It's all uphill around there: Siena, Italy

don’t go for a stroll in Siena:

you’ll just have to go for a hike.

everything is uphill in Siena,

so don’t even think of your bike.

arriving by train in Siena,

you can't see much of the town

because all’s uphill in Siena

with an escalator for “down”!

View from the "down" escalator.

Photos by Richard Schear, Italy, 2013

I still have my husband on my List of People to Forgive Some Day. This time he made the list along with his hero Rick Steves, the travel author.
We visited Florence, Italy, when the Carnival Destiny stopped at the port of Livorno enroute to Venice last month. To see more of Tuscany, we decided to visit another Tuscan town, Siena, during our train trip after the cruise, because Rick Steves had praised its beautiful piazza.
We left the Siena train station, pulling our luggage and looking at our map. "We don't need a taxi," said Dick, "it's just a few blocks to the right, then a left turn, and another few blocks to the hotel. We can walk."
More than an hour later, red-faced, exhausted, in pain and dripping with perspiration, I was still climbing the mountain on which the city is built. I was no longer muttering to myself, I was cussing right out loud.
When we finally arrived, Dick wasn't even out of breath. "Hey, I didn't know it would all be uphill."
The desk clerk, surprised, asked us why we hadn't used the escalator that climbs the hill from the train station to a point near the hotel.
the escalator
that climbs the hill
from the train station
to the blankety-blank hotel
"Rick Steves didn't mention an escalator," said Dick, who never did show me the part of the book where it isn't mentioned. After depositing me, listless and witless, in our hotel room, he went to explore the city, coming back to say the piazza lived up to its reputation. I wouldn't know. I didn't see it.

Posted for Open Link Monday at the
Imaginary Garden with Real Toads