Euro Trip (2022) Part Two: Florence - Pienza - Siena

This is a long one, brace yourself. We go from Naples to Florence to Pienza to Siena.

Once we arrived back to Naples from our week in Ischia, we spent a few more days exploring Napoli (I'm switching between the two spellings because Napoli is fun to say!) and then took the train up to Florence to meet up with Sesha's sister Tiama, and her boyfriend Woj. Tiama and Woj drove down from London and were spending some time showing us their favorite places in the Tuscany region of Italy.

While in Florence, Tiama and Woj took us on a day trip to Pienza which is a lovely little town about an hour or so from Florence by car. The city has a great looking cathedral, is very walkable and an ideal way to spend an afternoon in small town Tuscany. If drinking wine and eating soft pecorino cheese or pecorino gelato sounds like a good time then Pienza is for you! The highlight of the day trip for me was a visit to a farm to table restaurant where I had my first boar dish, yumm!

Florence

Arriving in Florence by train, we walked 30-45min (one of many walks to/from the train station, more on that later) to our AirBnB which turned out to be a gorgeous apartment sharing an entryway with some bougie hotel. The entryway has incredible frescoes painted on the ceiling which we were soon to find was a common theme in Florence. Looking out from our 2nd (3rd?) floor windows we had a great view of the iconic alleyways of Florence (and Italy really). Watching folks walk back to their lodgings at the end of the night was strangely calming and made me feel like a part of the "balcony crowd" which we so often saw throughout Europe.

Once we started settling in I realized that one of the wheels on my suitcase was sheared off of the plastic housing and would need some work to be functional again, but that was a problem for another day (and another walk to the train station). It was time to go out and explore Florence at night, which is just magical!

Some of our highlights in Florence include:

• Exploring the alleyways at night. The city is dry, dusty and full during the day but somehow as day transitions to night it becomes charming instead of overwhelming
• Exploring art galleries during the day (notably the Uffizi) and watching musicians play beautiful music at night right outside of those galleries
• Eating lots and lots and lots of delicious food. Particularly a beef tartare we had in Florence was my favorite of the trip...I still need to confirm with Tiama the name of that place as she found it.

Looking through my pictures here I feel that they don't do Florence justice. Maybe I was having too good of a time to take photos. At times, especially during the day, it could feel really touristy (especially American tourist) due to the large volume of US students studying there but even with the crowds during the day, it took nothing away from the beauty of the city itself, and night seemed to completely wash it away (or was it the alcohol and company??)

A sleepy Teka

Next time we come there is a residential area across the river which we want to explore more. Woj mentioned that it has a ton of shaded walkways, architecturally interesting houses and is a part of Florence most visitors won't get out to. Bike culture in Florence actually seemed pretty developed and used (compared to Naples) so taking a bike out might be a fun way to explore it without melting on the walk there.

Speaking of melting while walking...due to my suitcase needing emergency wheel repair (we were only 2-3 weeks into our 3 month trip) I set about finding a repair shop to do the work. Through some quick google-ing I was able to find an actual Samsonite repair shop, hallelujah! ...right next to the train station, which meant another 30-45min walk (sweat session). Well, as it turns out I had the American version of the suitcase and the shop only had European repair parts...sigh. After some back and forth with the young front desk worker as to what could be done and whether they could put any wheel on there (I was starting to wear him down) an older woman (assuming shop owner and the boys mother) came out and gave me a firm NO! Nothing I said could convince her to even take a look at the suitcase, and so I set out on another 30-45min walk back to the AirBnB. My search for another repair shop began again and this time I was able to talk to the front desk at the bougie hotel below our AirBnB where they suggested another repair shop...can you guess where it was?! That's right, the train station! However, on my third death march back to the train station, I had some coffee and wine in between, this is Europe after all...only to reach my destination and find that no, they in fact could not repair the wheel and were not interested in helping me. At this point I decided to take matters into my own hands and find a hardware store. Within 10min of arriving at a ferrementaria and with the help of the woman at the front desk, we had the wheel replaced and I was on my way. This time only a 10min walk back to our AirBnB...phew! My fix actually ended up lasting our entire trip and I had to replace another wheel in Barcelona but that time I just did it myself instead of relying on the mood of the repair shop owners.

