After our plane from Paris landed, Annie and I managed to find a taxi that could take us to our hotel. The hotel itself was pretty nice - we had our own bedroom and shared a bathroom across the hall with a few other rooms. The only downside was the twisty-turny set of stairs up which we had to drag our luggage. When we got to our room, we had a realllly hard time getting the door open. For some reason, the lock was stuck, and neither of us had the muscle to move it. We must have been making some noise, because a guy down the hall poked his head out of his room and asked in Italian if we needed help. When he turned the key, the door slid open easily, making us look silly. We immediately tossed our bags in the room and decided to find food. The guy, whose name was Fabio, offered to show us a cheap pizzeria, which sounded perfect. The pizza was SO delicious - it was brick oven style with a nice, yummy crust :-) After we ate, Fabio pointed out the Leaning Tower and the train station so that we knew where to head the following day.
Walking through Pisa, I was suprised at how picturesque every part of the town looked - and the number of people out and about. Most of them seemed to be enjoying gelato and just strolling up and down the Arno River - which runs right through town. The Tower looked gorgeous at night - but I hadn't planned on needing my camera and just left it back at the hotel.
The next day, Annie and I walked back out to the tower to take pictures in the day light. Of course, I did a cheesy one of me pretending to hold it up (see below!). Then, anxious to get to Siena, we headed to the train station. The train ride wasn't bad - only about 2 hours with stops throughout the Tuscan countryside. When we arrived at Siena, we had NO idea how to get to our dormority - we had the address, but couldn't find the street on any of the maps around. Finally, we settled on taking a taxi to get there, which was probably better than attempting to get our luggage on and off of the city bus. Our dormority is really nice; it sits up on a hill just outside the center of town. It's called Villa Il Pino and is a converted Villa, broken up into small rooms and apartments. Annie and were lucky enough to get an apartment that has a large bathroom and small kitchen. The main building has an area for studying and using the internet- where I'm at now :-) - as well as a kitchen free for students to use.
That brings me up to today - the day of the trek for groceries. We asked a few of the other girls staying here how to go about getting groceries, and they suggested a store located across the street from the train station. When we asked them how to get to the train station, they responded "by bus," and when we asked them where to get bus tickets they said "at the train station." Clearly, this caused a sticky situtation. We needed a pass to take the bus to the train station, which is also where needed to buy the pass - Ultimately, we came up with two options - 1) we could take the bus to the train station without a ticket and risk huge fines or 2) we could walk. Walking seemed like a better option - that is until we got lost and ended up outside a local hospital. After regrouping and reorienting ourselves, we managed to find the station, buy tickets, and buy groceries. In total, the trip there took about an hour; then, we had to figure out how to get on the bus back. Thinking that the number 17 would get us to the villa, we hopped on that bus. Unfortunately, it blew right by our place and out into the suburbs. Eventually, after about 30 minutes and a lengthy stop out by some apartments, we made to the villa.
To sum it all - getting groceries was as it easy as one might have hoped :-/
Here's some pictures to make up for it though!
Baptistry in Pisa right behind the tower
The Arno River running right through the city
Holding up the tower! So cheesy :-)
Our villa
The main building (view from my front door!)
Holding up the tower may be cheesy, but yours is so well done compared to every other one I've seen!!! Nice job :)
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