Italy July 19 & 20: crazy travel on Josh's birthday, and day 1 in Siena

Sat July 19 - woke up in Milan, arrived late at night to our hotel in Siena
Sun July 20 - relaxing day in Siena

Sat July 19 - Milan to Florence to Siena - crazy travel on Josh's birthday

Awoke in the Hotel Gran Duca di York in Milan. Still hearing Bruce sing "The Noble Duke of York" every time I think of the name of this hotel. He had a great way of singing it and bouncing the kids around. Unfortunately, they didn't have any postcards we could send to Bruce of the hotel.

Breakfast buffet. Took out my laptop and planned what to do in Milan with Ted over cappuccino. Sam wants to shop and Josh wants to do something fun for Josh, which isn't shopping.

When I planned to stay in Milan for the night, I hadn't realized anyone else would get excited about Milan. Now there was too much to do and we wished we had another day in Milan. We'll know for next time.

The plan: start with cool tech museum, then do some shopping, then take the train to Florence to pick up the rental car, then drive to Siena.

Here's what actually happened.

We walked to Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, where they have a hallway filled with 3D models made of wood and leather, made from his sketches. Very cool. There were also exhibits on computers, timepieces, musical instruments, airplanes, trains and more. We didn't have time to see it all.

Playing a co-op game at the tech museum

link to museum page about the Leondard models

From there, we walked to the Navigli district, which is described as having canals, and being young and trendy. Alas, as we arrived there, Ted was becoming worried what time the rental car place in Florence closed. We checked the internet: 6:00. That's when the day started heading south.

We didn't have time to have Rachel and Sam shop while Josh and Ted hung out in the park, as planned. Instead, fruit smoothies were followed by a walk back to the hotel, and a taxi to train station. And there the real fun began.

The train ticket machine informed us that there weren't any 2nd class seats left, and that it would only take our visa if we could put in a PIN, which I don't know. I took a number at the train ticket office, but it soon became apparent the wait would be over an hour, and we had 35 minutes before the last train that would get to Florence in time. The ATM was out of order.

I created a wifi hot spot with my phone (using precious international data!) and managed to reserve one seat on the train, using a link from rome2rio.com. The only thing left was first class. 116 Euros. We pooled our cash, and were able to buy 3 2nd class tickets on a later train for 150Euros for all 3.

I had a very pleasant cushy first class ride to Florence.

Enjoying my cushy first class seat

And here is my first class meal

I heard later that Ted on the later train was in a bit of a panic, since their train number didn't match the one on their ticket. On my train, I was worried the rental car company wouldn't rent to me, since the reservation was in Ted's name.

I arrived in Florence and even though I got a bit lost, I managed to find the tiny rental car office in time. In Florence, there are two sets of streets numbers: black and white for commercial, red for residential. Not knowing that made it more challenging to find the place.

Turns out they had given away our car, since we were late (reservation for 4pm, it was now 5:45pm). But they had one car that just arrived and hadn't been cleaned yet. I took it. Then my credit card was declined. I used the Google card to hold the reservation, and got on their wifi to clear up the fraud question with Visa.

Ted and the boys' train arrived in Florence, and over text they asked for me to pick them up with the car, rather than having just walk up and meet them. So off I went to the garage to pick up the car. The attendant handed me the keys and pressed the unlock button, so I would see which car parked down the road was mine. And that was the extent of that transaction.

In I got, and looked at the 3 pedals. For the life of me, I couldn't remember which pedal was which. I haven't driven a stick since 2007. Guess I forgot how pretty quick. I looked at the Italian manual, hoping to see a diagram labeling which pedal was the clutch. Nothing so basic appeared to be covered. Fortunately, Ted supplied the answer via text. I took a deep breath and put the car into reverse to back out of the parking spot into traffic.

It was kind of nerve-wracking at first. The visibility was not what I'm used to, and I thought I might stall out. To pick up the boys at the meeting point I suggested, I had to pull off a fast road onto a narrow sidewalk so they could pile in.

The next hour or so was comically stressful. We pulled back into the fast traffic, with Ted navigating from a highlighted map the rental car guy gave me. The plan was to go to the airport Dollar Rental counter, so we could add Ted as a driver and get a GPS.

Turns out there is a reason why Ted prefers to drive while I navigate. He's terrible at it. We were almost at the airport. I asked "Which right, the first one or the 2nd one?". Sam said, "the 1st". Ted said "the 2nd". I took the 2nd, which put us onto a freeway heading away from the airport. We hoped to pull some kind of U-Turn and ended up on a freeway heading away from the airport AND away from Siena.

We managed to U-turn and ended up circling around trying to find the spot on the map that Google Maps was navigating toward as the Dollar / AutoEurope office. The map is mis-labeled. We eventually made it to the airport, where the information lady told us it was too hard to drive to the Dollar location, we should take the shuttle bus. The boys were extremely unenthusiastic about that, so we bailed and decided to head off to Siena.

I think we were competent after that, but Google Maps changed its mind after a few minutes and had us exit and head back the other way, so it still felt like we were messing up. The lanes here are more narrow than in the States. I would rather be navigating and Ted would rather be driving. When we reached Siena, we almost accidentally got back on the highway. But eventually, around 9 pm, we made it to the Hotel Garden in Siena. Along the way, as we were anxiously trying to hear what the navigation voice said from my phone, the phone rang -- my Dad and Carol calling to wish Josh happy birthday. We couldn't pick up.

And there we proceeded to have a delightful and delicious and relaxing dinner on their veranda, with a view of the lit up towers in Siena.

We decided that the first half of the day was a suitable birthday day for Josh, but we owe him a great afternoon.

Here's a pic from the web, of the veranda dining area in the day time.

Sun July 20 - Siena

Slept late.
Hotel breakfast, very nice. The spread of pastries at the buffet must have been very exciting to Josh.
Strolled from our hotel into Siena, with Ted carrying all our dirty laundry crammed into his little daypack. It's about 15 minutes to the gate of the city walls. Another 15 minutes took us up to the Campo. My camera wasn't charged, so not many pics from me, just a few on my phone.

Along the way, we noticed most of the stores were closed. It's Sunday! The walk became filled with a bit of grim anticipation, as we feared the laundromat being closed. But it was open and very civilized. Josh and Sam hung out there, while Sam and I strolled around, supposedly shopping.

This is a beautiful place. I wonder if I could start a mini-tech boom, transplant a bit of Silicon Valley. I could imagine living here for a year or so.

We got pizza at one of the places on the Campo, the one closest to the laundromat. The guidebooks said it would be mediocre, and maybe it was, by Italian standards. But we all thought it was delicious. Mine had pears on it, and was very good.