Day 9: Sunday June 12th

Today we decided to explore the city of Sienna. It's not famous for much but there are a lot of grand and glorious churches and buildings. When we got there we parked farther down from the city and had to walk up to it. But when we got to the first fork in the road we obviously had to take the wrong turn. That turn took us basically into someone's yard. We walked all over that until we came to a building..but it was a deserted building..we walked through it until we came to an elaborate gate. But the gate was locked. Turns out that on the other side of that gate was the street we NEEDED to be on. But we couldn't go through it.

So we finally got out of that random persons yard and then went back to the fork in the road and took a different street. That led us to the base of the city. We walked around in circles in the side streets of the city trying to find the Church before we found it 20 minutes later. "BUT we got to explore" claim the men who "never" get lost.

Since it was Sunday..service was still going on and we had to wait outside before we could go in. It really was a magnificent church. The color detail you see must have taken hundreds of years to complete. The architecture is impeccable. And inside the murals were so elaborate. Again at this church you had to cover you shoulders, so we were prepared this time with scarves!

Holy church

After walking through the church we decided to find the town square. In the town square is this giant bell tower that apparently has no base support. It just stands by itself. It's pretty amazing. It was around lunch time so we decided to turn to trusty Rick Steve's Italy to tell us where to eat. He pointed us to the pizza place exactly to the left of the bell tower. We ordered ourselves a nice little olive pizza and went out into the square to eat it. It was SUPER crowded though (as you can clearly see in the pictures) and it was hard to find a seat….NOT!

Bell tower

Only water source in the town. Jokes

Crowded square

After pizza we found ourselves some more gelato and then headed to the car.

Off to Pisa we went..the Tower of Pisa that is. We arrived and got the cheesy cliche photos of the family and individuals and then decided to browse the shops.

Cliche 1

Cliche 2

Cliche 3

So cute

During our browsing..mother and I found 2 purses that we really liked. We found them at one place for a reasonably good price but didn't know if it was the best one. So we slowly told the vendor we needed to look some more and he should hold it for 10 minutes and we would be back. Little did we know the tragic magic of haggling. So mom and I decided that if we needed to be back in 10 minutes we had to book it through the line of stores. I had seen a really big purse place at the entrance and wanted to go there..so we ran down to that. Once there, we completely forgot about that first man. We started haggling left and right. I would go to one store and find the purse I like and ask for the price and he would say a price and I'd walk away and they'd lower it. And the games began. Mom goes..I go…She finds lower price and waves me that direction..I tell the vendor I'll be back..he says what price do I want (he really wants a sale)..I'd escape from him and move to where mom was. Then while she's talking to that guy, I was getting a better deal the shop over. Man it's quite a game in those markets. But, eventually we knocked off 10 Euros of our original offer. We were happy campers.

But on the way in…I had seen a different color of the purse I wanted and decided on the way out to ask how much they charged. They're price was tons higher! But they wanted my sale..I kept telling him I had already bought a purse but they wanted my sale. While my dad and I were fending off the guy so I didn't buy 2 of the same purse, mom had moved down and accidentally pointed at one purse. One thing about these markets is like "you touch, you buy" Once you even look at an item they will bug you, bug you, bug you until you buy the thing. Unless you book it out of there they will literally follow you for at least 20 feet. So originally this guy says this one price for my moms purse and she laughs and says no. He says "how much then" mom says this ridiculously low price and then all of them laugh (Imagine a bunch of really african guys with heavy accents). So we start to walk off but then he says "Fine! I give you for that price." So of course..it was a pretty good deal for a purse and I told mom if she likes it..buy it. So we bought that purse and were walking out…when the guy that had been haggling me, comes running up with the duplicate purse and says "I give you for same price as moms". But I didn't want two of one purse so I said no I already have one. He tells me I can pick another one..so I made the mistake of following him back in to look at more purses. To make a long haggling story short..we ended up with ANOTHER purse. Overall, we went in not looking to buy maybe one purse and came out with 4! Street hagglers are a pain! Oh did I mention while this was all happening, Kody was getting haggled to buy a "rolex" AHHHHHHHHHH

I can't wait to be back in America where I can shop in peace and quiet! Remember me? Miss Walmart? Oh how I miss it!

After driving back we settled in for a nice little Mediterranean dinner of olives, mozzarella, and tomatoes. It was our first non-pasta/pizza dinner we had all trip!

Delish

Next stop...Venezia!