Vet Judy

Today I headed off to Lucca. Now this is a cool place for me. It is a city surrounded by a wall. You can rent bikes to bike around the city, sit in an open patio restaurant and drink while watching people wander by in any of the main squares. It is flatter here, thank goodness. My legs needed a break. It is relatively easy to find your way around town and there is less traffic and people in the streets. I shall stay here a couple of days and it is a short trip by train from here to Pisa for the leaning tower. I will have to fit that in while I am here.

Today consisted of primarily trains and connections. I took a train from Assisi to Florence and then found a bus to go to Sienna. If that sounds pretty straight forward, it wasn’t anything of the sort. What should have been a few hours turned out to be the majority of the day. It won’t be long now and I will be a pro: I have learned a few basic lines in Italian regarding the trains now. Such things as “does this train stop at, do I have to change trains, how many stops to etc etc.”

Open arrival, I found out, yes there are more steep hills! I found a place to stay. Hotel Piccolo. I have discovered that every Italian city I have been through so far, has a Piccolo hotel. Most of the ones I have seen or stayed at look clean enough. So if you are ever wandering through and don’t know where to stay, well a piccolo hotel may be as good a shot as any.

I stayed in Siena and used it mostly to work and then to do tours of the surrounding area. I took a wine tasting tour in the Chianti region of Tuscany one afternoon. This was fun, except the turns in the road were so fast and hard, I felt nauseous most of the afternoon. This cut back my wine consumption, but I still learned a lot about making wines and had a good time. It was a fabulous day and a lot of photos were taken.

I also spent a day and went to Florence. I am not much of a big city person, so take this with that in mind. I have lived in and traveled to a large number of big cities. I am at the point in my life where one big city is the same as the next. So for some people I am sure this city is purely magical. For me it was, OK- that is good, seen David and the Uffizi, walked down the Ponte Vecchio (gold smith alley)..and I am ready to abort. I had a nice meal there. You could spend days here though depending on your interests. There are I think 40 museums and at least half as many churches. The Uffizi gallery alone is so huge, if you are an art buff, you could spend days there.

The most interesting thing is the guide warns you about gypsies and pick-pockets and your wallet. I think there is more of a chance of going broke there by pulling out your wallet at one of the designer shops or a jewelry store there. In the entrance of the designer shops, there is a guard. Let’s put it this way, it is highly unlikely I was getting in there with a backpack on to just take a look. Needless to say, Okanagan resort, I didn’t even try. If you have a unique piece of jewelry, leather or outfit you are looking for and an unending budget, this would be the place to shop until you drop.