Siena Apartment

On Tuesday morning we left our keys to the Florence apartment on the dining table, squeezed our luggage into the elevator, and took a taxi to the bus station, where by great good luck we caught the 9:10 fast bus to Siena; the next bus was what we had really been aiming for, and it wasn't till 10:10. It was raining, but not heavily, for the hour-and-a-quarter ride on the highway. Once the bus arrived at the Siena end-of-the-line bus station parking lot, we snagged a cab that was just letting off other passengers and took that to the building where our Siena rental is located. (Steve has since figured out that the distance is actually very short on foot, but in a car, with one-way streets, that was not evident, and even if we had wanted to walk it, we had no idea of where we were going and it was raining and there was luggage.)

Sara, the young woman who manages this apartment and another on the same floor, met us at the entry door. Her husband was with her to help with luggage, as there are some steps before one reaches the elevator. (This particular one, in addition to being small, is extremely slow--about 45 seconds to go up two floors.) Her husband doesn't speak much English, seemed shy, and took himself off after we got to the apartment so that Sara could show us around.

The apartment is delightful. The building is massive and solid, with exterior walls two feet thick. Steve guesses it was built in the late 19th century, but we'll have to ask. There are big wooden beams in the kitchen ceiling, but the other rooms have charmingly painted ceilings that are originals from the nineteenth century originals, according to Sara, and were restored recently by her father, who co-manages the apartments. (Today we got a quick look at the other one they rent, which is similar.)

Furniture is dark wood, mostly antiques. There are lots of patterns and cozy details --lace curtains, tiled floors, paintings and plates hung on the walls. There are two bedrooms, which enabled us to put up Alessandro when he was here, and two full bathrooms, recently renovated with attractive new tiles and with shower stalls plenty wide enough for Steve to extend his elbows and to pick up the soap if he drops it, which is not the case with all European showers.

The kitchen similarly has all new appliances, all the pots and pans are new, and it's pleasant to cook in it. We did need a quick visit today from Sara to help us with idiosyncracies of the washing machine and dishwasher.

Here's the view from our bedroom window, which looks down on a courtyard that comes in from a little diagonal street that goes uphill and cuts past this building a floor higher than the floor we enter on. I love the plants growing on the terra cotta roof tiles of the adjacent building.