Italy 2024 - Day 8 / Siena

Steps today: 14 687 / 9.68 km

Another change to our home-base city today: Off to Siena - one of Frank's favourite places. This was our 3rd visit to Siena and reading back on my impressions of the first time, you'd wonder why I'm coming back at all. It would seem I wasn't impressed but that's far from the truth! Siena is a wonderful place! 

We reached our hotel by about noon, and thankfully the room was ready. It was SMALL, but adequate...  and get a load of the view from our balcony - stunning!

I don't have a size standard when it comes to hotel rooms, I don't care if they are small - as long as they are clean and quiet. I have had many rooms where the bathroom door doesn't open all the way because it bangs up against the bed, or have just a sliver of space around the bed that you have to shuffle-step around it. 

This room was so small that someone would have to sleep up against the wall - that "honour" goes to the one who doesn't need to pee as much during the night.

I would have preferred two twin beds pushed together; we've learned over time you get more blankets what way, and no slumps in the center of the mattress.

The bathroom was very narrow, especially in front of the sink. You could not bend over into it if the door was closed - same for toweling off when getting out of the shower, you have to open the door to get some extra room.

My plan after checking in and unpacking was to go straight to the Campo and have lunch. Here are a few shots along the way that will be familiar to you if you've ever been to Siena.

Lunch with a view: just how I love it!.. The Campo is really spectacular

We must have been feeling extra comfortable because we ordered a "full" bottle of wine instead of the usual halfs.

After lunch, we went for an aimless stroll

At around 3 we stopped at Nannini for a coffee. Frank fell in love with this place when we first came to Siena, and I remember an over-heated café that was loud and crowded.  This time, it was very pleasant....  and I love how my glass of limoncello is in the shape of a lemon.

We lingered for an hour at the tables in the back, and because we couldn't see outside, we didn't realize it had started raining. We decided to go back to the Campo and sit under the heat lamps at a café.

So neat to see it empty in the rain when just an hour earlier it was buzzing with activity!

The smokers beat us to the prime seats outside under the heaters, so we opted for indoors with a view.

An hour later it was still raining, poor me, forced to have another drink. ;)

The rain was just not letting up, so we decided to move to another spot for supper. We ended up back at Nannini and I am not sure why with so many other options around. I can't remember what our reasoning was anymore.

It was about 7ish when we were done, and we decided to call it a day, go back to the room and catch up on some well needed sleep.

Italy 2024 - Day 7 / Trieste & Venice

Steps today: 23 253 / 15.33 km

Back on the day-tripping trail! Today, another new city for us: Trieste. We got there around 9:30. 

Stopped in at the Serbian Orthodox Church

And then looked for somewhere WARM to sit inside! The plan was coffee because it was only 10:30, but I saw they had Aperol and so, well, far be it for me to resist!

After this, we set off to check sights off the list. So many status all over!!

Roman Amphitheater: 

On the way to the castle, I spotted this and wondered if it was like a "Point Zero", but no. Google says it's a well.

Ancient columns - holds NO interest for me. I am done with broken clay pots and rocks on the ground for life. Ever since I went to Greece and overdosed!

We didn't tour the castle, we just walked the ramparts and enjoyed the views

The Arco di Riccardo. It dates back to the year 32BC! Amazing. And I love way the modern building was constructed around it.

It was getting close to the time to start looking for a place to have lunch, so we went to huge Piazza Unità d'Italia hoping to find something.  Beautiful place - ZERO food options.

Stunning square overlooking the sea, lined on 3 sides with majestic buildings and a fountain too busy with people around it so I didn't get the shot I wanted. I am very fussy LOL

After a long search for food, we FINALY found something... we pounced as soon as we saw it. Why so few places? we MUST have been a few streets away from more, but I was fed up.

After lunch, we walked out to the Old Pier - great views!

Stopped for one last drink, then headed back to Venice.

This would be our last night in Venice, so we wanted to end on a special note... and we sure did! but not the way we intended...  it was a calamitous evening - one wrong turn and bad decision after another! One thing for sure: We'll always remember this evening!

