Follonica!

(Tasha, me, and Nick walking into the ocean)

On Friday some of us woke up at 6am to get on a bus to Follonica! A beach town on the west coast of Italy. The bus ride itself was beautiful (through Tuscany) and we were lucky enough to drive through sun flower fields =)

Postcard perfect

Follonica itself is a lot different than Siena. There are a lot of high rise apartment buildings but they are very spread out from each other with little stores in between them. When we first got there we walked straight to the sand to walk up and down the beach.

My first reaction to the beach was noticing how amazingly soft the sand was. It was like walking barefoot through piles of flour. There were no rocks or sticks or shells or anything to accidentally step on, just perfect fluffy sand.

The next thing we noticed were all the overweight Italians that had chosen to wear very very tiny bathing suits. It's my first beach trip in Europe so I guess I should have been expecting it but the mix of leathery skin from too much tanning and sagging skin from too much eating was a bad sight at 9am.

After getting over the shock and giggle urges we rented an umbrella. It's kind of like buying an area of the beach for the day, and you get an umbrella and a few chairs and then you can leave your (invaluable) stuff in your area all day if you wanted to walk around downtown. There were very few areas where you could just sit down on the beach without having to pay.

Then Tasha Nick and I walked downtown to explore and get some lunch! Downtown was very boardwalk-esq with all the junky toy stores, beach stores with 30 euro hello kitty towels (yeah right) and tons and tons of carnival food type restaurants (crepe carts, slushie stores, gellato gellato gellato). We ended up going to a pizzaria that had really good pizza on the menu but when we were seated they told us they didn't have pizza until dinner! A pizzaria with no pizza...

Lunch was still really good and for the first time we were served this tiny glass of lemony icey type substance that you use to clean your palate after your meal.

We then read on the beach for a few hours and then swam in the Mediterranean (my first time!). It was amazing! There was nothing but shallow water so you could sit down on the sand and still be able to keep your head above water, and the water was so clear you could see all the tiny fish (and watch out for jelly fish!) easily. The waves were really small too but turned the bottom sand into ridges that were a fun texture to walk along.

After about 4 hours of that we walked downtown again and ended up finding a cute park that smelled like California because of all the pine trees.

Then around 5:40 pm we headed over to the bus station to bus it back....

or so we thought...

we were supposed to take a bus at 6:20. At 6:30 we began to worry (when Italians say one time they usually mean ten min or later after that time, even buses). Then we saw a sign that said the bus to Siena was at 7, so we got dinner right across the bus stop so we could eat and watch for our bus. 7pm rolls around and there is still no bus. Three of us then went into the station to ask what was going on while two of us stayed in case the bus came along. Turns out that our bus driver was on strike. Now our teachers had told us (and it was all over the News) that the "trains" were on strike that day, which is why we took a bus not a train. Unfortunately what they meant was "Train" the company, which after inspecting my ticket I found out was the company of the bus we wanted to take... awesome.

So we were stranded in Follonica... where have I heard this before?

(sitting on the curb waiting for the bus)

we ended up having to get a taxi. A taxi. All the way back to Siena. This is because after calling around we found out that it would be cheaper to get a taxi now then for us to get a hotel room and buy a train ticket in the morning. So the 5 of us got in a taxi (luckily there were 5 of us to keep the cost lower than it could have been).

The drive back was also extremely beautiful (when is Tuscany ever not beautiful?) and I learned how to say how disappointed and angry I was with the bus company in Italian (Non mi piache Train, and Grazie senza ragione). Besides that travel blip and the fact that I will be eating cereal and top ramen for the next week or two to save after paying for the taxi it was a beautiful, fun, relaxing day on the Italian west coast.

Home at last