Day 2 - Siena, Pisa and the Outskirts of Cortona (a.k.a."How Not to Get Arrested in Italy")

Today was full of advenutres and travel, and we learned a few valuable lessons along the way.

The sun made an appearance this morning as we headed out to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was gorgeous but short lived, as it is very cold and raining almost constantly.

We stopped at a gas station for diesel (which isn't too bad, probably 2 Euros a gallon..which works out to about 4-5 bucks). It's not great, but I expected much worse. We also grabbed breakfast at the gas station, which unlike US, is actually really good.

A quick coffee and a sandwich and we are on our way to Pisa, by way of a little medieval town called Siena. This town is a walled city with extremely narrow roads...barely enough for our little car to get through. But since we were following other cars along the roads, we were confident that we were at least driving only where cars are allowed.

It is here that I must share another very important Italian travel tip.

Italian Travel Tip: When you see this sign:

DO NOT go any further. It means that unless you are a resident of the town, you are not allowed to drive in the area. Many small towns throughout the country have these signs, designed to minimize car traffic in highly congested narrow roads. Most towns have designated external parking lots where you leave your car and hike into town.

Unfortnately since we had only been in the country about 48 hours at this point, we did not know that rule and were relying on the, "if other cars do it, it must be OK" principle.

It didn't take long to realize that we were pretty lost, and dangerously close to running a lot of people over...though given the Italian way of driving we didn't see a single pedestrian so much as flinch when we came close to turning them into hood ornaments for our car. We circled the same area a few times before giving up and deciding to ask someone for help.

We figured that asking a friendly policewoman for help would be the best way to get out of town without incident. However, that's really where the indicent started. When we rolled down the window and tried to show her our map, that was the cue for her to know that we weren't supposed to be there, and she responded by asking us to pull over.

She gave the impression that she didn't speak English, though whether or not that was the case we will never know. She didn't speak at all, didn't smile, nothing. She simply opened up some kind of legal rule book to an English explanation of our infraction and gave it to us to read. While we were trying to figure out what we had done, she began writing us a traffic ticket.

In retrospect, we probably should have approached this differently, but it's always easier with hindsight. Instead of assuming that she understood nothing of what we said (again, I have my doubts), and grumbling about it, we should have probably asked for forgiveness and just asked for directions out of town.

Any hope we might have had of talking our way out of it evaporated when from the back seat of the car, PJ rolled down the window and shouted to some passers-by to ask them if they spoke English. The policewoman (understandably) got really upset and made it very clear that PJ should say nothing further. It was at this point I was mentally trying to figure out how we would call home for bail money, because jail seemed imenent.

She wrote the ticket and we realized that in Italy you pay the fine in cash on the spot. Seventy-four Euro later, ($100) we were on our way....but with no more direction than we had when we arrived. We decided that no matter what happened from that point further we would hide the maps and just look for the biggest roads we could find.

Siena's origins were founded some time between 900 and 400BC, and its main plaza and cathedral are considered some of the most beautiful in Europe. We passed them both in a blur. Nothing was going to be more beautiful to us than the big, industrial autostrada (freeway).

Things improved dramatically from that point. We sped along the autostrada to Pisa, where we had an 11am appointment to climb the tower. Making it with minutes to spare, we arrived in the walled portion of the city that I had only previously seen in history books and study abroad brochures.

The tower is beautiful. Most of the outside is free from scaffolding, and the carvings are beautiful. Appointments are required to climb the tower because it's a very narrow set of stairs allowing one person to pass at a time. When you first enter, you see very steep stairs with deep grooves where millions of feet have traveled. Galileo climbed these stairs centuries ago to test theories of velocity. To (literally) follow in those footsteps was pretty heady stuff.

There are 284 steps from the base of the tower to the top. I made it about 20 steps before I decided that I didn't need go all the way. While I am more than willing to admit that my lack of regular exercise played a role in this decision, the fact that there were no hand-rails, very steep steps and very narrow corridors was the real reason. I may not be the speediest stair climber in the world, but with enough time I can go forever. Up is not a problem, but coming down is a serious problem. After I broke my leg in 1998, I have been very cautious on stairs. Call me crazy, but I just have no interest in seeing my calf twisted and backwards halfway down my shin again. I just had mental pictures of going slowly down the stairs with 25-50 angry tourists backed up behind me.

