Siena & Viareggio

On September 7 we visited the Tuscan city Siena with our art history class. We toured the Duomo and some other museums there, focusing on pre-Renaissance art. We saw Lorenzetti's The Allegory of Good and Bad Government in the Sala dei Nove. We got to climb up and get a great view of the city.

Andy and I with the Duomo behind us. I chose a good scarf to wear that day, I matched the church!

That Friday we took a day trip to the beach city Viareggio! Some of our friends were going to the Amalfi coast, which is beautiful, but was more expensive and had to be done over a whole weekend. We were glad we could do Viareggio for just one day, and it was easier to get to. (Plus we could save $ to travel outside of Italy.) We took the train to Firenze, and switched to a train to Viareggio. It was fun because it was a double-decker train. We got to the train station, and simply walked west until we hit the coast. In Italy there are not many public beaches, but rather private beach clubs, or "bagni", for which you pay to rent space and chairs for a day (or a week, month, whole summer...).  We found one that looked good, figured out what to rent and how to pay. We ended up getting an umbrella and four chairs for 23€ for the day, so not too bad between the four of us. We lounged on the beach, swam some even though it was pretty cold and had a great day. Andy and I took a long walk on the beach. Seriously, it was long. There was a white pier that looked cool, so we decided to walk down to it. Distance is deceptive on beaches, and we ended up walking a few km each way. It was worth it though, fun to people watch and wave watch. There were actually people out surfing! If the waves had been better I would have gone up to one of the surfers and asked if I could borrow the board for just one ride. I would love to be able to say I have surfed in Italy! Maybe next time I get to the beach.

It was a warm, sunny day and so beautiful with the beach to our left and mountains to our right! Perfection!

We have started a map keeping track of where we have been. Blue marks the places I have been, and red marks the places we have both been! Click here to see the map