Day Three: Siena

Monday morning we headed about an hour south to Siena. Here's a little history lesson for you... back in the 12th to 14th centuries Siena was a hot spot for Italian business, in much competition with Florence and Rome. In the mid-1300s the Black Death wiped out the majority of Siena's population, leaving it as more of a red-headed stepchild as Florence and Rome kept flourishing. To visit this city, there's nothing stepchild-like about it. It is beautiful, bustling and to us, even more enjoyable than Florence.

This city was very clean, and there were even escalators that took you from bottom of the outside of the city to the top where the square was.

There was another tall building in the town square, Piazza del Campo, for Derek to climb. It was the tower adjacent to the City Hall, and while not quite as tall as the Campanile in Florence, still equally as nice of a view...

The Crayola color "burnt sienna" is named after this city and all the clay-colored architecture that makes up the cityscape. One of the nicest things about Siena was the Piazza del Campo. It was slightly bowl-shaped, and everyone just sits wherever they want all along the square. It makes for PRIME people-watching, which is one of my favorite hobbies. Here's a short video of our view sitting down on the bricks in the square...

We wandered around, ate lunch, did a little shopping and just relaxed before heading back towards our B&B to watch the sunset. It was our last night in Tuscany, so we wanted to enjoy every minute of it. On the drive back, we passed these giant corks on the side of the road with the Chianti regional logo on it. So of course as true tourists, we had to pull over and take a picture.

Back at the B&B, we climbed up in the treehouse with a couple of bottles of wine to watch the sunset. We were finally "Under the Tuscan Sun" - haha, cheesy, I know, but beautiful. I wanted to cherish every second of it.



After the sun set, we headed back into Panzano for dinner at this GREAT restaurant, Il Vescovino. I had sausage and tomato pasta and Derek had a steak that was absolutely delicious. Then we had to stop in at our little corner bar we found two days before to say goodbye. The bartender even put on some "rock" music (a random mix of Beatles, 3 Doors Down and some Top 40 songs) for us to enjoy. Needless to say, we drank their entire stock of Budweiser beer - they only had six.

Then it was home to bed and time for our next adventure, heading north to the Cinque Terre...