6/12

Exploration

This was our lazy day in Siena. We awoke late and didn't get out until around noon, which was quite relaxing. Our first destination was Il Punacoteca Nazionale, which had been closed on the previous day. We stopped at a small market along the way to pick up a couple of apples and drinks, with Michael Jackson playing over the speakers. The Pinacoteca is a collection of byzantine and pre-renaissance paintings housed in a large medieval building. As it turned out, the place closed at 1:00, so we were only able to spend less than an hour there, but the €4 price tag was worth even the short visit. Returning down Via del Citta, the main street which circles Il Campo, we found a well furnished cafe (I had been there before), where both of us grabbed a couple salami-on-baguette sandwiches. As usual, we ate these and our apples on Il Campo, which was markedly more crowded than the day before, and much warmer. I used this opportunity to tan my post-winter legs. I'm getting pretty tan :)
Another round of panna cotta gelato later, we made a quick trip back to the apartment for a bathroom break (as a visit to the public water closet costs €.50) and to change into shorts. The local Internet point was our next stop, a tiny, interesting place run by an Indian family, with colored scarves hanging from the ceiling. We let out families know we were still alive, and I attempted to transfer some of the photos from my SD card to my flashdrive, which was difficult as it took about 5-8 minutes per 27 photos. Good thing is I freed up another Gigabyte on my SD card.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon on Il Campo. There were almost as many dogs there as tourists, the most common breed being the dachshund. A woman sat down near us with a fuzzy little puppy, probably a mix, who gave my knee a lick when I came over for a pet. His name was Tito.
We watched the shadows lengthen over the red brick of the square and enjoyed the impromptu guitar music from a musician down the way, watching some American kids playing soccer and the groups of tourists and Italians alike taking in the cool Tuscan evening.
We made a return to the restaurant we ate at the first night, Erik ordering the ossobuco yet again and I had a lightly fried veal with French fries, not my best meal but the atmosphere was perfect. Our dinner stretched on for close to an hour and a half, listening to and watching the multitudes of birds wheel overhead as the moon rose above the torre del Mangia, the sky falling into evening's colors. I enjoyed my final panna cotta gelato as we made the short hike to the piazza del duomo, taking one last long look at its marble facade as the gelato dripped all over my fingers. Our final stroll past il Duomo and down the short path back to the apartment was a happy one. With the amber lights illuminating the darkening streets, the sky still bright though the sun had long since sunk below the horizon, and the distant echo of a concert several streets over, we said arrivederci to our final evening in Siena