Italy: Day 10 - Siena

I went for a run today. I had a goal to run each day - especially when we were in the Firenze area. I got out of bed around 6:45 and took off. Running in Europe is much different than in San Diego. The roads do not contain any room to run! There is room for cars - and that is about it. I ran 'against' traffic - but the roads were so narrow - I did not feel comfortable. I ran about 5 miles - and much of it was on a fairly busy road. I spent more time watching where I could go when a car came around a bend that it was not a lot of fun. Today we went on a day trip to Siena. We all piled into the Fiat Ducato (notice it is not a Ducatti - which would have been really cool - but would not fit 10) and went to Siena. The drive was nice and the town was interesting. We were able to find a parking spot in town just inside the wall. I have heard that parking can be really bad. We walked about a mile up to the Duomo - and the kids were none to thrilled at the prospect of the walk. Anyway - when we got to the Duomo - it was covered with some scaffolding - and they wanted quite a bit of money to go in. Instead - we spent time in the Square and had a picnic lunch. We looked in some of the shops, and looked around for a place to eat lunch. We ended up not spending too much time in the town. Liz got carsick on the way back to our villa - she was pretty green by the time we made it home. John and I ran down to the village and picked up the last loaf of bread at the market. Here are some pictures from that day:

Here is a picture of the van that John rented and all of the kids. We were there early enough that we found a great parking spot in a parking garage.

Here is a picture of the Siena Duomo. It was about a mile walk from the parking garage to the Square and the Duomo. The town provided many photo opportunities.

Finally: we made it to the Duomo. This picture does not show the scaffolding - but you don't really get the sense of the size of the entire building. It was fairly large.

On our way out of town - we spotted a nice park and were able to find a free parking spot. The kids loved it. In fact - I think that they liked it more than seeing the town! Kids - what are we going to do with them?

This is one of the buildings in the town. I loved the colors of Tuscany.