May 5 : Florence & Siena

As it was our last day in Florence, we needed to accomplish anything we had not done... before 1 p.m. We headed straight for the Duomo, as we had not been inside yet. As we were standing in line we noticed a sign that stated no shorts allowed... We were both wearing shorts. We left that line and walked around a little bit more. As we were heading back towards the Fortezza Da Basso, a big fortress Conor wanted to check out, we were walking by the Duomo. Right beside the Basilica is Giotto's Bell Tower, 414 stairs to the top. For 6 Euros we were able to experience the view of Florence, in shorts, and include the Duomo in them. Speechless is the word to describe the sights. No words can fully describe the sea of tiled roofs that flood the city. We then headed towards the fortress, that turned out to be banned to tourists. 

We hopped on a train bound for Siena at noon and had to transfer in Empori. We arrived in Siena at 1:30. Our directions that the hostel sent us told us that had to head up to the city (it is surrounded by a wall) to catch a bus to the camp ground. With our packs and a grumpy Conor in tow we made our way up to Piazza Gramsci...

Once we caught the bus and realized that it basically retraced our steps back down the hill and to the train station, I had to deal with an even grumpier Conor. Oh well, now we knew where to catch the bus! The driver was kind enough to let us know when to get off the bus. We were literally staying on a campground. There were RVs parked everywhere and little cabins dotted the premises. We were given the key to cabin 13, a cute very tiny two bed shack. We had out own bathroom and fridge - it was one of the nicest places we had stayed - mainly because of the screens on the windows. It was all we needed to rest our heads on at night. Although it was a little far from the city, it was really cool to be surrounded by trees and rolling Tuscan hills with villas. We figured that we should probably head into town for the sole purpose of finding an internet café to search for a place to stay in Rome. We took the bus back and wandered around a bit. We ended up in front of Il Campo, the big bell tower in Siena. We passed a laundry mat and made a mental note of it as Conor was running low on clean underwear...

We eventually found an internet place and successfully booked a hostel, Les Artistes, which is suppose to be close to the train station. After letting our parents know we were alive we headed back to the bus stop. We stopped and had really good pasta before heading back to our little cabin, the bus ride was about 20 minutes.

Since we were able to chill the sparkling wine in our fridge, Conor and I devulged that and basically passed out... Who knew being a tourist would be so tiring!?