Sunday began one of those travel adventures that one can only have when traveling without a car. We had tickets to go from Florence to Siena on the train. Unfortunately, it turned out that this particular train did not run on Sunday. So, we made a mad dash over to the bus station and bought bus tickets. There was a mob of people trying to get to Siena, and we out-smarted some of them by standing in line for the second bus, not the next one. Fortunately, when it arrived, it was a double-decker, and we all made it [ 1, 2 ].
As it turned out, the bus ride was probably more fun than the train would have been. We spent about half the trip on highways and the other half on country roads before arriving in Siena proper [ 1, 2, 3 ].
After finding our hotel, Ken realized that he had the address for the tour company that was doing our wine tour, but not the address of the pickup point (oops). A few Euro at an internet cafe solved this problem, and then we headed off to get lunch.
After lunch, we found the wine tour people and got on another bus (this one a motor coach with no working loudspeaker or air conditioning, ugh). In the first part of the tour, we drove through some really pretty Tuscan countryside [ 1, 2, 3 ]. The tan-grey soil is characteristic of Tuscany, and so are the cypress trees, planted because their roots grow down and don't destroy roads [ 1 ]. Farms in this area worked a variety of crops — grains, grapes, olives, etc. — in an attempt to keep the land productive all year round.
Our first stop was a monastery [ 1, 2 ]. It was nice to get out of the bus and into the fresh air [ 1, 2 ]. This was kind of neat, but we suspect it was only on the agenda because there wasn't any admission charge [ 1, 2, 3, 4 ]. Ken got fed up with following the tour around listening to descriptions of frescoes and went off on his own, but Julie listened to most of the tour. Julie heard about how the artist made jabs at the monks in his paintings (like showing the treasurer stealing food).
After the monastery, we were feeling a bit ripped off (annoying tour of frescos, no A/C, etc.), but our next stop redeemed the trip. We stopped at the Altesino vineyard. The vineyard's tour guide, Gretchen, turned out to be from Washington, D.C.
In the tour, we saw wine barrels [ 1, 2 ], learned about wine certifications in Italy, and got to taste three different wines [ 1 ], including a Super Tuscan and a DOCG Brunello di Montalcino. Afterwards, we wandered around and even found a leftover grape [ 1, 2 ]. The property was just beautiful [ 1, 2, 3 ]. Plus, as a bonus, Julie got to pet some happy dogs [ 1, 2 ].
Back in Siena, we got dinner at the restaurant one door down from our hotel, which turned out to be really good food in a neat underground cavern (we were three levels below ground). For his first course, Mark had pasta with — believe it or not — cinnamon and sugar. Ken had ground wild boar.
After dinner, we went for a walk as usual. Near the Duomo, we heard singing, and the square was blocked off. There was a large party going on in the square, which we later decided was related to the yearly horse race that is run around Il Campo (the main city square). It was kind of surreal, because we were the only ones on the streets, and there was all of this singing echoing around.
Things got even more surreal around 3:00am. We generally sleep with the windows open when it's comfy out, and we got woken up by what sounded like a marching band — at least, drums and people singing loudly — which we think made two laps around the square (and by our window) before packing it in for the night. You don't get that in New Hope, Minnesota. :)
The next day, we got breakfast and ate it overlooking Il Campo [ 1, 2, 3 ]. Then, we toured various things around the Duomo.
First, we toured the crypt (really the "old church"), where we bought a combo pass for a number of other sights. The crypt was kind of neat — we got to see what was under the cathedral when it was built. When they built the big cathedral, they filled in the crypt and built on top of it, with no other foundation or supports. This preserved the frescoes extremely well (no light, no air, and no one could mess with them).
Then, we went into a museum, from which we could take a sort-of hidden passage to climb a tower. The tower was really a wall intended to be part of a planned cathedral expansion that never happened [ 1 ]. The halls were skinny, the steps were small, and the view was neat [ 1, 2, 3 ]. We even had a good view back into Il Campo [ 1, 2 ].
After the museum, we went into the Duomo itself, which has a characteristic Tuscan green/white pattern in the walls and columns [ 1, 2 ], as does the baptistry [ 1 ] (except it's painted on the walls there).
Then, we went wandering around the city. Siena really is built on a hill [ 1, 2 ]. While on the other side of town, we first visited an old Medici fort (probably used to put down the city rather than defend it) [ 1, 2 ]. Then, we visited the home of Catherine of Siena, patron saint of Europe, as well as her church [ 1, 2 ].
After wandering, we killed a little time at the hotel, and got another great dinner. Siena was definitely tops for food among the cities we visited in Italy — maybe because it's small, and the big tour groups stay elsewhere overnight. No matter what the reason, the food was great.
Then, after dinner, we took another walk to say goodbye to the city [ 1, 2, 3 ].
Today, we took it easy. Our train out of Siena left around noon, so we killed a little time in the morning by walking around some of the city we hadn't seen. (Mark wanted to go to the Torture Museum we had seen advertised on the bus trip, but it was closed.)
Since we didn't have anything in particular to do, we decided to walk down to the train station (which is in the valley) rather than taking a cab or the bus. This took us about a half hour, and was kind of fun. At the train station, we got a panini for lunch — probably one of the best of the trip — and then hopped on the train. We had a brief layover in Grosetto before getting on our train to Rome [ 1 ].
