Today was a travel day

The morning started with our Taxi driver arriving at 8:00 am to take us back to the airport where we were picking up our rental van.  Both our original taxi driver (when we arrived) and the one today looked at us with big eyes like "that ain't all going to fit"! Not sure what they expected with 6 people from another country.  All we had was 1 large bag and 1 knapsack each. It was quite the sardines fit.  Joel had to remove the suitcase from the front seat before I could move because my feet were pinned to the floor.  After roaming the airport hallways looking for the correct rental car counter we bumped into a coupe on their way home to Minnesota.  They kindly gave us directions to the rental counter and gave us their road map of Italy along with some driving tips.

Once we got the van (with much more space in it without the taxi driver) we headed for Siena.  Since we were on the road by about 9:30 am and we weren't due to meet the rental agent at the villa until 6:00 pm we planned to take our time getting there by taking a couple of side stops along the way.  Well, as most of our discussions about "Hey, what do you want to do?" go, we ended up spending at least 30 minutes in a rest area looking at maps and figuring out where to go.  We ended up just deciding to go to Siena and hanging out for the afternoon.  

Ok, so Siena.  I loved Rome, but I already love Siena.  Even though we got lost looking for a parking space and I ended up driving through a prohibited area.  I found that out (the part about being prohibited) by the ticket that got charged to my account almost instantly.  I'm hoping that I don't get more because I heard they can be really expensive.  The Piazza is huge and we just sat down and soaked in the sun for a while.  They we wandered the streets, walked past the local Duomo and then headed to the "Coop" which is the Italian version of Tesco's (or seems to be so far).  

Siena Piazza del Campo

We got to the villa just at 6:00.  It really is located on a working vineyard.  We were invited into the "cantina" where they sell some of their products.  They insisted on giving us some bread drizzled with their own brand of olive oil and served us wine.  Both were delicious.  Then they walked us through the villa explaining things.  Mostly in Italian, but by hand motions and Laurie's french we got most of it.  Quite a change is space from Rome where we had 3 rooms between the 6 of us.  Now we have about 3 rooms each.

The view from our living room.

Tomorrow is scheduled to be a rest day which means we'll probably head back to Siena for the afternoon.  But this time the plan is "go do what you want and be back here in 3 hours". Less group decisions involved. Oh, and did I mention Laurie found another yarn shop.  Support local businesses.

Another bag of yarn to bring home.