You guys.  I’m a day late, because apparently hanging out in Tuscany is cooler than just writing about hanging out in Tuscany.  So there we go.

Did I mention we rented a car?  We did.  That’s given us the flexibility to just kinda do whatevertf we feel like doing, which has been awesome.  Anyhow, what’s my point? Yesterday we asked Google for directions to Montepulciano, and then watched it get frustrated and constantly reroute us as we only followed its every third direction.  That allowed us to see some cool parts of the country we might not have seen.  It also had us end up in some nice people’s back yards while they were barbecuing.  They didn’t invite us in, but they were happy enough to watch us drive away.

Eventually we got to Montepulciano.  I didn’t take a ton of photos of it, but it’s a really cute town and the tourist-trap-type stores are pretty high quality.  One place immediately handed me a glass of wine and a half of loaf of bread to comfort me while I perused their cheese.  It was awesome and I was hoping to get that kind of treatment everywhere.  But I didn’t. Just at that place.  So I bought 50 euros worth of cheese and crackers…  ish.

We drove to Pienza, which was fine but kinda like whatever, La Foce, which is a pretty cool garden area, but the best part was certainly the drive between the two.  Next up was Bagno Vignoni- a place with thermal baths that are free!  There’s a picture of the thermal baths right here.

These thermal baths are certainly worth the trek

Um.  Damnit.  I was really looking forward to a swim, and this is what was there.  The town had some other more fun looking baths, but you weren’t allowed to swim in them.  But there were plenty of hotels offering swimming pools for the reasonable fee of fifteen euros.  Nope.  Luckily, en route to BV, we saw this in the distance.’

It’s a castley rock

Rocca d’Orcia.  When I saw it I was all like omg wtf is that, so we had to check it out.  Basically it’s a big old castle thing, but we could actually climb up on it.  Don’t worry- theres a couple cool shots of the view down below.  In unrelated news, I think I finally got the hang of pronouncing the Italian “gl” digraph.

That was followed up by..  driving home.  Which was awesome.  Did I ever mention I don’t have a driver’s license and I can’t actually do any of the driving?  Becca thanks for me “navigating” but she doesn’t know (yet) that I’m just goofing around on Twitter and missing most of the exits.  Shhh!!

Dinner was had back in Siena at a place next door to the Dream Cafe.  I mention that place because 1- I don’t remember the name of the place we ate  2- that Seinfeld episode atand 3- the DC features a buffet of a variety of dishes prominently featuring chopped hot dogs.  Gross.  And cocktails in plastic cups.  The place we ate at was next door and delicious, though it was weird because we were clearly the first customers of the day, possibly week/month.   I got some Fernet and it made me miss Malort.  Not that they are similar, but they’re both such fantastic digestifs.  And here are some photos:

Siena!  I didn’t take a lot of photos of the cool narrow streets and old buildings, since I was mostly too busy taking pictures of cool churches and store signs to purposely misinterpret.  But Siena has a lot of narrow streets and old buildings.

Today was mostly just walking around, checking out churches.  The Duomo looked like a well-organized zebra and it was amazing, but the best part was definitely the synagogue we visited.  Just the two of us there at the time, so we got a personal tour of the place.  The people who designed and built the place were all Catholic, so a lot of the details were more in line with what you’d expect from a church.  It’s either amusing or depressing, depending on what kind of a mood you’re in.

I had asparagus for lunch.  Becca had a salad.  For dinner, we spend awhile looking for an Irish pub that existed only in the mind of Google, but we ultimately found a little brewpub called La Diana.  The reason I was so intent on finding an Irish pub and then relatively happy with finding this brewpub was that I really wanted a Budweiser on our nation’s birthday.  No luck on that front, though there was a Budweiser sign in the bar.  I ordered a Brooklyn, which was the most American thing I could fine.  Anyhow, it was fine, but the La Diana La Pia beer was much better.  (Also, I think that’s a pun- La Pia La P-A, like Pale Ale?  Right?  It was a pale ale.  That’s an important detail.)

I’m sure I’m forgetting a ton. Oh  Yeah, I am forgetting a ton, but I did want to mention the Palio di Siena.  It;s basically a big horse race that pits all the local neighborhoods against each other.  It’s held twice a year, once on July 2, aka a couple days ago.  The Drogo neighborhood won, which meant there were people draped with Dragon flags celebrating all over town.  Also, they had pacifiers.  Kinda odd.  But the big race, which I’m sure you read about, leads to a big party on Saturday, which is cause for all the ‘hoods to hang their local flags all over the place.  Which is awesome.  The neighborhood pride around here (contrade is what they’re called) is OTH.

Here are some photos.

You guys!  I’m on vacation, which means spending my much needed time away from a computer in front of a computer!  But instead of reading or playing solitaire or whatever it is that I claim to do, I’m writing captions for photos!

So!  What’s the deal with this trip?  Becca and I are going to Tuscany (!)and Croatia (!!) for two weeks, then I’m spending a month in Hungary.  But that’s not what we’re talking about today.  Today we’re talking about Frankfurt, Germany, home of the Hot Dog!!!  When booking our trip, we had a choice between a four hour layover in Frankfurt or a nine hour layover.  We chose nine, which lead to the Best Layover!  And there’s pictures to prove it.

FRankfurt from TRain

So nutshelled: left DCA at six, which is far too early, because you’re not really tired enough to go to sleep immediately.  Arrived FF also way too early, around 7 or so.  Ughausted.  But then we went to town!  Saw some sites, including a children’s pseudo-marathon!

Minithon

Kids love running. Checked out the cathedral, the office buildings, the people speaking germans wearing suits.  Went to the Palmgarten, or something similarly named, to see, among other things, palm trees.  And turtles.  I would have included more pictures, but the internet connection is kinda shoddy.   Eventually, we decided to get dinner and head back to the airport.  Then it took us literally an hour to find a restaurant that wasn’t Italian.  FFers love ITalian food.  We do too, naturally, but we weren’t ready to commit to it that hard yet.

So, found dinner.  I accidentally bought a diet kiwi water instead of a regular water, and that was a bummer.  Otherwise, a fine time.  Becca and I went back to the airport, flew to Florence, (which they call Firenze, just to confuse tourists, which is odd cause I’m suspicious there are more of us foreigners than locals there but whatever) and then drove our own personal rental car to our ho(s)tel in Siena.   (Becca drives like a champ, btw!) Not downtown Siena, mind you, an outskirtsy part with a funny smell and lots of dumpsters.  But it’s affordable and they have Italian restaurants, which they adorably call ristorantes.  They didn’t have all-you-can-eat breadsticks, but otherwise the places seemed authentic.  Now it’s actually tomorrow and I’m a day behind, but so it goes.  Lot of the photos didn’t get auto-rotated like they should have been, and it’s unclear whether I feel like doing that myself.  Chow!