Ravenna to Siena

During our 2 night stay in Ravenna we toured the famous Byzantine churches and the intricate mosaics that decorate them. We bought a combo ticket that let us into 5 different museums and churches. AnneMarie liked the mosaics so much she has decided to devote the rest of her life to creating mosaics.


After an entire day spent inside the churches and museums we decided that we should atleast dip our feet in the Adriatic sea since we were only about 5 miles away from the coast. As we arrived at a beach named after dante we discovered where the shopkeepers have been hiding all summer. They were soaking up the rays at the beach!

The beach was perfect. The day before it had rained and thundered all evening and it must have scared some of the beach goers away because when we got there in the morning we easily found a place to set up our towel. We left the beach and the bicycle friendly streets of Ravenna to go back west to bologna just as the beach started to become overcrowded and too hot.
Our arrival in Bologna was meant to be just a short stay as we had planned to use the train to cross the mountains. But we soon realized that we wanted to spend a little more time in bologna.
For starters, our campsite was a 15 minute bike ride from the city center, there was a pool, very nice facilities, and the city of Bologna was just too awesome to ignore.

And it turned out that our decision to stay in Bologna couldn't have been better.

We started our first day in Bologna at the Museum of Modern art of Bologna (MaMBo). We found out that all state museums in Bologna were free this day(gratis!), which was a surprise because they all seemed empty. The Modern art Museum was a nice change from all of the Medival and Renaissance Art we had been chewing on. Next, we went to the Signoria building of Bologna. Before we enetered AnneMarie needed to rest a little on these comfortable couches.

Here is a list of what we liked about Bologna:
Bicycling on the wide streets with little car traffic
Lemon granite from Grom
gothic towers
shopping
camping so close to the city
spicy vegetarian burgers at an irish pub (that were neither spicy nor vegetarian)
free museum day
racing a truck (Dino won)

We began our next day as planned, waking up at 5:30 to take the only train with bicycle service to florence. On the way to the train we had to cross 3 sets of abandoned train tracks in early morning light. Dino only made it past two. It turns out that the fall, as gracefull as it was, was in the end what cost us to miss our train. We limped to the correct platform just in time for the train to close its doors and leave us behind.

The injured toe:

After some moments of frustration, Dino hatched a plan to get us and our bicycles to Florence. Our next few hours consisted of decoding the italian train system in order to arrive in sienna. It turned out that they were even confusing to the italians as well. Lets just say that it takes a lot of effort and manuevering to transport ourselves with our loaded bikes, but we managed to do it with near perfection.
We ended our day with some luck in finding a great hostel in siena, which had originally turned out to be fully booked but in the time between walking from the front desk to our bicycles we were greeted with a "ragazzi" and beds for 2 nights.

(Locking up the horses)

Today we explored Siena. We bought another combo ticket that got us in the doors of 6 different museums and churches. We particularly enjoyed the floors of the Duomo which were uncovered and we also studied Duccio's paintings inside the Duomo museum.
Although, sadly, Michaelangelo's sculptures were under restoration. Despite a bum toe, the only injury Dino suffered from the crash, we climbed to the top of what was to be the nave of the church for a grand view of Siena and the surrounding Tuscan hills.
Tonight we will enjoy some nice Montepulciano wine and tomorrow we bicycle to the coast.