The plan was to have a nice Goodbye Dinner in St Marc's Square and then take the vaporetto down the Grand Canal back to the train station to make up for the snafu 2 days ago.

First, on our way to St Marc's, we zigged when we should have zagged (almost impossible not to do in Venice) and ended up further away from our destination. We were parched and cranky so this detour didn't help!

When we reached the square, Florian was PACKED! not a single free table to be found, and many people waiting. The reason was that it was in full sun - but the warm comfortable kind, not the hot sweaty kind so seats were in high demand. 

By contrast, the cafés on the other side of the square were in the cold windy shade and were deserted. We were so thirsty by then, we didn't want to wait. We threw up our hands and went to Lavena

We were COLD! we even had our hoods up, I had to sit in such a way that I wasn't touching the chair metal... God, we were idiots! Why didn't we just go inside?

The first thing we did, was order water and I think we drank it all in just one gulp. Now, remember where we were!! The restaurants here are stupidly expensive, and we knew it...  but still we were so dumb: One 250ml bottle is a whopping 10€! and we had two each because we were so thirsty!! that's 60$CDN spent on water. 

We had croissant sandwiches, they were fine, but nothing special for the small fortune they cost.

Before leaving, I said to myself: "what the fuck! Let's get a cocktail for the road" and ordered a Rossini.

This little snapshot was the best moment of the evening.

The plan afterwards like I said, was to take the vaporetto back, but we were cold and feeling broke so when I saw another option for a fast boat back to the train that was cheaper - I took it.  THEN we found out the wait was 25 minutes. UGH this was adding so much time to our day! Remember all the time we lost on our detour to get to St Marc's. Frank was getting extra cranky because he was so cold, but at that point I don't think anything short of teleportation would have pleased him.

So, we waited. When the boat came, based on our unlucky evening so far, we wanted to be SURE we were getting on the right boat so we asked the guy helping the people on board: "Ferrovia?"and the snappy, rude, unprofessional, snarky reply we got back shocked me and just set Frank off. The guy replied angrily with a sarcastic tone something like "what did my colleague tell you?" it was like a punch. Frank was so outraged I thought it would lead to an altercation, thankfully it didn't... but I feel it was close.

We FINALY made it to the station, got on the train, and exhaled.  It must have been an hour now since we left the restaurant.

I mentioned before that Venice "Proper" (Santa Lucia) and Venice Mestre where our hotel is, is 1 stop. 10 minutes. zip and quick. So, when the train stopped 10 minutes into our ride, we got off.

You know when you do something wrong, your brain doesn't quite click at first and you rationalize details before you realize you've made an error? 

Only 2 couples got off the very crowded train - we assumed the crowds just weren't going to Mestre

The platform was very dark - we just assumed we were near the end.

Mestre is quite a large station, yet there were no other trains - we assumed we were on the last platform facing away from the station.

As the train pulled away, the penny dropped and we saw the sign. This was not Mestre, but Porto Marghera!!!

It was DESERTED! This was not a big station like Mestre, but a dinky local non attended station. What to do? Wait for the next train? Will the next train even stop in Mestre? It should in theory - but what if we actually missed Mestre? Where the Hell were we exactly?

I tried to look on a map on my phone to see where we were and determine if Mestre was ahead or behind us, but THAT'S when I didn't get any connection - of course!

Once I stopped panicking, I came to my senses and thought: we are not far from Santa Lucia, let's go back and start over. EVERY train heading in the direction from which we came is going there - so it's the simplest solution.

We saw on the boards that there was a train coming in 2 minutes on another track so we sprinted to catch it.

Back in Santa Lucia, we caught another train and this time we MADE SURE not to get off at the next stop. LOL. How many people have made this mistake? My guess is MANY!!! in fact, on the second train 2 girls thought they missed their stop in Mestre when the doors closed at Porto Marghera!

Bigger question: why did we only notice this NOW that there was a stop in between? It can't be on every route....  was it? I find it incredible we didn't wise up to this fact before.  Talk about learning the hard way.

We were exhausted by the time we reached our room - but we had to start packing for our onward journey the next morning. UGH

No rest for the wicked! 😉