pixstix.biz: Siena

Attributing this to that 'someone said' column. Italian trains are never late nor are they ever early. Only the traveler is late or early. Yesterday I was early a lot traveling to Siena from Deiva Marina in the Cinque Terra area of Italy. (For those of you who don't know where I've been!!) I won't get into why I was told to go north to get my train going south, or the fact that doing so took an hour to get to where I started. Hey it's Italy and I'm on Holiday.
Traveler's are weird, I know I'm one, but it is one of those curiosities to me why you would go so far from home and sit with your travel companion and talk about the office gossip while not 'seeing' the place you are visiting. Two women from Austrailia (a long way from home) where doing just that as we past Carrara. I politely (yes, me) interrupted and pointed out the quarry on the hillside where the famous white marble comes from. An Italian woman next to me added how dangerous it still is to get the marble form the mountain, making it so expensive. One pulled out her iPad to take a photo, but was too slow and then they both went back to their gossip. To each his own!
Carrara to Pisa then on to Siena. The trains to Siena are diesel, the only ones I have seen so far on this trip. All others have been electric. Why here? The land was that of gentle rolling hills and Chianti grapes, small villages and peaceful streams. Very pretty.
Siena's train station is at the bottom of a rather deep valley and the city of course is on the hill. I lost count, but I think it was nine escalators that brought me to the top and a couple of moving sidewalks going up an incline just to change the pace. Thankfully I didn't have to climb to get to the city. At the top - no taxis. I like to grab one in the new towns to get to the hotel and then I will go exploring. No taxi - off walking. Maps.me is great to let me know where I am and where I'm going as you don't need an internet connection. My hotel was next to the city but down the hill. and down the hill and down the hill. I was ready to really get upset that the being' .2 miles from the city center' was ya! if you're a bird. But right across the street from the hotel is another set of six escalators to take you to the top again, so it's not that bad. The hotel, though called moderno, was modern in the post war era. The beds are clean, the room is large, the bath is large and I only sleep here. It's almost noon on a Sunday, and I'll leave you with a couple of shots of Siena form last night.