Even though I only climbed a fraction of what the rest of our group did, I had the odd sensation of leaning with the tower as my brain tried to resolve the differences between the pull of gravity and what my eyes were perceiving as the right angle at which to hold my body. It was really really wierd. And as someone with balance issues, I have absolutely no regrets about not going to the top.

After everyone had their fill of the inside of the tower, we went outside to take some pictures. At first we scoffed at the people taking cheesy photos that played with the perspectives of people in the foreground and the tower behind. At the right angle, you could take a photo that appeared like a person was holding the tower up. But it wasn't long until each of us were taking that very same photo.

We grabbed a quick lunch in town and then started back to the car past the tower, where we happened to pass some college kids from Pittsburgh, who were proudly displaying their Pittsburgh Steelers "Terrible Towels" and taking pictures.

PJ has been a huuuuge Steelers fan for at least as long as I have known him. When he saw the towels he got all excited and started (loudly) cheering them on. They got a kick out of his antics, and invited him over to take photos with them. We have shots of him with the others, and one of him holding a towel of his own, showing his Steelers pride, even in Italy.

Our car had been parked in a lot adjacent to a supermarket, and PJ went in to pick up some bottled water. Michelle, Christy and I waited in the car. Now before I explain what PJ came back with, I must take a second to describe the state of our car. When packed with us and our luggage, it literally could not take on an additional thing. The back cargo area is so tightly packed that you couldn't fit a business card in there. The back seat passengers have bags both on their laps and between them. The only one in the car without a least a bag on their feet was the driver.

So we were somewhat surprised when PJ came back with water, sodas and several bottles of wine. They had apparently been on sale, and he felt that it was too good a deal to pass up. It was then we knew we would have to spend a lot of evenings drinking wine so that we would still have a place for our feet when we traveled. :)

Our last appointment of the day was a tour and dinner at a winery just outside of Cortona. This had been set up with a friend of PJ's from Atlanta, who worked with a relative of the owners. Armed with a map, a case of wine, and a new-found knowledge of exactly where we weren't supposed to drive, we made a very valiant attempt to find this winery.

Given our track-record that day, it should surprise no one that we had trouble finding the winery. And shock of all shocks, our phones did not work either. So we stopped in to a Euronics (the Italian version of "Best Buy") to pick up a cheap cell phone and call the winery for assistance.

Before I left on this trip, I joked that the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun" was more of a personal life plan than movie. Now having seen Tuscany, I was more committed than ever. So when we met a woman at Euronics who tried very hard to get us to buy her parents' villa, it was kind of spooky. She tried to get us to go out and visit the place. When we explained that we weren't interested, she insisted that we at least go to her website and take a look. Here's the link:

A Charming Farm in Tuscany

The slide-show is really neat, and now I'm kind of sorry we didn't take a look.

Our disposable cell phone (from a company called "Tim"...which became the phone's name), worked well enough to get through the winery, where the owner offered to come to Euronics and get us.

This woman was charming. She spoke a little English, though she seemed very confused as to who we were. Her vineyard doubled as a hotel, and I got the impression that they thought we were there to stay. They had opened up all of rooms and gave us a full tour....and I got the impression that they thought we were there to stay. There was also no restaurant on the property, which I thought was odd considering that I thought we had made reservations. But any confusion was short lived because they could not be more welcoming. We tasted their wines, toured their entire property, and managed to leave with 8 more bottles (in addition to what PJ bought earlier in the day) and added a new place to stay the next time we were in town. Will have to get the details from PJ for my records.

We thanked the owner and her parents for their tour and their wine, and heded back to our hotel's restaurant for dinner. Now warm, full, and exhausted, I'm ready for bed.

Tomorrow we're headed to Cortona, the actual town from "Under the Tuscan Sun."

Will write more tomorrow. ;)