Province of Florence

The day started early as we got up to watch the lunar eclipse around 5 a.m. It was fascinating to watch the emerging eclipse from lounge chairs by the pool as the area birds sang their songs. Although the moon slipped behind the hilly horizon, we did enjoy witnessing this experience, and we were grateful for clear skies.

After returning to bed for a few more hours, we got up and enjoyed an ample breakfast. We then made our way to Siena, a town situated about 40 minutes south of San Gimignano.

Siena was one of the most important thriving cities in Medieval Europe and it had a firece rivalry with Firenze (Florence). As we first arrived in the city we headed over to IL Campo (field), the connecting plaza for Siena's 17 neighborhoods. One of the traditions that occurs in this plaza is a 90-second horse race competition that draws about 60,000 spectators twice each summer. While, the plaza is quite large, the thought of that many people evoked my first of two "Oh Hell, No" exclamations about this locale. The second "Oh Hell, No moment was the opportunity to climb 400 stairs up the 300 ft Torre del Mangia, the second tallest tower in Italy adjacent to the town hall "Palazzo Pubblico". The Palazzo is guarded by she-wolves, a creature I previously only associated with Romulus and Remus folklore. Apparently, Siena adapted a Texas style "Don't Mess With Siena" brand evidenced several times throughout the city.

Jim C and his sister Sharon opted to brave the claustrophobic climb up the tower of terror later that afternoon while Nancy and I toured the nearby phobic-free botanical gardens.

We enjoyed wandering through the neighborhoods with the various mascots symbolized by statues and plaques at intersections. The mascots ranged from fairly benign symbols of forests and caterpillars to panthers and dragons.dragon's.

Early in the afternoon, we visited the Duomo. It was an unusually adorned cathedral with striped pillars. I dubbed it "Our Lady of the Zebra". I found the stripes a bit incongruous with the other artwork and statues. The frescoes abs stained glass windows were stunning. I enjoyed seeing a sculpture of St. Peter that was created by a 25-year old Michelangelo.

Within the Duomo, we visited the Piccolomolini Library which honors one of their famed family Mendes members who eventually became Pope Pius II. The room was decorated with many scenes of his life and lower panels displayed massive illustrated chant hymnal.

After the Duomo tour we had lunch of pasta and pizza. I sampled the tagliatele with black truffles. I know that truffles are considered a rare delicacy, but I savored the fresh pasta more than the truffles which were a bit bland and resembled thin wood chips.

We headed to our separate tower and garden adventures, and we celebrated our rendezvous with an obligatory gelato break.

We decided that six hours of touring Siena was sufficient, and chauffeur Jim C got us back to our Agritururismo in time for naps and pool time.

We had another wonderful dinner on the patio, and we called it a night after celebrating great wine, great food and family time. Ciao!Les mer