Day 13: September 6, 1999
Lerici to Siena, Italy (with stops in Lucca and Volterra)

Walendo: We got an early start on the ride out of Lerici, leaving after a quick breakfast and dropping off a 10,000L tip for the woman who had moved all our stuff between rooms. We're still not absolutely sure when and who to tip in Italy, but this seemed like a nice thing to do. I drove first, and we couldnb't have gone more than 100 yards before being caught in one of those uniqely Italian driving situations. We were following a small truck up the single-width winding road out of the hotel when it stopped dead before rounding a curve. Heading the other way, on the other side of the curve, was a BIG truck. There were a bunch of guys standing around and gesturing. They were apparently trying to get the truck through a small gate in the brick wall on the outside edge of the curve. After various maneuvers, they gave in and backed the truck up the winding road until there was enough room for us to get by.

Roof tops in Lucca, Italy

We followed the signs out of Lerici , with Ellen doing her usual excellent navigation, and got on the main highway between Pisa and Florence with little trouble. We wanted to see two towns on the way to Siena; Lucca and Volterra.

Garden on a roof, Lucca, Italy

After an hour or so of driving through the Northern California, I mean Tuscany, countryside we made it to Lucca. We found a parking lot in the downtown and walked around for an hour or two.

Ellen: It's an old city, kind of dirty with a lot fewer flowers than you see in Switzerland. We bought a map right away (had to buy a guide book to get the map) and the map turned out to be lousy, very misleading. After wandering around a bit, Walendo noticed a bunch of people at the top of a tower, so we paid our lire and climbed up. Walendo was even pretty cheerful about it. The walls were decorated with people's foot prints all the way up to eye level. At the top of the building, there was a great view of all the red rooftops and some nice little rooftop gardens. We took a whole bunch of pictures. The top was a little weird, there was a narrow concrete path around the top, with some trees and dirt in the middle raised up. Odd.

Roof textures

Walendo: We bought some bread and cheese for lunch, though I would have preferred something more substantial, and then set out to find a pleasant place to sit. You'd think that in a touristy Italian town, you'd be able to find a place to sit. Instead, we entered the Twilight Zone. We wandered around Lucca for an hour just looking for a bench. And maybe some grass. Nada. We even went to the central piazza, the gathering place around which the town is built. More nada. People were either at the restaurants, or huddled in the doorsteps of the shops that were closed for lunch. Odd.

Facade of Lucca's hard-to-find cathedral

We eventually came across a church (Old Thing With Bell) and Ellen felt okay with sitting on its marble steps and eating. Not being sure whether dropping bread crumbs and cheese is considered descration, I was a little hesitant, but in the end I was fed up enough with Lucca to go for it. We munched our stuff for a few minutes, and after a while some other people joined us. Other lost souls, probably. When we finished, we got up and walked around the corner into a big piazza with lots of people sitting and benches and scenery and free lemonade and cookies. We decided that from then on, whenever we were looking for something and couldn't find it, we'd stop looking and then walk another 5 minutes. It would have worked here, and it would have worked in Thun.

Ellen: The piazza we entered was for the main cathedral, which had a beautiful green and white facade with lots of intricate stone work. We went inside and saw all the church-like things and then headed out again. At that point, we were ready to headed back and since we no longer trusted the map, I decided to just follow my directional instincts toward the car. After 5 minutes of walking, we wound up back at the first piazza we came to where we bought the map. From there it was easy to get back to the car.

Street in Volterra, Italy

We took the back roads and drove to Volterra (I was driving). When we got there, we found there was a wall surrounding the city and no cars were allowed in, but we found a great parking space just outside one of the entrances (if you squeezed in behind the car in front). Volterra is a lovely town with narrow, cobblestone streets, all of which seem to headed up to the main piazza and tower. At the top of the street, we took a quick glance into the small chapel and then meandered about until we came to an alabaster store. We admired the bowls and chess sets and decided we would buy stuff, but we figured we should wait till later, since everything was heavy to carry. It's good that we did, because as we wandered more, we quickly found that there were lots of alabaster stores with lots of choices. This is just the kind of shopping I love -- a local craft that's reliatvely inexpensive and abundant in that area, but not common elsewhere, so I was psyched to browse through lots of stores while also admiring the curving, narrow streets with windowboxed doorways and windows. Unfortunately, Walendo was starting to feel more sick and needed to rest, so we split up and he went to the piazza to hang out while I shopped (FRS radios in hand, of course).

Ruins in Volterra

I had a great time wandering through the stores, deciding what to buy and comparing the styles and prices. As I meandered, I came upon some Forum-like ruins, so I radio'd Walendo, telling him it was at about "9 oclock, no 3 oclock." I guess he didn't hear the correction cuz he headed off to 9 o'clock, only to be frustrated and winding up in some sort of parking lot. Meanwhile, I ended up buying out the town, buying an alabaster box for me, another one for Judy, a striped pyramid and a gorgeous checkered plate, more expensive than the ohers but the one I loved and it was no time to be chintzy. It was just under $100 for the plate. Meanwhile, Walendo was annoyed and frustrated, since in his tired state he'd traipsed around and hadn't found the ruins. I had pretty much had my fill, so we met back up again and then walked back out of town and headed off to Siena.

Piazza we drove through, parting the tourists

I drove while Walendo navigated to Siena, doing a great job once again following signs through the winding streets. When we got to Siena, it was hard to find where we were on the map we had, so we just kept going until, suddenly, after making a U turn and then going the only way we could, we found ourselves in a piazza filled with people and no cars. There was a cop car, so I got out and asked the cops where Via Girabaldi was, and one of them said blandly that it was the second right. So I drove through the circle, parting pedestrians as we went, and headed out the direction he'd pointed in, only to come to a sign indicating we couldn't go any further. After getting a disapproving look from an older woman, I backed up (luckly there were few pedestrians at that point) and headed down the only street we could go on. Two rights after that was Girabaldi. Amazing. A few blocks down was the Hotel Minerva. It was quite the arrival.

We checked in, and were given a room below the lobby. Again when we walked in, it looked like a dismal room, but when we opened the window, we saw we had a nice view of the red roofed buildings and a big patio.

View out Minerva Hotel balcony

Another view out Minerva balcony

Walendo promptly took lots of shots of the roofs and the buildings in the evening light. The Minerva, a three-star hotel, turned out fairly well. The staff was a bit crabby and sometimes made you wait just to get your key, and, as we'll explain, there wasn't much parking. But the room was a good size with a large bathroom, it had a fridge and enough storage space, and it was fairly well situated just inside the walls of the city. We did a lot of walking, but we generally felt close enough to town. The breakfast was adequate, nothing special.

After relaxing a bit, we walked back into town and quickly found ourselves on the main shopping street leading into the Piazza del Campo, which is very impressive and welcoming, a great place to people watch. The weather was warm, so I wore a mildly sexy top, which in no time prompted a smooching sound from some guy walking buy. Ah, Italy.

Piazza del Campo, Siena

We decided to have dinner there at the Piazza in one of the restaurants on the Campo. The service was only okay. I got pizza and Walendo got lasagna with another seafood salad.

After dinner, we got some gelato on way back (of course) and headed back to the hotel. We were still parked on the crosswalk near the hotel, so we asked the guy at the desk and he said to park in a dirt lot nearby. Miraculously, there was a spot at the very end, so we took it. (As it turned out, someone later took the one even further down, just squeezing in. Italians are apparently champions at Creative Parking. Just my kind of place.)

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