Siena

22 May Sienna Campground

Mr GPS was in disgrace this morning. (I thought I was better and we decided to go to Montelpulciano.) The sealed road out of town offered a scintillating descent, but our GPS, with his programmed predilection for small quiet roads, thought he could do better than that. Therefore we found ourselves on a winding gravel track with a gradient of 15%. Since I am still nursing a sore knee (thick, numb and painful to bend) from the fall a few weeks ago, walking seemed the more sensible option. Then the road was barricaded off on either side of a small land-slip. So we had to take all the panniers off, lift the bikes over, and put them all back on again. Ah well, the views were sublime.

The road took us to Buonconvento, from where there's a train to Sienna. It was already nearly 1pm – Domenico had had breakfast with us, we'd met his stylish and friendly wife, been taken for an inspection of the ancient cellar in his gorgeous house and so had left very late. We regretfully decided to skip Montelpulciano and go on to Sienna.

One of the routes to Sienna that Domenico had shown us seemed to be full of low rises and long downhills, so I decided I was up to riding to Sienna. However, the road we took was full of hot UP hills – the first one was 15% up - we finished back at nearly the same height as Montalcino - and by the time we limped into Sienna campground at just after 8pm we were completely exhausted. Also, apart from the last couple of kilometres in, the scenery was not very exciting.

We summoned the concentration to put up our tent, washed our faces and went to the on-site restaurant for pretty delicious pizzas and umm tiramisu. It was too late, and we were too tired, to even consider cooking.

23 May Siena Campground

Rest day today – did washing, stayed around campground, chatted to Englishman cycling to Papua New Guinea(!). Why? Well, he was cycling to Borneo anyway and a friend who lived in PNG said he may as well go a bit further.

Cooked our own dinner, just remembering how.

24 May Siena camping ground

Today we actually got to visit Siena and it was quite beautiful.

It took us a couple of hours to get out of the campground, because we tried (unsuccessfully) to use Skype, and we up-dated the blog.

The end result was that we caught a bus at about noon, which is not so fatal here as elsewhere because places stay open all day.

We walked through streets lined with Gothic buildings and palaces (there was a sign pointing to the Palazzo di Poste, rather a step up from Post Office) to the Piazza del Campo which is a wonderful place, then we had a shop make rolls for us, which involved choosing the bread, choosing the cheese and other fillings, all of which was weighed and priced separately then assembled and wrapped.

We ate sitting on the steps of what we thought was the back of the Duomo (wrongly, as we later found out), and walked around the front. It's quite difficult to describe the impact of the Duomo, which has been cleaned and restored so that it looks like it has just been built, because the eroded original statues have been moved into the museum and replaced with replicas. The whole things is a luminous confection of pink, white and green marble with intricate detail, and many many statues and carvings, all wonderfully made. The facade and the statues along the roof stood out white against the deep blue sky. The surrounding buildings and buildings in Siena generally are relatively simple and austere and so the Duomo stands out in dramatic contrast. Gail says it was so beautiful it made her want to cry.

She found the inside less exciting – it is rather sombre, all the columns match the black and white stripes of the bell tower - but has some lovely things, including the pulpit and inlaid marble pictures on the floor which took 400 years to make.

We needed a drink after that, before we went to the Baptistery, which was the building on whose steps we had eaten lunch. It was also pretty good. Then the crypt,which was part of the substructure of the Duomo, and incorporated the structure of an older church and its frescoes.

We decided that we had done enough sightseeing and headed off the supermarket, and home.

Home now had new neighbours, Pierre and Eleanor, a slightly older couple on a flash folding tandem. They are from Perth, originally from South Africa, and travelling for 6 months. We had a huge veggie pasta, then Vincent from Ireland (whom we met yesterday) arrived with Kiew-Sook from Korea, a young woman cycling from France to Rome on her own. Intrepid and very unsook-ish. She had her bike stolen in Aix-en-Provence, pulled herself together, bought a new bike and kept going. She said she used to travel in great comfort and still find things to complain about, so decided she would make herself uncomfortable by cycle touring. Now she finds she appreciates everything.

25 May Siena campground

Chatted to Vincent, Kiew Sook, Pierre and Eleanor this morning, then went into Siena with Pierre and Eleanor. We gave them a brief tour, now being old hands, had another look at Il Campo, then parked ourselves in front of the cathedral for another look. The longer you look, the more you see, and its impression grows.

Then to the Museo d'Opera di Duomo, which contains many of the original sculptures, friezes and so forth which are beautiful close up, with remarkable attention to detail given that they are made to be seen from a distance. The Museum is made of part of what was to the the grand extension of the Duomo, and at the end is the front wall. We climbed up to the parapet which was about level with the roof of the Duomo and has wonderful views over Siena and the surrounding countryside. Gail went to the highest level, but I gracefully declined.

Then lunch (much the same as yesterday) and a walk around which took us to a hairdressers where we both had haircuts!.
Our final stop had an exhibition of Sienese art from Jacopo di Quercio to Donatello, which was really interesting and well put together, with some lovely things, not least of which was Donatello's bronze John the Baptist. The building was a hospital for pilgrims and the poor and operated, as far as we could work out, until the 1990's. One room had nice frescoes of the sort of things that the hospital did.

Supermarket again, then home (at about 7.30) to fire up the stove. We ate with Kiew-Sook and Vincent and had a rollicking time until 11 when we fell into bed.

26 May Siena Campground

Today we went to have a look at San Gimignano. We decided to take the train most of the way there and ride home carrying just one pannier each making it a 51km day.

We ate a lovely salad for lunch on the way sitting on a little bridge to someone's farm, with a stream trickling below, a flowering tree in front of us, red poppies bright in the sun, and a meadow studded with dark and light green trees stretching up to the farmhouse. The people living there came home for siesta and waved to us.

In fact we were both disappointed with SG because it was absolutely crawling with tourists, and tourist shops and although the square towers projecting into the sky made it unusual (individual families built them to demonstrate their wealth and power) it was otherwise just a nice hill town with buildings similar to those of Siena but not as grand.

Mr GPS found us a pretty dirt road out of there which wasn't too steep or blocked off, and we enjoyed the lovely views before settling in for some solid hill climbing. We stopped at another walled town – Colle Di Val d'Elsa which was lovely and tranquil. We had a coffee there and the rest of our bread with jam on it, then continued on our way until we saw what seemed to be a ruined castle perched on a hill. There was a winding dirt road up to it, so we decided to go and investigate.

A young couple from New York were also walking up to it – back to their hotel. They said they were also travelling by bike – but a bike touring company was carrying their luggage and organising 4 star hotels each night. (!!!!!) (They did only have a week - she was a cardiologist).

At the top was a beautiful little fortified village, with just a few tourists wandering about enjoying the late afternoon sun.

We continued home as fast as we could after this, because we'd promised to cook dinner for Eleanor and Pierre (they can't buy fuel for their stove in Italy so are doing without while here.) The hills were alive with the sound of panting and puffing and seemed interminable, however we skidded back to the tent at 7.15, making a quick stop for FOUR of the sensational vanilla slices the little pasticceria up the road makes. (We've been sharing one between us for dessert each night!) Eleanor had opened the wine, cut up a salad and the smoked salmon and found a special 'cream' to go with it. We supplied the capers, pasta and the gas, and had a fabulous dinner together.