the other times of the day, you have to take a taxi. that's why they recommend taking a bus…. because that's the only way to get to the city center. OK guidebook thanks for the clarification.
knowing we didn't want to spend money, we decided to just wait for the next train and go to siena. we had already been to siena once at the beginning of the semester with my mom and mrs. leach but we loved it and were happy to go back again. we figured that was an easy solution, of course nothing about this day was turning out to be easy. it was now late afternoon and we saw on the train schedule that montepulciano only has a train coming through to go to siena once an hour, but for us, it would be another hour and a half. thus began the photo shoot, the wandering around the city getting gelato (yes, again), stumbling across a soccer game, and just sitting and waiting for the next train. finally, the train arrived. we got on the three car train for a snug 2 hour train ride into siena and we were awakened from our slumber by the super loud spanish folks sitting next to us. they sang a bunch of spanish songs then switched to english/american songs like mambo #5 which was popular when i was in 6th grade, once they saw we were awake. the train ride to siena was gorgeous- again, exactly what i love about italy. rolling green hills, one house and vineyard per 1/2 mile. wide open spaces.
we arrived in siena and hopped on another bus to the city center. we walked through some of the same streets we had that first week in italy and i really love that we got to see it again because it's just a cool city. we decided to take the last train out of siena to florence so we could wander and grab some dinner. it gave us around 3 hours, which we thought was a perfect amount of time. we took some pictures and realized the sunset was going to be beautiful so we tried to find some streets that led us to a higher point to overlook the city. we were unsuccessful but we did find a mexican food restaurant and after 3 1/2 months of pizza and pasta and wine, mexican food and a beer sounded oh so delicious. take a burrito and some taquitos that we made sure had some guacamole on it and add a corona with lime and you get a pretty decent mexican food dinner. we started trying to rush to the train station because we realized we were on the other side of the city and we didn't know how the bus system worked. we decided to bypass the bus altogether because it was a pretty straightforward walk to the train station. after 45 minutes, we got there with a few minutes to spare and were just chillin at the platform when the train rolls up, everyone got off, including the train staff, and nobody got let on.
uhhh….what? we can't get on this train? is there another train going to florence tonight? no. are there any buses going to florence tonight? no. so what are we supposed to do? i don't know. *shoulder shrug* not their problem i guess. well, we come to find out that there is a train strike that started at 9 pm and the last train was leaving at 9;27 p.m. so that was perfect. to look on the bright side with no toothbrush, no change of clothes, no nothing really, there could be worse places to get stuck. we were just planning on taking the city bus back to the center and finding some place to stay. i had my friend chi on the phone, about to have her look up places to stay when a girl who spoke english but wasn't american (we couldn't place the accent at this point…) asked us if we spoke english.
…yes yes of course we do. we couldn't blend in to italian culture even if we wanted to.
well, she was a precious swedish girl who was living in siena studying law and she had 2 friends in town visiting her who absolutely had to get back to florence that night because their flight was at 6:30 the next morning to go back to sweden. she was fluent in italian and english and had already talked to another italian guy who was about to have a meltdown if he couldn't get back to florence as well as a german man who needed to get back. the deal was, there were a whole lot of taxi drivers who would be happy to drive us since we were all stranded, for 120 euros, each passenger having to pay 20. we said why not, it would be less than what we would've had to pay to stay somewhere in siena so we took them up on the offer. italian driver, italian in the front seat, swedish couple, german guy, and 2 american girls piled into a taxi and got back to florence in about an hour's time. we learned so much about the couple and loved talking to them and hearing so many different perspectives about politics and cultures and it was really quite an enjoyable experience. and they all spoke english which was cool. sure we were out 20 euros but i don't think that day could've ended better considering the day we had.
lessons learned: don't trust any guidebook except rick stoves. always try the gelato where you are. don't ever be afraid to ask questions. laugh when you get lost, and sometimes it's okay to take a taxi with 5 other people you don't know :) makes for a great story.
up next: naples, varenna/lake como, and verona! only 10 days left!
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