(written 11/4/06 15:53 Greek time, in Náfplio, Greece)
As with other places, it would have been nice to stay in Riomaggiore but we had set ourselves a lot of ground to cover this trip so there was not too many chances to sit around.
We headed out further south down the coast on much faster roads this time, curving inland around past Pisa where we could see the leaning tower and field of miracles, etc. in the distance. Again,
been there, done that.
Abandoning the mountains and hills, we turned east into rural flat-land Italia. First stop was San Gimignano - a fortified town on a hill. We parked in a park and ride place (finally, they get the idea! Don't let cars in the middle of your towns!), but after deciphering the bus timetable decided to walk it instead (they don't really get the idea after all :( ).
Following our noses, it turned out not to be that far to walk at all. The town itself wasn't amazingly impressive - we have seen plenty of these places now and this didn't have the charm of Morella or Riomaggiore, plus the layer of litter really didn't help it's cause.
Still, a pizza slice and gelato apiece kept us going for a bit of a wander through the squares and some streets. We found some phones and attempted to use a phonecard we had purchased to call back home, but the Italian-language-only message wasn't what we had been told to expect, no matter what we tried, and it wouldn't let us make any calls.
Not to much further away, we had a bigger and hopefully better target anyway -
Siena. This was a city which, as with Cinque Terre, fellow travellers were surprised we had missed last time. Not meaning to make the same mistake twice, we attempted to locate some accommodation with little to guide us. First instance upon looking at the prices we may have to pay according to Lonely Planet was camping, but after a long windy drive to the place north of the city, it turned out to be closed, at least for another couple of weeks (lots of things are apparently going to open at Easter - perhaps this was one of them).
So, there was little for it but to drive towards the town itself, find a park and then search for a hotel. Luckily, we parked and walked in near a room-finding service, which tried lots of places in our budget and what we were looking for before eventually hooking us up with
Casale Virgili, a re-fitted medieval farmhouse with great hosts and a lovely setting (with the exception of the nearby motorway, but you can't have everything) about 4km out of town.
While we had parked, we chose to have an hour or so wandering around the town since we had already paid for the parking, so we had a couple of coffees in Bar Sport and wandered the attractive streets, squares, etc., before hitting the huge central Piazza del Campo. This huge shell-shaped plaza was packed with people, but still had an amazing charm surrounded by both renovated and original old buildings, and the huge imposing Torre del Mangia.
To be honest we didn't notice any of the buildings or roofs being more "burnt sienna" coloured than anywhere else, but apparently this was where it all originates.
We stopped in a supermarket for supplies for dinner back at our accommodation, which we then set out to find. As usual, we got a little lost but eventually sorted it out with not too much hassle. The place was set out with three rooms per apartment, with each apartment also having a loungeroom, kitchen and balcony. We had the whole apartment, in fact whole place to ourselves, so it was nice to have these extra rooms to spread out in instead of just a bedroom.
We relaxed in lounge for the evening reading books on the lounges, having a dinner of cheese, bread and nibblies.