The 6th Day in italy, we decided to explore umbria.  we were right on the border between tuscany and umbria, and the host of the house we were renting told us of some good spots to visit.  so, we quite aggressively decided to see 3 of those on this day, but ended up only being able to see 2 of them.  those two cities were Spello and Assisi. Umbria is quite different from tuscany.  where tuscany is mostly wide open plains, with hills around them,…

day five in tuscany brought us a nice day again.  we decided in the morning to head to an outlet mall to have a look around.  it was a pretty surreal experience, right next to a small italian town theres a huge complex of outdoor malls, filled to the brim with what looked like asian tourists.  not only that, each store had someone working there who spoke mandarin. here i took my first photo of the day, i liked the reflection in the water. [flickr…

The next morning after florence, we find ourself with an overcast day at the villa. but this allowed for some beautiful photos of the countryside. [flickr id=”8897805063″ thumbnail=”large” overlay=”false” size=”large” group=”” align=”none”] [flickr id=”8897806189″ thumbnail=”large” overlay=”false” size=”large” group=”” align=”none”] [flickr id=”8898424422″ thumbnail=”large” overlay=”false” size=”large” group=”” align=”none”] and the view of cortona on the hill side was phenomenal. [flickr id=”8897808659″ thumbnail=”large” overlay=”false” size=”large” group=”” align=”none”] so the plan for this day was to drive to Siena, and spend the day there.  so off we went, in…