Our language school, Saena Iulia, is located
in the Palazzo del Magnifico, just up the hill and around the corner from our
apartment. Situated on the top floor of
a historic building that housed the governor of Siena during the sixteenth
century, it takes us only a few minutes to get to class each morning.
While the distance is short, it is quite steep requiring
many stairs to reach the top. Those last six steps take effort and deeper
inhalations. There are other entrances with less stairs, but I prefer to
get the exercise going up and down all the flights of stairs. I look forward to
seeing how my quest to the top has improved by the end of our stay.
Today we considered going for a long walk through the city,
but the weather was so cold and windy, and none of us brought warm enough
clothes. The weather report said it was 48 F - feels like 40 F, so it was hard to get motivated to venture outside!
As I was considering how to describe the ascent to school, Annette asked if I had counted the
stairs, so off we went to discover the answer. We decided to count them in Italian, but I
wasn’t able to count as fast as I was climbing the stairs. Half way up we
discovered we were several stairs apart in our count… so back to the bottom we went counting
up in Italian and then back down in English. I am happy to report that there are sessantasette
scale alla nostra scuola– or – 67 stairs to our school (one way).
Back out on the street, the wind had died down, so having warmed
up from our stair counting exercise, we ventured off on a long walk through the
city.
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