Tuscany

Thursday, June 25thWe woke up in Orvieto and met the Stroms in the breakfast room for breakfast. We heard there was a market going on, so worked our way through the wonderful little streets, asking as we went if we were heading in the correct direction. The walk to the market was much better than the market itself. The sky was bright blue and the morning was warm, so the walk made a good start to the day.After we checked out of Hotel Duomo, we headed for Palazzo Conti, outside of Pienza in Tuscany. Jen and I were a bit worried about this place. It is very simple, but clean and cute. There are 2 bedrooms, a small kitchen and there is a bathroom across from one bedroom and the other bedroom has a bit of a climb up some narrow and winding stairs. Guess who got which room? Our bed has a mosquito net on it. My fear is waking up to a 6 foot mosquito knocking on the net.After tossing our bags in our new home, we headed into Pienza for lunch. We had little time before the restaurants closed down for “siesta”. We got in to Latte di Luna, but had to sit at separate tables. Ken and I sat next to 5 Asian woman who where laughing so hard and having so much fun, we had to join in. They were 3 sisters and 2 friends from Boston, California and Switzerland ! After lunch, it started to sprinkle but we strolled around beautiful Pienza, taking pictures and soaking in the beauty. Pienza is famous for peccorino cheese so walking into some of the stores is heaven for some (me) and overwhelming for others.We noticed the cutest elderly man sitting outside a shop just watching the world go by, I seem to have a “thing” for the old guys, so said good afternoon to him. He immediately wanted to talk. He wanted to know the problem with my hands/arms. I tried to tell him “arthritis” but he wasn’t getting it. Finally another local helped with the translation. Then he looked at me and said “Americana?” When I said yes, he put his thumb up and said “Obama”. We found out he is 85 and a former elementary school teacher.We then stopped at the little shops on our way out and picked up eggs, cheese, meets, bread, coffee and coffee liquor for our place. No breakfast comes with this place so we needed supplies,Too cool for the pool, so we decided to head to Siena. It was about a 45 minute drive. Of course the sun came up as soon as we had given up on the pool, but it made for a nice walk into Siena. It s a bit of a hike into Siena, but we all were feeling like we needed to walk off some of the food we’d been eating. They are getting ready for the Palio horse race in Siena, so that was fun to see the bleachers going up and track being readied. And then after I got my panforte that I have been craving (Sieneese fruit cake, basically) Bella, our GPS (and Ken) brought us home safely. I think I heard Bella say that she was hoping for a nice leather cover. Too bad we've left Florence, Bella.