Day 14: September 7, 1999
Siena, Italy

When we got up in the morning, it looked like a nice day, so we headed out with some chores in mind. We went to the Internet connection place and checked our email. Russ sent us another Libby report, which was nice, and we read Nicole's trip report about their visit to a Dude Ranch, which was fun to hear about. Someone replied to my request for the Sirocco sheets I've been looking for, but I don't think they really have them, just something like them. From Siena, Italy, I asked them to send me a picture. Isn't the Internet great? W sent a note to his mom, I to my family.

As we headed out of the place, it was raining, so we went back to the hotel to change and get umbrellas (visit #1 for the day). We decided to do laundry while it was raining. Walendo had noticed a flier for an Onda Blue laundromat in the lobby, so we gathered all our dirty clothes into bags and hauled them across the Campo to the street it was on. Either I remembered the map wrong or the map was bad, but we missed the street and overshot it. In the rain, Walendo went into a shop to get a map and we found our way back to the place, just a few yards from the Campo. Once we got there, we had to figure out how to use the machines. There was a nice woman there (who seemed to work for the place) who helped us through it. She spoke only Italian but gestures and our rudimentary understanding of Italian helped us figure it out. When everything was dry, we still had 7 minutes left on the dryer, so Walendo offered it to another couple who was preparing to dry their clothes. Once again, evidence of His Good Guyness. We traipsed back to the hotel and dumped our stuff (trip #2). By this time it was sunny again, so we changed again and headed out to sightsee.

Piazza del Campo, Siena

On our way, we stopped at McDonalds, but it had a line so Walendo blew it off. Instead, we stopped at a grocery store and picked up some bread and cheese and such and walked to the Campo to sit and eat it. Again, a nice scene. After a bit, I went to take some pictures (even with my wide-angle, it's hard to get the whole piazza into a picture) while Walendo did battle with some yellow jackets. The bees won and he moved.

Siena's main cathedral

We met back up and continued on our tour, heading to the main cathedral with its green & white striped tower. It was pretty impressive. There was a long line to get into the churce, so of course that was out of the question. After a while, we noticed a side door that had no line, which turned out to be some separate room but you could still see the ceiling and parts of the church from there. After marvelling a bit, I joined Walendo sitting in a pew. When I got up, Walendo noticed I had gum stuck on my shorts. Quite the pious experience. We sat outside and W tried to scrape it off, without much success. Ah well.

We wandered the streets around the cathedral and then found a little shopping street. We stopped in a store with beautiful stone crafts and ended up buying lots of heavy stuff that would be perfect to lug home: a green marble rolling pin for Nicole & Jamie, stone candlesticks for Russ & Judy, a "family" of dophins for - uh oh - I think it's the kitsch & food couple (Linda and Tim?), and a stone vase for us.

Walendo at Siena's McDonlads

All together, they weight about 10 ounces, I'm sure. Not wanting to lug our loot around, we went back to the room (trip #3), though not before I bought a calendar of Tuscany scenes. After we dropped off the stuff, we headed back to McDonalds, where there was now very little line. I took a picture of W ordering his food, but he wouldn't let me take a shot of him sitting outside the store on the curb eating his burger, which, I might add, he later regretted. While he was getting his order, I went off to find myself a gelato, which of course was quite yummy. Guess what Walendo ate? A Royale with Cheese.

At this point, I still had more energy and wanted to climb to the top of the campinille, but Walendo was feeling tired from his illness, so we went back to the room (trip #4) where he took a nap.

View from Siena's Tower

I took my FRS radio and headed to the tower. It started to drizzle, but not too badly so I kept on. For the Standard Italian Monetary Unit (8,000 Lire = $4) they let me climb up to the top.

Tower steps (a bit out of focus)

The FRS radio worked like a charm. Not bad. I took a bunch of pictures even though it was drizzling, hoping a few would come out. At the very top, you can climb up a ladder to a platform that sits right beneath the bell that tolls every half hour. There were a lot of people there when I was up, so I took pictures while they chattered, and then finally came down. I had the platform to myself after that. Finally I headed down, and a minute later, the bell tolled. I was just a level down and it was really loud. It must be pretty dramatic if you're right underneath it.

Siena Rooftops

After I got down, I was still in the mood to explore, so I checked in with Walendo via the radio and he seemed perfectly happy to nap and read and take yet more pictcures of the view from our balcony, so I went for it. In one of the shops, I found an English version of Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth, which I had just told W about when he was asking about cathedral construction. I was going to buy it, but it was really thick and didn't seem worth hauling. That turned out to be a mistake, as he ripped through Winds of War during the rest of the trip. I also spotted some pasta that was shaped like a penis and was amused. Later, I saw it again and realized it would be a funny present for Russ, so I got it.

Ellen in Minerva Hotel room

This one wasn't as good as it had an extra "section" for the shaft, but good enough for a laugh. Later, when I showed it to W, he wanted to know why I bought pasta in the shape of Mikey Mouse. Silly boy. After I tired of meandering, I headed back to the room (trip #5 for me).

Yet another view from hotel balcony

For dinner, Walendo wanted to go to a Chinese place we'd seen up the road (that wasn't far from our hotel, I might add), so off we went. That was an amusing experience, ordering chinese food in Italian. It turned out to be pretty good food, which made Walendo especially happy. McDonalds and Chinese food all in one day was quite the bonanza for him. Of course, afterward I had to have gelato, so we headed closer to town and ended up going almost all the way to the Campo again, since most of the stores are closed at the outskirts at that time. My sweettooth satisfied, we headed back, my 6th and final trip to the hotel, Walendo's 5th. It was a fun day.

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