What now?
We stayed the night at an agriturismo in Siena. Then woke in the morning and smashed our fingers in the door (I did it even after being warned by my Dad, lol) and walked about Siena. We did a few things I hadn’t done before such as climb the tower. And go inside the Duomo. Both of which were fabulous.
Tuscany has so much charm, it’s no wonder everybody falls in love with it. Every little town is just adorable, and there are tons of them. With my parents I decided I wanted to see some new villages that I hadn’t seen. So we stayed at a cute agriturismo in Montepulciano (for you Twilight fans, this is the town where it was filmed, not Volterra…they decided that this town was more like what she described in the book).
Montepulciano is on a hill. As indicated by the name (monte). It is a really steep hill and the main square is way up on the top of that hill.
We drove around taking in the beautiful views over Val D’Orcia and stopping in quaint villages. Such as Pienza, famous for their goat cheese, and Montecino, famous for their wine. I love how Italians towns all have their specialty thing that they are known for.
Photos below: Montecino
Photos below: Pienza
We stayed the night at an agriturismo in Siena. Then woke in the morning and smashed our fingers in the door (I did it even after being warned by my Dad, lol) and walked about Siena. We did a few things I hadn’t done before such as climb the tower. And go inside the Duomo. Both of which were fabulous. The duomo is unique looking inside, lot’s of stripes. And some really pretty art on the floor.
For snack time in Italy…gelato of course!
Jonah wanted the pigeons to eat out of his hand, he waited very patiently but they never did.
The tower was definitely the most claustrophobic tower I have climbed. There were parts were you had to stoop so low to fit and the walls seemed to get more and more narrow.
We headed south for a “Tuscan tour” and began with a stop in Florence. We saw the Ponte Vecchia (Old bridge) with all of the expensive jewelers. The beautiful duomo. And since we parked at the “free parking” up on the hill, we got to see my favorite view over the city. (It’s not exactly free, your legs pay the price walking, oh well.)
My parents made the long journey to Italy! We were so excited to have them. The first day they were here we did some local things like:
Cittadella: walled medeval city that we walked around the whole wall (it was recently restored to be able to do this)
Bassano: cute city with a famous wooden bridge designed by Vicenza’s homeboy, Palladio (see photo below, we forgot our cameras and this was the only photo I manages to snap with the Ipad)
Marostica: walled city with a castle and a life size chess board where the betrothed and the lover once played for the princess.
Nove: famous for it’s ceramics
And last but not least, soccer practice with Jonah and Coach Nick.
Sounds like a nice relaxing day for my poor jet lagged parents huh? haha. Oops. I have a tendency to cram too much in…
The first few weeks of October, after Nicole & Dustin visiting and getting ready for my parents’ visit, we laid low. Stayed home, watched Declan’s army crawl turn into a real crawl and he started standing up. He loves to squat in front of the window and watch our bird on the porch. We went antique market shopping and found some cool things. The boys enjoyed their “squishy blue bath” from aunt Nicole.
