Peace Corps with Greg and Kevina: Siena

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Siena

On the bus from camp

Train:

Our camp didn't have the tour of Siena package for Saturday so we went it alone. We got up at 8:30 to catch the bus into town. Once we got there buying tickets to Siena was actually really easy, and the ticket lady was super nice. So we got on our train, where we had a connection in Florence. In Florence we checked the departures and it said platform 18 will leave at 10:10. So we went and sat on the train. The train wasn't even on... so after like 5 or so minutes we decided to walk to see if we could ask the conductor. The caboose was closest and there was no one there so we walked to the end of the train. As we're walking we noticed the cars becoming more and more derilic. More spray paint... less actual paint, and we notice not a soul is on the train. So we got to the front of the train and... THERE WAS NO ENGINE CAR!!

We ran all the way down the platform, which looked pretty hilarious, to recheck the departures board. When we got there the sign was changing and we no longer saw the platform 18 one! It just showed the next train leaving at 11:10 for Siena! There were no announcements or anything! So Greg had a coffee and we hung out until the next train. Little did we know this was just the beginning! So we took the train to Siena which was about 2 hours. Once we got there we discovered the train station was outside of the town so we had to take a bus. After some confusion as to WHERE the buses were located we finally found them and got on one that would take us into town. So we're riding through and suddenly we were just looking at countryside! We looked out the back of the bus and somehow we managed to go PAST Siena and now we're just headed nowhere. So we decided that we probably missed the stop so we just had to stay on until it loops back around. ONE HOUR LATTER, we got off in Siena.

The unintentional tour of the Siena countryside

In Siena:

Once we're there it is pretty cool. The town was built up in the 13th and 14th centuries! There is a big main square that has a track around it for the neighborhood horse races. The dirt was already laid down for the big race. Some backpackers stopped us and asked if we speak English (in Italian) and I answered 'si'. Ha! Siena is really interesting because it has these neighborhoods (9) and each neighborhood had its own flag and colors. The horse race consists of each neighborhood's horse competing. Siena is very hilly and the streets are ridiculously steep! We saw some people walking up one side street at a 45 degree angle! After we walked around for 3 or so hours we attempted to get back on the right bus to go back to the station. We got very frustrated AND couldn't find the tickets (and there wasn't a way to buy more that we could find) so we started walking. Guess what! It only took us 15 minutes to walk to the train station...if only we knew!