Italy: Siena

Our day started off promising... but the lingering clouds had us a bit skeptical on how our day would turn out... 


The Duomo (cathedral) in Siena was never finished. Below you can see what would have been an expansion with huge stained glass windows filling those spots.  If you look closely, you can see people on the tip top of that wall... THAT made our day in Siena worthwhile because we got a beautiful 360 degree view of the city surrounded by the Tuscan countryside. 

The view from the top. That is the duomo (cathedral). 

El Campo Square (That is the "hot spot" where we grabbed lunch and people watched.) 

The breathtaking view of surrounding Tuscany. 

Overlooking Siena. 

A few snapshots inside the Duomo. Very impressive and unlike anything I had ever seen before. 

The olive green and white striped marble lined both the inside and outside of the cathedral. 

All decked out for Easter mass. 


Don't forget to look up! 

This is about the time my attitude shifted from "making the best" of the weather... to TOTAL grump.  When packing, I threw in a jacket at the very last minute, but not a single pair of closed toe shoes.  It was supposed to be in the 60's/70's... this day it was 46 degrees and I had on flip flops + it was pouring down rain.  The solution? Find a shoe store. Unfortunately for me, the cheapest pair of closed toe shoes cost us 50 Euros of my birthday money PLUS they were not my style at all. VERY European. I blended right in, but felt like an insecure 7th grader. 

Without further ado, you can catch a glimpse of my shoes in this picture. Yes, they are Adidas. Yes, I owned a similar pair in junior high school.  Yes, I wore capri pants, socks, and those shoes. I am embarrassed. To my credit, it truly was a survival tactic. 

After the shoe debacle and the rain, we decided to go back home and relax. 

The pretty Tuscan drive home. 

When we got home, we decided to eat our Easter bunny chocolate and polish off a bottle of Chianti Classico that we hadn't finished the night before.  We were goofy and random and it cheered me up instantly! 



Only Logan can make me laugh when I am in the grumpiest of moods. 

..by doing things like this... 



The rain finally stopped...

You can see Siena from our porch... look hard in the distance... 





Cheers to adventures and unpredictable curveballs! 



At the end of the day, I am not sure if I didn't really love Siena or if it was the whole weather/ shoes drama that kind of tainted my experience- not sure? Regardless, we are glad that we visited the city but even MORE glad that we decided against staying in Siena and stayed in the countryside instead. Next time we would love to visit Cortona, where Under the Tuscan Sun was filmed.


***ALSO: Anyone in the market for some hip-Euro-looking-cool-in-the-90s Adidas shoes? :)