Siena, Italy

This morning was our first leg with busabout. The bus was full of Australians! And typical there were the two loud Aussie guys that were late because they had gone on a pub crawl the night before and proceeded to tell everyone about the night even if we didn't want to hear it!!

We had a stop about an hour out of Rome, it was a very pretty little town (sadly can't remember the name). Apparently their wine is famously good, so I bought a bottle of white. We arrived in Siena at about 1pm. We had to cart our bags in the ridiculous heat and then upstairs to our hotel room that had no airconditioning!! After that stint in the heat we were too exhausted to do anything. Grant discovered Eurosport on the TV in our room and I had an arvo nap. We only ventured out for dinner, which was a pizza from up the road of the hotel. We will venture into the town centre tomorrow!

Day.2 in Siena we headed into the town centre. First we had brekky at the hostel next door...it was a stale breadroll and watered down orange juice! We met a Canadian girl at breakfast who had been in Siena for over a week becuase she loved it so much. So we had some high expectations of the town after hearing that!

In the town we went to the major sites. The nicest area was Il Campo where they have the Palio, the horse racing festival. Every year in August Siena holds this famous race, it is a dangerous one as the horses are racing on cobblestone around this plaza. The historical centre was nice but after the craziness of Rome, there wasn't much to do! We walked around, sat in a park, then found a water fountain and jumped in to escape the heat!

We stumbled upon this fort and we walked around it for what felt like an hour trying to find the entrance. Only to discover the entrance was right where we started, we had just walked the wrong way! Inside we found a lot of musicians practising for the jazz festival, it was very cool being in this fort in Siena Italy listening to jazz! We stopped at a nice cafe that had a good view. I stole some sugars for cornflakes for breakfast. Grant can't eat cornflakes without sugar! We had dinner at a restaturant near our hotel and let me tell you it was the best pasta I have ever eaten!! Grant I savoured every mouthful. It was just so fresh and delicious!

Day.3 we hung around waiting for the bus to pick us up at 1pm. Siena was a beautiful town, I just think after Rome nothing could compare. It was nice to relax for a couple of days though before heading to Florence for more major sightseeing!