Arrivederci Firenze, Buongiorno Siena

We woke up, checked out, got some more Euro (ouch, US bucks don't get much), and got a cab to the train station. We were both surprised when our cab showed up and the driver was a young, attractive woman. Cary helped her with our bags. I took pictures while we drove to the station because you just don't see this at home. Cars and pedestrian share the streets. People walk in the middle of the streets and the cars sort of nudge along till people scoot over. Sometimes they drive a lot faster than a nudge and its a little scary to watch, and scary to be on the street if you're a pedestrian that's not used to it. We never saw a car accident, and rarely heard a car honk. Honking isn't mean there, its more communicative than resentful, compared to LA.

So we get on the train and couldn't figure out if it was assigned seating or not, and we plopped down and asked these two young American girls sitting across the aisle if they had assigned seating. The weren't sure but weren't worried about because if it was, they'd just tell you to leave.

An older man sat next to Cary and a business man on his mobile phone sat next to me. I tried to figure out where the train station was on the map of Siena so I could figure out how to get to our hotel, but it wasn't on the map. So I asked the older man sitting next to Cary. He didn't speak English, so we used the international language of pointing and nodding and shrugging shoulders. It took him a minute to put his glasses on and he kept turning the map around and squinting till the map was upside down and then looked at me and shrugged an "I don't know" with a sweet smile. The business man next to me got off the phone and tried to figure it out too, but said the station isn't on the map and he didn't know where it was relative to the town center.

The older man and the business man got off at a stop before Siena. So I asked the American girls if they knew where the station was. They had planned on taking a day trip to Cinqua Terra, but they got a late start on the day and missed the train, so they decided to check out Siena instead and asked to peak at our guide book because they didn't know anything about Siena. They were so cute.

Megan and Dara had just graduated from college in Miami and had spent the last 3+ weeks backpacking through Europe and were in Florence and taking a day trip to Siena. They were so cute and dreamy eyed when they told us about their European trip and showed us some pictures on their camera. We got to the train station and decided to split a cab to the town center. I told them that it was our honeymoon, and they wanted to soak up our love, they said with tears in eyes. So we dropped them off at the town center and went to the hotel. If anyone knows a Megan and Dara that went to Europe in May/June 2008, have them send me an email I tried to email Dara, but it bounced back.

We got to to Il Chiostro del Carmine. Our hotel was a converted monastery. No elevator, and we were on the 3rd floor. After the long flights of stairs, we get to our room, and open the windows to the hotel and from left to right, this is what we saw:

We had to just stand there and be in awe for a few minutes. These pictures just don't express how totally breathtaking the view is. I've never been one to pay extra for a room with a view, and we didn't pay extra, we just got lucky. But after this experience, I totally understand why it would be worth it.