Rome pt2, Siena

Well, bad news, the internet at this place is not very good and it looks like Im not going to be able to get more than one or two pictures up before its time to go. I considered complaining, but what am I gonna say, "I demand back my two euro!"? Mmm, no. Its really too bad, because the pictures are great and I kind of wrote this post with them in mind. So, hopefully you will see them tomorrow or something... I definitely should have stuck with my gut instinct and only gone with hotels that had wifi. My room in Siena is nice but having to seek out these "Internet Points" is annoying.
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Well, I'd recommend St. Peter's Square and the church sitting on it to anyone... it is definitely the most ornate building you will ever encounter. I walked the way there, which was kind of fun. As you approach, you begin to see more and more catholic/pope-oriented suivenir shops, and then you cross a bridge with quite a stunning view, a bit more walking... and suddenly you are on the square. With Rick Steves buzzing around in my ear, I approached and got through the line pretty quickly.


A surprisingly lax security check later and you find yourself in the largest church on the planet. I doubt I could describe it well enough to do it justice, and these pictures aren't much better, but I found the whole thing pretty fascinating. Rick seems to feel that this place will affect you spiritually regardless of whether or not you have faith, catholic or otherwise. Well, it wasn't the case with me- but I understand why he'd think so. It's so large and so well decorated- really well-done, kudos to the artists :P The tomb of St. Peter (why do they bury people in churches? I still find this a really really odd custom) is magnificent. Definitely, you can't miss this place.
One amusing travel anecdote- a guard in a suit approached me disaprovingly and said something in Italian about "musica", motioning towards my ipod's earpieces and shaking his head. "It's an audioguide, Want to hear?" I said. "Oh, it is?" he remarked, and walked away, embarassed. It was pretty awesome.

The vatican museum on the other hand... idk. I knew going in that it housed the Sistine Chapel and the School of Athens. That's really all I was looking for. Four MILES of fine art would be a bit much even for people who really love art, I think. The actions of my fellow tourists support this. At the beginning, we went into the side rooms, we carefully examined all those chipped statues, and trudged onwards in good spirits. About 3 miles later, the pace had increased dramatically. Ignoring the siderooms of "modern religious art" utterly (they looked pretty cruddy anyway), almost everyone walked briskly past walls and walls of paintings and tapestries, ceilings and ceilings of people getting blessed by jesus. If these exhibits had been elsewhere, Im sure most of us would have given them more of our attention. What was on my mind I'm sure was on most peoples': "How long until the Sistine Chapel? Will they have chairs in there for my poor feet?"

The school of Athens made many of us stop for awhile. It suffers from age, in my opinion, as do many of the paintings. I didn't stop for long. Michaelangelo's masterpiece awaited. Perhaps it was because it was lunchtime, perhaps because I had been walking for so long and building anticipation, perhaps because I had visited St. Peter's first, but when I finally got there I wasn't much impressed. I'm just not a great art lover, I suppose!

Tomorrow- Siena!

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Well, I am in Siena now- barely! I bought this bus ticket online for a 2.5 hour bus ride from Rome to Siena for the incredibly low price of 13 euro. I still can't beleive it, really. Of course, the site was entirely in Italian and I couldn't even find on the site where in Rome the bus left from. Well, after some help from the Rick Steves message board on ricksteves.com, I had a 3 sentence synopsis of where to go. That worked pretty well, it led me the right metro stop and said, "go across the street." Well, across the street and around the corner was a huge plazza of unmarked busses... so, that was a little scary. Looking back, it doesn't seem too bad, really. But, I stood in a series of slow-moving information/ticket lines, the clock slowly ticking closer and closer to 10.30. I got to the bus with about 10 minutes to spare. Phew!

The countryside is almost ridiculously beautiful. Ten minutes out from rome and it was green hills, mountains in the distance, and picturesque "hill towns" with yellow and orange houses sitting ontop of hills.

As for Siena, it started to pour shortly after I arrived, so that was fun. I made it to my Bed and Breakfast where I was shown to a very nice room. The streets of Siena are pretty crazy. A lot of them are very steeply inclined. I went with Rick Steves recommendation for where to eat on Il Campo. He's right more often than he is wrong, it seems to me. I was going to get something really hearty, put when I saw Pizza Patata I had to try it. Do potatoes belong on pizza? It was necessary to find out. (Turns out, not really.) Im sitting at Il Campo again right now, it is quite a bit more lively, so I'll put that picture. Yesterday though, it was still raining, so I decided to hit the Church (Duomo) and its museum, which I figurd were indoors.

It was a pretty short walk and I approaced from the side, which while large and beautiful, was pretty simple in design. When I rounded the corner, I saw it from the front and said, "Woah!"
The inside was nice, too.

The musueum's exhibits were ok. How much +wisdom do you think these staffs give?

Of course, the real reason to come here is to climb the tower for the view of Siena. Rick Steves told me it was good, but I had no idea. Incredible...

The long climb down...

Afterwards I knew what I needed-- panforte or gelato! Well, it ended up being both. I was trying to communicate "What flavor is good with Milk Creme" but she kept interpretting it as "Can I have multiple flavors?" Oh well. Milk Creme alone was gooooooooooooooooood.This panforte kind of looks like a turd in this picture, but oh man... apricot, nuts, breading, sugar... soooo goooood.

So far today I've done a little shopping. The Wednesday morning market was totally awesome, about 5 or 6 blocks of tents filled with, well, mostly women's clothing. But also some suevenir-worthy items :)