Another fun story from Florence that I want to note lest I forget it, and because it includes some great photos of Sesha and Tiama, is the speakeasy we ended up going to. As we were winding down for the day we decided to stop in somewhere for a nightcap before heading back to our lodgings. I found a decent looking place on Google and so we set off. Once we arrived at the location there were no signs for a bar, the building itself didn't look occupied aside from a few dim lights and the door wouldn't open, weird. Since this was definitely the location and it definitely had recent reviews on Google one of us decided to be brave and knock (or ring a doorbell) and after a few seconds the door was cracked open a smidge and we were asked for a password...cue all of us looking at each other in confusion. Now I'm not sure what happened in the next five seconds but one, or all of us said something and we were promptly admitted to an extremely well decorated space where we proceeded to drink delicious cocktails and listen to Frank Sinatra well into the night. Totally unexpected and totally amazing experience in Florence!

Pienza

The drive out to Pienza is stunning, it's a privilege to be a passenger in Tuscany. Arriving in town we took a short walk to explore and sampled some soft pecorino cheese. Pienza is known for it and we tried 3 month, 3 year and 5 year aged cheeses. Our favorite was the 3 year so we bought some of it for a later snack. We also tried some pecorino gelato which was phenomenal. For a flavor that doesn't seem like it would translate well to gelato we were quite surprised! Sesha tried some again later in Italy but was unfortunately disappointed, so getting it while in Pienza is a must!

The following photos are from the farm to table lunch where we spent a lovely afternoon with Tiama and Woj talking about everything and nothing at the same time, just enjoying each others company while in Tuscany. We noticed that the farm had a dedicated area for campers on one side which got us thinking about our next trip and that doing a bicycle tour around Tuscany would be a great way to explore the area. Wherever we go, we leave with more reasons to come back than we had to come in the first place, I love traveling.

...by the time I remember to take a picture of my boar dish...it was gone

Siena

Siena felt like a place we could live if we wanted to make a move to Tuscany. The town itself is really small but there is definitely a city feeling to it amongst the farm land surrounding it. In a way it kind of reminds me of Pullman but a more metropolitan Pullman, in the middle of Italy, full of Italians so maybe not like Pullman at all.

Arriving in town via train you end up going up something like 10 connected escalators to get on the ground level of the city. It was an unexpected and unique travel experience to happen to me. I don't think it's something people would mention when talking about Siena but it was probably in the top three longest escalator rides I've ever had in my life. Once you reach the top it's a short 15 minute walk to city center and some good restaurants to take a break from the walk. There are some hills as you meander through town but since the buildings are fairly tall and streets narrow, you end up in the shade for most of the walk. We stayed on the furthest end of the city, compared to the location of the train station, but the streets were clean and without too many bumps in the brick (my suitcase wheels squeaked in joy, I hope).

Speaking of brick, one thing which stood out to me immediately was the amount of red brick used everywhere. It really gives the city a clean and royal feeling which was further elevated by all of the neighborhood flags prominently waving everywhere. We had arrived following the weekend of Palio Di Siena which is the biggest week in town. This long standing horse race has each neighborhood fiercely competing for bragging rights for that year. Although we missed the main festivities there was still plenty of revelry to see; from groups of people parading through town singing traditional songs, led by men in suit of armor. To young boys practicing the drums which I assume are integrated into the festival. It was wonderful being in town during this period as there was quite a buzz in the air every night making it ideal for us, a trio of vagabonds looking to make new memories together.

Same image as the first one in this group but later in the sunset. Beautiful light to highlight the red brick.

The cathedral in Siena deserves its own post because it is just stunning and I have too many pictures from it to post here. The patterning of the stacked marble and unique style of carving details into marble was quite a sight to see. Siena would be worth visiting just for this Cathedral alone, never mind that the city itself is also quite stunning. There is a historical reason for it's beauty and wealth which we learned from Woj but I won't go into that here. It boils down to that back in the day Florence won a big battle which made it the center of commerce instead of Siena. It's like the Chicago of the Chicago - New York rivalry.

Amazing details in these carvings.