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, umbria is mostly hills, with smaller plains.  it might not seem like a big difference, but in our drive to the first city, i think we went through 6 tunnels, whereas there had been none in tuscany.

So we arrived in Spello, with a beautiful sunny day again.  which was nice after all the rain we had been having.

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it was a very quaint little town, with lots of stairs initially, well, at least from one of the parking lots.  this is proof for eran later that i carried him up loads of stairs.

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i dont think he was impressed with my help.

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so the village had a circular road all around, and we started around that to see all the sights.

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Assisi, our next destination

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this was a depiction of the city, painted on the roof of an archway

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the circle road was very thin, and even though it said it was a car restricted zone, a lot of cars still passed us.

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so by this point, it was going on noon or 1 i think, and it was time for lunch.  we had picked a place in our next city, Assisi to have lunch, so we piled back in the cars, and drove the 15 min to the next village.  i took us on a scenic route, which was very nice, but we ended up in a spot we were not allowed, and had to back out a long windy road.  super fun!  we eventually found the designated city parking lot, and made our way to the restaurant.

and what a find it was.  the restaurant had been built over and inside a renovated ancient roman house.  it was a fantastic and peaceful place to have lunch.

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needless to say, the food was amazing.

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as it happened, that day was our 5 year wedding anniversary, and when i ordered my tea (i always order tea), what arrived, but the canadian tea we use as wedding favours.

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i think we all enjoyed ourselves at lunch

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So Assisi.

it was a much busier tourist destination than spello had been.  as soon as we left the restaurant, and went to the mail square, we saw it was packed with tourists.

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at this point the day started to become overcast a bit, which was nice, cooled us off a bit

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then we saw the craziest thing.  there happened to be a scooter convention for one type of scooter, and they all met right were we were.

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then it was a few family pictures as we were heading out

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and just as we were trying to make it to the car, the heavens opened up on us again

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and that wrapped up day 6 of our adventure.  i quite enjoyed both town that we visited.  assisi was a little packed for my liking, and i think at this point i was starting to get “really really old stuff” overload.  there is so much to see, but by this point in our trip, i just couldn’t handle it anymore.  this becomes even more apparent to me the next day, when i really stopped caring about seeing anything.  i was just trying to photograph interesting things instead.  its a real shame, because there is so much cool history and things to look at, but i think it has to be broken into more bite sized chunks, with breaks in between in order to absorb and process what you have seen, so that you can really appreciate what you are seeing.

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.

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then i found some flowers and a field to photograph

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and i dont know who let this baby drive

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from there, noa, yael and orit headed on towards San Gimignano.  its between siena and florence, so it was about another hour drive to get there. San Gimignano is also built atop a hill, and as usual, the parking lot was outside the city, and then you walk around inside.  for once, cars were not allowed inside, unlike many others that we went too, we would have to step aside for cars to pass. the first thing i saw after parking was this Morgan.  if you dont know anything about them, they are pretty cool cars.  the interior was had made on each one, and often real wood panelling was used inside.  the other reason i know about them is it was the car my dad had when my parents first started dating.  apparently the windshield wipers were broken, and would only return, so my dad had a string which my mom would have to pull to pull them one way, and they would go back the other way by themselves.  so seeing this car i thought of my dad, so i made sure i got a picture of it.

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san gimignano entrance tower.  looks like it would be tough to scale

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overgrown wall.  maintenance isn’t what it used to be in the middle ages.

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lazy cat sleeping against the wall.

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We got inside and started walking the streets

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and as we are civilized, it was time to stop for a break and have some tea.  this place worked out well.

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some more walking around the streets

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and five minutes later we happened upon some ice cream, that had a line outside.  so we had to try it.  not let me tell you, this was the best invention ever.  they included a mini cone on top, that you could use to help scoop and eat ice cream.  i loved it.

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a church. carrying a tripod everywhere in italy paid off here.

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i loved the narrow streets

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old millstones from who knows when.

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found a viewpoint so we took family photos

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and got some epic views and pictures.

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shadow fun

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all that was pretty tiring. (not really) but we were kinda peckish, and wanted to eat before the long car ride home.  soooooo…

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cacio e pepe (amazing invention, especially when done well)

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hmm pizza

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so that was it, as we were heading out i got a few more pictures.

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the Morgan had been moved.  i just saw now that someone drove it here from the netherlands!  wow, nice.

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overall, i think San Gimignano rated right up there with siena, if not higher.  it was really not very touristy, and exploring the little streets was really nice.  i quite enjoyed the dinner we had there, and the views were fantastic.  I’m very glad we did not miss going there.

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.

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and the view of cortona on the hill side was phenomenal.

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so the plan for this day was to drive to Siena, and spend the day there.  so off we went, in our two cars

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we got to siena, and found a parking lot.  upon exiting, this is the view that greeted us.

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walking around, we found sienas duomo.  each city has one.

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whats the deal with not having your dog walk

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a very rainy day

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I wanted to explore more, so i split off for an hour to walk to the other side of the city.  i found this.

the first empty church ive found on this trip

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and outside the church, looking back towards siena.  i tried to get over that wall, but there was no way thru our around it for me. bah.

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and the countryside

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found another view back

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panorama of the square

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a cold baby

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wet piccione (also called pijonay by us all trip)

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worst selfie ever

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family photo.  do noa and i look west coast or what.

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another rainy countryside

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last view of siena as we were about to head out.

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overall, i really loved Siena.  there were less crowds, i don’t know if because of the rain or not, but its just not as big a city.  there were parts where i was alone, like the church.  it also is a very photogenic city.  i was wandering the streets and you would see glimpses of the nice views, and back at the city itself all over the place.  i really really enjoyed it.  i think at this point it was one of my highlights for sure.

So driving home, we decided to take a scenic route detour, and drove through some hills.  these cool clouds were sitting right on the treeline.  just in general a really nice drive home on some twisty roads.

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then when we got back to the villa, we had some spectacular light as the sun was setting.

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overall, a great day.