This is an overview of Siena. The city is built throughout hills, very close together, so the streets are small, and the roads are steep. But from the top, it's very beautiful.
This is the duomo, or cathedral, in Siena. The inside is completely made of marble, and it's remarkable. I took some pictures, but they didn't turn out well enough to post.
This is near where I ate lunch. A group of us spent a good 30 minutes coming up with the best poses for this wall. This is the "Iesha" pose... a winner. Hope you enjoy it. ;o)
This was a fountain I found on my search for gelato. My calling - a unicorn!! I don't know if you can really see it in this picture, but the water dripped out of its horn. Needless to say, I was excited.After an exhausting day walking around Siena, I went to bed early so I could get up early, take a train to the coast and do some more walking around (and eating gelato). This time, Kristi and I went to the Cinque Terre National Park. Cinque Terre is a series of five small towns (and I mean tiny ... probably only a few hundred inhabitants per town) built into the cliffs of the Italian Rivieria. We spent six hours hiking the 9 kilometers and walking through each town. It was absolutely beautiful, and probably the most amazing (and exhausting and physical) thing I've ever done in my life. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day:
This is me, sleepy, on the 7:51 a.m. train. Sure, 7:51 doesn't sound too early, but it is when you get there 30 minutes early after a 30 minute walk to the train station.
My first Italian beach, at the town of Monterosso.
This was about 30 minutes into our hike, the town of Monterosso in the background. It had been an easy hike so far ... we had no idea what was in store!
Here's what a good portion of the hike was like. If you've ever seen me on a stairmaster, then you know how horrendous this was. Kristi almost left me behind.
I made friends with the local wildlife -- several stray cats -- along the way. One, which I didn't get a good picture of, looked just like Hex.
Two hours later, we got sight of the next town, Vernazza. This one, I think we agreed, was the most beautiful. It's also where we stopped for lunch.
A street in Vernazza.
My nutritious lunch.
This is the back of Vernazza, as we were hiking up and out the other side.
And almost an hour later, we caught sight of the next town, built higher onto the cliff (thank God), Corniglia.
The fourth town, Manarola, was probably my favorite. We didn't stay long, because it was going to start getting dark soon, but as we were walking through, an elementary school band was playing in the center square, and it was pretty fun.
Luckily, the last town, Riomaggiore, was only about a 30 minute walk from Manarola. By this time, we were exhausted, so we ate dinner (the first of three that day, for me anyway), and bought our train tickets home. After a delay in Pisa, where we had to switch trains, because of a sciopero (strike), we finally made it back to our hotel ... many hours later.Come Monday, there was still no rest for my aching legs, as I went on another after-school excursion, this time, to Pisa. (It was rather difficult going back there, seeing as how Kristi and I spent several hours in its train station about 15 hours before.) Luckily, we weren't there for very long, because, as it turns out, there's not much to see in Pisa. That is, except for the leaning tower, of course. It leans. It was pretty sweet.
I don't know which I liked better - the tower, or the gelato.
While we were there, the tower starting falling even more. But no worries, I was there to push it back up ...And now, I'm taking it easy for a few days. I've been taking long hot baths at night and drinking plenty of wine to help me recuperate. Tomorrow, however, our entire program is heading off to Venezia (Venice) for Carnivale. We'll be there through Sunday, and I'm pretty excited. So you can expect some more pictures of that excursion in probably about a week, when I recover.
Arrivederci!
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