Siena - New Year's Eve

I have been slack and realised that people do read this blog afterall as it has been suggested that I update it. I will try not to be so tardy from now on, but this thing called work just keeps getting in the way!

After Assisi we travelled southwest to the coast at Argentario. We stayed at Porto Santo Stefano which is a fishing port which in the summer is full of well-healed tourists. It is also the location of one of the world's best known boatyards for the restoration of classic wooden yachts. It reminded me a lot of Fremantle except the prawns were not quite as good :) Being winter it was not too crowded and it was great to smell the sea air again.

We then drove to Siena. Boris (our GPS) guided us there which was not a problem until he tried to find our hotel. He navigated us into the centre of Siena which consists of very steep and narrow streets full of pedestrians. On finally escaping the centre, we saw CCTV cameras and signs indicating residents only. We are waiting to see if a fine is going to be sent out to us.

As it was New Year's Eve, accommodation was a bit hard to find but we finally found a room. Sienna was beautiful. The main piazza was being set up for a large outdoor concert that started at 10 pm. The concert was incredible with a videoprojection being displayed on the buildings surrounding the piazza. Very difficult to describe but click here to see a little of what it was about.

We wandered the streets and found a great cafe to have lunch and then of course we had to have......

We then did some shopping and then headed to the 13th century cathedral. Malcolm was excited as he got to climb to the top and take some pictures. I was excited as I got to wander around the streets some more.

We then went inside - WOW it was amazing with so much to see.

In the evening we had prosecco at a local bar, dinner at a trattoria then off to the piazza to listen to the music and celebrate the new year. They have lots of firecrackers here and anyone (and everyone) seem to be able to use them. These were going off all through the night - before, after and at midnight.

The next day we headed to Chianti. When the weather cleared it was very beautiful and you can see why people dream of moving here.

We had lunch and were going to stay and taste wines but after a lot of eating and drinking as well as head colds we decided to head home to Munich. This ended up being a great idea as we had no traffic (it took us 8 hours) and the next day the motorways were banked up all day.

If you want to see more photos of this part of our trip click here.