More Tourism, in Tuscany

Part II of my travels with Sandra: our visit to Tuscany, particularly an agritourism that was amazing in every way, located right outside Siena. Agriturismo Marciano fed us and put is up in the best little room imaginable. They make everything on-site, including some green tomato jam that we were crazy about.


I unfortunately got pretty sick during this leg of the trip, but Sandra was a trooper and weathered a full vineyard tour without me. It's safe to say that she was the only one (between the two of us) who came away from the agritourism with any real knowledge about what they did. I just passively appreciated it all!

I personally loved the bed.


We were constantly admiring our surroundings. Siena, and all of Tuscany, is so beautiful.



On every corner we found something to look at. Lots of bright colors everywhere.



It helped that the weather was perfect.


I realized that despite the fact that I've traveled a lot here, I've never really gotten a chance to explore and enjoy things as a tourist. There's something about not being anyone's guest, having a car, and not being on the job - three different freedoms that I never experienced during past travels. I'm very grateful to Sandra for coming! She was a superstar travel buddy.


Hoping for more travels as the summer approaches . . .

Playing Tourist, Part I

A recent bright spot in this otherwise rainy, foggy winter: my friend Sandra just came and visited for almost a week, and we had a great time exploring! The trip deserves more than one post, because we managed to do tons of stuff. This is just a preliminary entry!

I would first like to state, with UTTER PRIDE, that we conducted our adventure BY CAR. I drove, and I wasn't even a total disaster - Sandra was my incredible navigator, and thanks to her we actually did not get lost even ONCE. Is that a miracle, or what? If you've ever driven in Italy, you know what I mean. Below, our trusty vehicle.



No joke!

Along with a beautiful little road trip through Tuscany, we visited the hills outside Bologna and the mosaics of Ravenna.



Notice the little fish swimming around! This is my favorite site in Ravenna, under the pulpit in the church where Dante is buried. If you pay 50 cents to a machine next to a dark little window, the lights go on and you can see this water-filled room with a mosaic floor, fish, coins, and pretty columns. I love it.



We enjoyed all kinds of mosaics, too.



Most important, however, was the FOOD!



This is some enormous piece of pig that was marinated in milk and wild fennel. It was good, too - but way too much for the two of us. We did our best, but we couldn't eat it all. That may have been our general feeling about Italy, too. It looks delicious, but there's sooooooooo much to see and do - it's impossible! Better to pick and choose the most yummy, succulent bits. So we left the rest for next time.