Pandarific!!

Dawn came and the view from the hotel in Sorrento was wonderful as we were situated on top of the hill and you know you’re gonna get a nice view from heights like that. It was also good that the sky was clear, but just such a shame that we didn’t get to stay in Sorrento for long. Breakfast was simple and we met a group that came from Singapore that was kinda cool as we got to see some people from our side of the world for a while.

We had to leave early because we were going to the medieval town of sienna. And that was around 400 plus kilometres to travel in one day! Now skipping the very long journey, we reach our destination.

It is a nice little place where you’ve got lots of windy streets, and it’s on elevated ground so we have lanes that you can just run downhill or uphill, whichever way you’re coming from. This was also the first place we encountered toilets where you had to pay, yeah shocking because all the gas stop toilets were free and we were getting pretty used to that, haha.

The landmark we first went to was the square, which is kind of ironic because it is not a square, more like a circle really or a semicircle. But the point is, just imagine an amphitheatre semi circle, and you have it higher ground to lower ground. They have their major celebrations there which I imagine would be beautiful. The shops around the area were really nice as the restaurants have tables outside where the customers can just have their food and relax, chat and enjoy the ambience of the old town.

Right after that and some gelato, which I now regret not taking, we headed to the church. The unique thing about this church is that the walls are made of black and white marble. Normally churches just use white marble, the old one, but this was like a layered cake. The carvings on the front were absolutely detailed as usual. I tell you, I tried doing these carvings justice through my photos and videos but it is just not good enough, you need to see it for yourself, and I wish I could just touch it and look up close.

At the end of the day, we headed to our hotel, which is really an estate on the hills just 30 minutes away from Florence overlooking the vineyard and we stayed in apartments. This was a good change as we had been staying in typical hotel rooms for the past few days and this place just felt like a home. There was a kitchen, a living room, 2 bedrooms and it was really well furnished. We were also given the honour of dining with the owner of this estate and wow his house is so huge. The really Italian kind of home where you would see in period dramas. The whole dining experience was really good too as I’ve never done the whole formal dinner thing. I was a bit tired from all the travelling, but it was a really nice time. And that concludes day 4, nothing much compared to the other days because we spent so much time on the road. More to come on the day 5!