Back in Rome, we had intended to take it easy, do some laundry, and get dinner. Unfortunately, we discovered that Ken's computer back home (daystrom, which hosts this website) had disappeared off the internet — taking Ken and Mark's email along with it. Ken spent much of the evening trying to fix it, even calling on Aunt Maryellen to drive over to the house and type cryptic UNIX commands on his behalf (good thing Mark's Vonage phone service makes U.S. calls for free). Eventually, Ken did manage to work around the problem. So much for not thinking about computers for the entire vacation, though. :(
Today, we had planned to go to the Vatican right away in the morning, before St. Peter's got crowded. We were on the subway by around 7:00am. Unfortunately, when we got there, St. Peter's was closed. (Later, we realized we had missed the advice in the book about how it's closed on Wednesday mornings for the papal audience.)
Mark and Mom wanted to go to the Vatican museum and see the Sistine Chapel. We had seen that on the last trip, and we were rather tired of Renaissance art. Instead, we spent the morning walking — first by Nero's tomb, then back toward the city center and into various parks that we ran across [ 1, 2, 3 ].
Eventually, we wandered over by the Coliseum and got lunch at the same place we ate the last time we visited the area in 2002 (the food was better this time). Then, we visited St. Peter-in-Chains church to see Michaelangelo's Moses [ 1, 2, 3 ]. After that, we walked on to the grounds of the Coliseum itself and then through the Roman Forum [ 1, 2, 3 ] before heading back to the Vatican area.
Back at the Vatican, we met Marilyn and Mark in time to take our reserved Vatican Scavi tour, an unadvertised tour of the excavations beneath St. Peter's that only 120 or so visitors a day get to see. It was really neat to see the ancient necropolis that St. Peter's was built over [ 1, 2 ] .
We came out of the tour in the catecombs under St. Peters, right near the recent tomb of John Paul II [ 1 ]. Then, we got to skip the huge line and go right into St. Peter's itself, where we saw Michelangelo's Pieta (Ken's favorite piece of sculpture) and walked around [ 1, 2, 3 ]. Outside in the square, we were amazed at how many people were leaving (it was closing time) [ 1 ].
Today was Ken's birthday, and also email broke again. So, Ken got it fixed in the morning, and he and Julie met Mark and Marilyn at the Borghese Gallery for a 9:00am appointment. This gallery is relatively small but well worth it. The quality of some of the sculpture was excellent [ 1 ]. (We later saw other Borghese sculptures in the Louvre in Paris.)
After leaving the Borghese Gallery, we walked around the grounds (the historical Borghese estate) before building lunch at a deli [ 1, 2, 3 ]. (Julie successfully did all of the ordering in Italian while Mark ran to mail some postcards.)
In the afternoon, we saw a few more sights that we had missed, including Santa Maria Maggiore church [ 1, 2 ]. Then, while Julie, Mark and Marilyn went up to St. Peter-in-Chains, Ken found a Lamborghini on the street and spent 10 minutes trying to get a clean picture [ 1 ]. After that, we walked up the Victor Emmanuel II memorial [ 1, 2, 3 ], where we got some interesting pictures of the city [ 1, 2, 3, 4 ]. From there, we walked into the Roman Forum (this time from the other direction) and also visited a place where Peter and Paul were imprisoned [ 1, 2 ].
From there, we walked back to the Pantheon area, where Mark and Marilyn bought Ken a birthday dinner at one of Mark's favorite restaurants [ 1 ]. The food was excellent, and so was the expensive bottle of Brunello wine. Afterwards, we walked off the large meal by following one of Rick Steves' Rome "night walks" [ 1 ].
This was our last full day in Rome. We had planned to take a train to Ostia Antica, a port that's supposed to be a little like Pompeii. Unfortunately, there was a Metro train strike, and we couldn't do that. (There was actually a strike the previous day too, but we hadn't noticed since it didn't start until 7:30am.) Helicopters hovered over the city most of the morning, apparently keeping an eye on something.
So, we changed plans and walked from Mark's place to the south side of the city. First, we headed toward Circus Maximus [ 1 ]. After that, we proceeded to Aventine Hill where we got some more great views of the city [ 1, 2 ]. Also, the park promised to persecute us if we transgressed [ 1 ].
Then, we got hungry, and we couldn't find any food. So, we walked back toward Circus Maximus for lunch. In the meantime, the Mother of All Traffic Jams had developed, presumably due to the strike [ 1, 2 ]. This was not just a block up for a few minutes. The streets looked like this for several hours in the middle of the day.
After lunch, we walked to look one of the old gates to Rome [ 1 ], and then toward Campo Cesto, the historic Protestant cemetery, where non-Catholic foreigners (including Jews, Muslims, and Eastern Orthodox Christians) were buried [ 1 ]. In the cemetery, we saw a pyramid, as well as the tomb of the poet Keats, and other neat grave markers [ 1, 2, 3 ].
Keats' tombstone says:
Once leaving the cemetery, we also stopped by Monte Testaccio, a centries-old dump where old pottery was discarded (it just looks like a big red hill). Now, the area is known for its night clubs.
At this point, it was a looooong walk back home, and Julie's feet were killing her. Once we got home, we stayed there. We ordered in pizza for dinner and did one last round of laundry before packing and getting ready to leave for Paris.