And so we move on to Siena. Is it a classically beautiful Tuscan city? Sure, look at that tower. Does it have some most interesting architecture? Certainly. Fascinating history? Yup. A legendary horse race? Assolutamente.

A charming little electrical appliances shop that closes for lunch and saved our backsides by selling us a couple of universal power adaptors, and which I stupidly failed to photograph? Youbetcha. And the woman who runs the shop is quite friendly e molta gentile as well.

Did I do it justice photographically? No chance at all.

But if the gods said to me "You can return to Italia any time you like for as long as you like and visit anywhere you like, provided that you choose ONE town that you can never return to"... I'd pick Siena as that town without hesitation.

As I mentioned, the woman in the electrical store was great. The staff of the cafe where we had lunch were pleasant enough in a "Welcome to McDonalds may I take your order" kind of way. The woman in the camera store was a little testy. The woman in the tourism office was downright snappy when I asked where the washrooms were (in Italian), possibly because there aren't any. You have to go to a bar and use theirs. This is a town that really only continues to exist through tourism but they have fewer public washrooms than San Gimignano. "A place to pee" would seem to me to be an issue covered in "Tourism Promotion 101".

On balance the vibe I got from Siena, a vibe that I got from no other town or city that we visited on that trip, was "Well, get on with it, spend your money and go".

It's a pretty place and it cries out for a better photographic treatment than I gave it (which, as you will see, was "inadequate"), but I'd rather spend the time going to places where I feel at least vaguely welcome, which I really didn't here. Maybe I hit it on just a bad day, but it's weird that out of 4 countries and 4 weeks it's the one and only place I could say that about.

I hasten to add... I am not saying "I never want to see Siena again". If I had as much time in Italy as I wanted I may well give it another chance. I just don't care If I never see Siena again, and it's the only place in Italy that that is true of.