Siena ... or Other Small Tuscan Towns ...

So, after my second day in Siena, I really felt like I had seen it ... it is a lovely little town with lots of charm and places to wonder, but really, there isn't a huge amount to see – especially as after my first museum, I decided I needed to take an art 'holiday' or I wasn't going to make it through Florence ...

So, I thought I would go exploring some of the little towns nearby – my options were, to take an organized tour with my fellow lemmings or head out on my own ... I went with the later option and decided my first adventure would be to the little town of Monterrigioni – it wasn't in the guide book but my Italian friend had recommended it as one of his favorites and it was only 15 minutes away by train and so I thought why not ...

Well, my first clue should have been when the station said Castellina in Chianti - Montegriggioni ... I walked out of the train station and into quite a modern and very, very quiet residential area – hardly surprising given it was late Sunday morning but I was still surprised – I expected some kind of a 'tourist' town and so wondered where everyone was ... I walked around, trying to find the main square – managed to find the church and the park and that was when I saw the road sign “Montegriggioni 2.6 km” and realized I wasn't quite close enough... So instead of a medieval walled city, I spent a couple hours wandering the streets and climbing the local hill for a nice view of the countryside and a glimpse of what I imagined was the small walled town of Montegriggioni in the distance ... and then I caught the train back.

So much for try #1 ... so I decided I to try again the next day but this time to Montepulciano - in the guidebook, which said it had a lovely church and that the train would definitely get me there ...

Aghhhhh – clearly, I was not meant to explore the small towns of Tuscany from Siena. I had been to the train station by bus before with no issues – I was told I could take bus 3, 9 or 10 ... unfortunately, I wasn't told in which direction to take said buses ... I ended up at the opposite end of town and no where near the train station ... by this time I had well missed the train and given the schedule and the fact that the journey was a good hour, Montepulciano was not in my future … I was pissed. About 10 minutes later however, I calmed down ... discovered a few more streets that I hadn't seen before as well as another church and more importantly a large cup of gelato and the world was looking a little brighter!

It's simple, next time I'm in Tuscany it will be with a group – we'll rent a house in the countryside as well as a car and putter about the smaller towns at our speed and pace – I'd been told this is the best way to see Tuscany and I now fully believe them!

I had a lovely dinner my last night in town - I was sitting on my own at one of the places on the main piazza and another woman on her own asked to share my table. She was German and my German was actually better than her English so we had this halting conversation with plenty of laughs as we tried to understand each other. It turned out that she was doing the same trip as me just in revers having just left Florence on next on her way to Rome. She was turning 50 there and the rest of her family were meeting her. We shared advice on where we'd already been. The real irony however, happened the next morning when we met again at the train station (and I realized my German wasn't as good as I thought given I was sure she was driving ...) - we laughed, chatted some more and then realized we were both called Susan ... somehow to hear her still being adventures at 50 reassured me as to what was possible. It was a very cool random meeting.