On the road: Padova to Pisa to Siena

We woke up a bit late, finished packing, and headed out to get some quick breakfast and take a quick look at the cathedral. We thought we had plenty of time... however we promptly got lost when we headed down to check out a park area with a ton of statues, got a coffee, took a right and then thought we were taking another right to head back to the hotel. We were wrong.

After about 15 minutes of hastily walking in circles, we asked a woman where the hotel was, she pointed us in the general direction, and we headed there, eventually finding ourselves back on track. We still don't have any idea of how we got so lost. When we arrived back at the hotel, we were pretty much at the stroke of check out time (11:00 AM) and we got a bit of a dirty look from the man behind the counter. I'm sure the typical nuns who stay at the Casa Pelligrino are never late!

We got on the road and headed out of town, not really having any problems. I was amused to see that even the police tailgate in Italy. What can you do?

We decided to go ahead and make the extra drive to check out Pisa. It might be a while till we're back. That meant that we followed the highways back to Bologna, then headed west, toward the Mediterranean coast to find Pisa. The day was rainy and gray, with many of the views obscured by clouds and haze.

On the way, we snacked and had coffee at a couple of highway rest stops. We tried some different chips and candy. They were OK. I am still amazed that I could drink Italian, French, and Spanish espresso, then return to the states and want to yak at American coffee.

In Pisa, we took the busy way into town, but Jeanette spotted the Piazza del Duomo when she realized that one of the towers was leaning! I took a quick look and it was pretty cool.

We parked in a pay lot diagonally across from the Piazza and walked across in the rain to see the sights. The most bizarre thing is the number of merchants who accost you upon attempting entry into the Piazza, selling all kinds of junk from sunglasses to bad soccer jersey knockoffs. It reminded me of the story of Jesus throwing over the money changers tables in the Temple. It's even worse inside the Piazza.

The leaning tower is very cool... amazing that it's supposed to be only 5 degrees off. The differences made for corrections in the successive stages are neat to observe, too. When you look around, you realize that the other buildings on the square have also shifted and settled, though it's most obvious with the tower.

We checked out the maps and located the road to get to Siena. The trip turned out to be a bit longer than we had anticipated, especially as we were stuck for some of it behind a slow semi on a two-lane road. We snacked on gummy bears, but eventually made it to Siena around 7:30 at night.

Parking in Siena is a bit of a problem. At 2 euros an hour for every hour of the day, it can get pretty expensive if you don't have a hotel to validate the parking in some way. We chanced it and parked in a garage (Il Campo, I believe), then walked out to find a hotel and explore the town.

We walked out of the parking garage and immediately saw some of the charming views for which Siena is known. We walked by a cute taverna (La Taverna Di San Giuseppe) that we decided to check out later if we didn't see anything better. We walked down to Il Campo and walked around the pretty cobblestone square, then headed to look for one of the hotels that was recommended in the books (____). It turned out to be booked, which was too bad.

As it was now around 8PM, we were getting a little tired out, so we did our best to find a room, first checking out a couple of low-rent places, but rejecting those when ambiance and view were both lame. We finally walked around the Duomo and found the Hotel Duomo, which seemed OK. The rate was high (100 euros), but it looked newly renovated and the view was nice. At this point, we were tired out, so we took it.

We decided to return to the taverna that we had seen earlier and entered to find that this one was mostly booked up, too. We had no problem sitting at a communal table, however, and it ended up that although some folks sat near us later, no one sat immediately next to us. We ordered a bottle of Rustico local prosecco (tasty). They started us off with a bland vegetable soup that was extremely unimpressive and we both thought it was a dip for bread. Things got better after that. We had a nice fresh salad with onions, olive, and oranges. Interesting combination. Jeanette had a flat pasta with a cheese and creme sauce. I tried gnocchetti with ham and kale... a rather Portuguese combination of ingredients that worked well.

Following dinner, we tried two desserts. One had a merengue with hazelnut-chocolate gelato. Yum. The other was a heavy whipped creme with chocolate sauce and fondente, plus some very clever cocoa powder decorations. Jeanette tried a muscat and I had a very smooth grappa that was far tastier than the one on Murano.

We finished up and had the opportunity to watch a waiter making the decorations on the dessert. Pretty clever with a simple shaker.

Upon returning to the hotel, Jeanette noticed a new sign up that said essentially "Please pardon the music next door. We can't control it and it it expected to go till 3:00 AM. If you can't sleep, then we suggest you join the party." Hmm...

It turned out that the 'music' was, in Jeanette's words, "a lame Seattle grunge band singing Door's covers." We watched bizarro Italian variety shows for a while, then decided to go out for a stroll to see what the party was about. As you would expect for that type of band, it was pretty much a frat party in a tent in the alley. No joke.

The music, with the windows and shutters closed was pretty much like a very loud stereo next to your head. We tried to sleep to it -- I actually got to sleep -- but after a couple of hours of torture, Jeanette went down stairs and demanded that we be allowed to check out in the morning. She was denied until she showed them the Rick Steve's book and threatened to write letters. Fortunately, at about the time she returned to the room, around 3:00, the music did stop and we were able to get some sleep.

On the whole, the experience was disappointing because the lateness of the note on the elevator bordered on dishonesty. From the sound of it, they knew of the music earlier.