Tuscany awaits

Although Rome would be vacation enough, there was still much more to see. It was on to the rolling hillsides of Tuscanny. The fast train to Florence was a nice opportunity to put our feet up and relax for a moment after all that walking. We reminisced about the many places we had seen in the past 48 hours and read up on what was yet to come as we took in the Italian countryside. Upon our arrival in Florence we met Marco's family at the airport and headed to a tiny town called Loro Ciuffena to check in to our hotel. Quaint little place! Old as the hills too! It was a totally refurbished flour mill with a very interesting history.
Our balcony opened up over a rushing waterfall which lulled us all to sleep each night. The dinners they served us there were four-course masterpieces, each one...(yea, those 5 pounds weren't JUST the pizza and GelatoMarco couldn't get enough of the meats and cheeses! They sure know how to do them over there!
The presentation was always nice too.
Gnocchi al Pesto, another of Marco's favorites! I have even endeavored this one at home. REALLY tasty if you have ALL day to spend making homemade Gnocchi. I'm sure it'll take less time as I get more experience though, right???!

).Swan Pastry for dessert, too cute to eat...almost!
Other than the TINY closet of a shower, the place was plenty spacious for all 7 of us to retire to at the end of our sight-seeing days. We made plans to see Siena in the morning and laid our weary heads to bed.
On our way out we wandered first through the coblestone streets of Loro Ciuffena.
It felt like stepping back in time many centuries and I loved it! The church bells rang in the Sabbath morning but the artwork in the church made you think twice about wanting to worship there.... Sorry, we didn't think snapping a picture was appropriate, but trust me, weird!
I adored the colorful clock tower, the pastries, the arches, the smells and the buildings. I's say the people except that there weren't any out on a Sunday morning...even the church was empty. After filling up on tasty pastries we headed to Siena, our first Tuscan destination of many.
Trying to find a place to park our enourmous van proved to be a difficulty which you will continue to hear about but once we got our feet on the ground we were set!
Siena has 2 large cathedrals, Marco is seen here in front of the 'lesser' cathedral, but I liked that it wasn't so over-the-top as so many are. The duomo here has to be one of my favorites as far as Catholic churches go. The marble was black and white striped with pink accents and that made it much more to look at than just cold stone walls.
The stained glass was gorgeous as well, the oldest piece of stained glass in all of Italy! After touring the domed-church itself we visited the neighboring museum, baptistry and crypt where we took in art work from the likes of Donatello and Ghiberti.

As we exited our tour of the church we stumbled on Via del Poggio, a rather endearing find!
So we stopped to grab a bite there before heading on the the Piazza del Campo.
Because of the Piazza's downward slope, fountains and twice-annual horse races 'il campo' is known as one of the finest squares in Italy. What I thought was the FINEST was my first taste of Gelato and strolling these ancient alleys w/ my sweetheart!!