04 • 27 • 16

EUROPE | SIENA

Welcome to Siena, home of the BEST food we had in all of Italy. The pasta was divine & the pizza was so good we had it three times in one day. Oops! We arrived in Siena mid-evening & had to walk from the train station to our Air B&B. It was a good 20 minute walk & we finally saw our street name. We were so excited, well, until we turned the corner! It was the steepest incline I’ve ever walked & of course, our door was basically at the top of it. You will see a picture of our road we stayed on in the pictures below. That was the LAST thing I wanted to do after walking 20 minutes of the rolling hills with my backpack on. We ended up waiting on our host for about an hour. After showing up, we changed and headed out to explore.

I know I was extremely hungry after working off my entire day’s worth of calories. Like I said before, Italians eat late so I we had to wait a couple hours before we could even get into the recommended restaurant. As usual, we got gelato before dinner because that became our appetizer on this trip. Their gelato here was the real deal, too. I will assure you, dinner was well worth the wait. I had bacon + walnut spaghetti, but in Siena, their spaghetti noodles are actually called Pici, which are thick, hand-rolled fat spaghetti. Simply the best.

Day 2 in Siena: As usual, a cappuccino is the first thing to get in the morning with our breakfast. That morning we also found our favorite grocery store an market in all of Italy. They had fresh pizza and bread. We decided we would come back for lunch and maybe a few groceries for snacks. That morning we climbed the tower at Piazza to overlook Sienna. We ended up meeting a couple from PA, who I have mutual contacts with – small small world.

For lunch, we got the pizza from the grocery store, then walked some more & decided to try another pizza at a Pizza Bar. The owner of this place sang Happy Birthday in italian so we could send it to our friend, Lyra. We hiked to the bottom of the garden and explored this area. We had dinner at the Piazza and people watched. After dinner, we continued to walk and followed a group of athletic looking locals. We found ourselves in their outdoor track & gym. You will see pictures of this, too. Their equipment is literally cemented into the ground and everyone works out above the city. It would definitely make me want to work out.

PIZZA DELIVERY !!

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