Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Italy Trip Part 4

As we drove from Rome to Florence we stopped in Siena. I have to say, I think Siena was my favorite place we went to on this trip and I wish we'd gotten more time there.

 First view of Siena. So pretty.
Pretty much all the streets in Siena slope downwards towards the center town circle. It means it's pretty hard to get lost. (Since I got lost a lot on Rome I appreciated this)


 The buildings in the town circle are actually build to be rounded. It's visible on both buildings, though I think this second picture makes it a little clearer.

Every year the different sections of Siena send a horse to the center circle and they have a race around. The district that wins goes on to have a big party. My favorite part about this race is that the horse can win even if the rider falls off.

We saw the most adorable puppy eating a cone. Needless to say everyone in the group promptly stopped listening to Dr. Texas and focused on the puppy. He's so cuuuute!

 The Duomo.
 I loved this shot I got of the stained glass from inside the Duomo.

 We found this clothesline while we walked around Siena. Clotheslines are actually better for the environment than dryers.
One of the streets that sloped down was very steep. This little restaurant had outdoor seating with specially slanted tables and chairs so that people (and food) stay upright. So I got a picture of myself sitting on one of them.

Since I had the shot of the puppy eating a cone (though there was no gelato in it) and since this has been a shorter post I'm going to write a little about the gelato I had in Italy. It was really good. As in, I didn't want to have ice cream for a little while after I got back because I was afraid it would just taste awful in comparison. (I've since gotten over it thought gelato is still amazing!). I found a lot of gelato places had flavors similar to American flavors (chocolate, mint chocolate chip, strawberry) some more commonly seen as sherbets in America (mango and other fruits) and some I'd never seen before (Tiramisu, Nutella and stracciatella). The stracciatella was sort of like chocolate chip except it was so much better. I seriously had some gelato everyday. It's amazing. One of the cool things about gelato shops is that unlike America where if you want multiple flavors it cost's extra or is just done more rarely, in Italy it's expected that you are getting two or more flavors at once on your cone/in your cup.
 
Now I want some gelato and all I have is plain old ice cream.

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