After picking up a rental car in Venice and figuring out how to make the built-in GPS speak English, we hit the highway, which was full of tunnels and speed racers. We made it to Siena, where we stayed at the Hotel Caterina. The hotel was beautiful, with a garden overlooking the Tuscan hills and rooms with the charm described in the many Tuscan travel books that are now so popular. After receiving a parking ticket, we figured out that we should park in the hotel's parking lot instead of at the bus stop. An American man staying at the hotel noticed Alex's ND hat and snorted "Notre Dame fan?" to which my brother replied, "Yeah, my sister just graduated from there." The angry man said, "Oh yeah, got a job yet?" "Umm, no, still looking. It's a tough market right now," I responded, trying to sound friendly and wondering what this guy's problem was. "Right, I guess," the man retorted. He then proceeded to tell me how he's such good friends with that travel book guy, Mike Steves. I'm assuming he meant Rick Steves because I get my close friends' names wrong all the time, too. Or perhaps Rick has a brother who writes a less popular travel book series. Whatever the case, the man dropped the Steves thing when I mentioned that I had met Rick Steves' son since he was in my class at ND. He then decided to tell me about how close he was with the Jenkins family. When he found out I didn't know any of the Jenkins kids who are currently students, he seemed a tad triumphant. We kept running into this guy throughout our stay and he kept being weird.
We spent our first night in Siena walking around the city, checking at the campo and watching a basketball tournament. Siena is really beautiful, and it was cool to see at night since I had only been there during the day before.
Since we had a car, we decided to do some traveling throughout Tuscany. The first trip we made was to Greve in the Chianti region. On our way out of Siena, we stopped at a gas station. Apparently, you can't pump your own gas in New Jersey because of the Italian influence. We were surprised when a man greeted us at our car and, not only pumped our gas for us, but also offered us some candy from a little dish. The way to Greve was not on a highway, but on curvy country roads. It was a very uncomfortable experience that left me wishing we had taken the train instead, but my dad is a great driver so we made it there in one piece (but perhaps a little greener...). Greve is a very cute town--small and quaint with lots of wine shops. We sampled some traditional Tuscan pasta with wild boar sauce and tasted some wine at one of the enotecas.
Later that night when we had gotten back to Siena, my brother and I went to the Torture Museum. I had previously been to the Torture Museum in San Gimignano, which has a focus on the death penalty, but this one's focus was on crime punishment. They are probably my favorite museums in Italy because they are so unique and nearly always empty and very accessible and entertaining.
The next day, we took a train to Florence, since we decided that driving to the city might get a little tricky. I warned against going to Florence--the city is jaded and has as many tourists as Rome with half the size. Siena's cathedral is prettier and Rome's food is better, so there's really nothing good about Florence (except that it's better than Pisa. Don't even get me started on that wasteland). Despite Florence's lack of authentic Italian charm, it is something you should see. We saw the David, which is quite impressive, and the Duomo, which is only impressive on the outside. The best part of the day was the Salvatore Ferragamo museum, which housed some of Ferragamo's most eccentric and elaborate creations, as well as the shoes of some famous actresses, such as Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. The shoes were made of everything from antelope to zebra, including lizard, sea leopard, and sting ray. In case going to this museum made you feel too frivolous, the sign outside assured tourists that all proceeds go to funding annual scholarships for young shoe designers. I felt much more charitable after reading that.
In Florence, we also stopped at the Festival del Gelato--a huge gelato shop with tons of flavors. Feeling adventurous, I got rose flavored gelato. It tasted like soap.
At this point in our vacation, I began to notice something peculiar about the way my mother read information signs. She would look at it and ask me what it said. I would tell her, assuming she just couldn't see it. But then I noticed that she would ask me to read a sign to her when we were nearly on top of it, and then would seem impressed after I read it. It turns out she hadn't been noticing the English translations directly beneath the Italian description and thought I was really translating the written Italian quite well. I should have let her keep on thinking that, but being the kind, selfless person I am, I directed her to the English translations.
Our last Tuscan adventure was to Montelcino, a charming little hill town. We drove there, but thankfully, the roads were not as devil-may-care as the ones leading to Greve. The scenery along the way was gorgeous, with sprawling vineyards and hills dotted with cypress trees. The town itself was very hilly and had a medieval charm because of its fortress converted into an enoteca. Upon a friend's recommendation, we went to a little family-owned restaurant and got pici pasta with bread crumbs and olive oil. It was a delicious meal, complete with Barry White music playing the entire time.
The next day, we left Siena to head for Cinqueterre, but first we needed to see the cathedral. It's my favorite church in Italy because of its green and white striped marble and the beautiful frescoes. Though I had been to the cathedral before, something was new: at the altar there was a glass case with an elaborate object inside and a sign that simply said "Il Braccio Destro di San Giovanni Battista"--the right arm of St. John the Baptist. It was very cool, but kind of took us by surprise since we weren't expecting to see any dismembered saints that day. After seeing this, our time in Tuscany was complete and we headed to the coast.
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