Sunday/Rātapu
We say goodbye to our hotel and the lovely Valerie and Francesca. Here is the breakfast room of our hotel. It was called Relais degli Angeli Siena https://www.facebook.com/relaisdegliangeli/. It has only 3 years of operating. We loved our stay here and would highly recommend it to others who would like to visit Siena and see the Palio.
Our room.
A shared lounge area.
This looking from the street at the back - our room in the middle on the 3rd floor. And the bus we take to Florence is almost where I am standing - too easy!
Here is Valerie and me. She was very good to us. Her husband's contrade was Onda, so that was her's too (she wasn't born in Siena). She shared a lot of information with us, which gave us a better understanding of the event. She spoke very good English and was also an architect. I am laughing because she is so tall and she crouched to be my height.
We also had watched the All Blacks do a complete turn around against Australia to retain the Bledisloe Cup 36-0. Lachie's VPN from Reggio Emilia worked perfectly!
And so that afternoon we also watched the All-Ireland hurling final (after getting interested watching both semifinals in Ireland). This game was remarkably similar to the All Blacks first test against the Australians - five minutes before half time a team member got a red card, which was a bit of a harsh call we thought, and then they lost a marginal lead and got thumped in the second half.
The Palio, and Remorex also, have left a big place in our hearts. We have understood a special part of Italy a little more, with a desire to speak better Italian when we return.
Then by bus to Florence. We stayed near Florence airport that night, and the next day flew to Copenhagen (via Zurich) with Swiss Air.