Pisa / Siena Day 10

We picked up our car today in La Spezia. Yet another challenge, to drive in Italy. Last night at dinner we met a great retired couple from Toronto who were spending 5 days in the Cinque Terre and had driven from Rome. I wasn’t stressed about it, Rick was, but of course, I wasn’t driving.

Rick did a great job getting us out of La Spezia, and navigating with the GPS to get us onto the auto strada (very fast toll highway) and we were out of the city in no time. I did feel a little odd that I didn’t have an actual map…which I wouldn’t do again, I have no idea why I didn’t have a map. Anyways, we had a tiny little car called a Panda, and it is tiny. But….when in Rome/Italy….. Our first stop was Pisa to see the Leaning Tower. That was a great stop. We got in, saw the Tower, got out.

Next stop was Siena and we would be there for 2 nights. We took a regional road so the speed was slower than the auto strada and saw a bit of the country, but just a taste.

Then, my moment, I’m in my own version of a scene from the Amazing Race. We arrived in Sienna and the GPS took us right up to a Piazza where only cars with an electronic identity were allowed. So there we were no clue where to find our hotel, in a car at the entrance to a very busy piazza with people giving us a look like…what the hell were we doing there. We decided the best course of action was to back down, I jumped out and went into the piazza to find out where we needed to go. The information signs pointed one way, which led me to the bathrooms, where an attendant told me I needed to go to the opposite side of the piazza…and this was by far the largest piazza we have been to. I walked (quickly) over there, and into tourist information. Whew!

The very nice girl took out a map, and between her and another lady, they figured out where I wanted to go. I asked for a pen to write on the map….and I couldn’t because the map cost .50euro. And she wasn’t budging on the price.  I had nothing with me….nothing…. So, true to figuring out what to do in a crisis….I turned around in this busy tourist information kiosk, arms waving, and begged somebody to give me .50euro to get a map. Thankfully, a woman came to my rescue, and we had a map. Now I just had to make my way back to Rick.

The map was a little helpful, but seriously, we had to pick a spot and follow signs to it, and hope that we would find it. All I knew was we needed to find a certain parking lot, and the hotel would be around there somewhere. We parked, and hiked up more steep hills, with our back packs, and finally found our hotel. Now this is another one of those times where the effort is worth the reward. The room is large, the garden is fantastic. We walked around and after a glass of wine decided to go back to a meat store we had passed to have a meat and cheese platter in our room. It was unbelievable. He gave us the best meat and cheese platter ever, the meat was 3 different types of pig; pork, wild boar, and pig only raised in Tuscany. We had cheese, olives, and the best sun-dried tomatoes ever. He gave us mustard and pesto. It is in competition with my last bestest dinner ever.

Tomorrow….who knows….we are having breakfast in the garden, and we know there will be a sandwich from our new best friend at the meat shop!

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