The Second Best Thing about Siena

I won't go into the story of how I was called tonto by an exceedingly rude cashier at the Cathedral of all places. What we had was a failure to communicate. What she had was the typical Italian temper. What I had was the right to defend myself as I angrily told her that I was not stupid, but she just wasn't listening to me.

We did ultimately make our way into the Cathedral which was exceedingly beautiful. The heat of the day, however, was taking its toll and it was time to do something about it...which meant it was time for our daily dose of gelato!!

We ended up at a gelato shop overlooking the Piazza and what a treat it was. They had a little balcony which we took full advantage of the picture opportunity it lent us. Just like sitting out on the Piazza, there was something magical about overlooking it from above.

We could have stayed on the balcony forever, except that there was another family waiting for their opportunity to take some pictures out there so we had to be consideration and share. It's so cool how the view changes from another vantage point.

Then as we were leaving, I had the inspiration to get some pictures of the girls on the balcony from down on the Piazza.

So much fun! Too bad we had to walk back to the car.

The gelato helped, but we were still hot and tired as evidenced by this photo in which the girls and I were taking pictures of ourselves in the traffic mirror and you can see Liz finding a place to rest.

I believe I mentioned hiring a taxi and no one protested. Instead we found the bus station and someone who was willing to tell us what to do. We were supposed to buy our bus tickets from a local shop before we got on the bus. And just like that we made our way back to the car. Even better was the easy drive back to the villa. Much, much better than Pisa...except for the part where I was called tonto.