Italia Siena

... for our walk through the walled village. There is a 14th century fort with make up part of the walls. Today it is used as a prison - your not supposed to take photos of it, but I snapped a couple off before I knew... luckily I was not spotted by the local polizi. The town was cute for sure but I'm not sure it deservered all the accolades given to it by other travellers we had met in Lucca. Having said that we did take more photos than usual.

... and geleta, i.e. ice cream. We are back at the room and packed for our final place to see tomorrow as we head by train to Cinque Terre. We are staying on Manarola and think it will be an easy train ride and a wonderful view. We will attach pics tonight and then sometime tomorrow attach some video to show you the parade in the square with people on stilts.<br>Hugs and Kisses<br>Mick and Lisa<br>XXX<br>OOO

... the knee. Very, very chic and way out of Missouri league. Anyway, we will be here tomorrow and since we took pictures of almost anything worth seeing we will send what we have today and probably not have much tomorrrow. Oh, but tomorrow in Palio Campo square it is market day, aka flea market. All the tables were set up today so that will be interesting and we will be doing some wash. Talk to you all tomorrow and signing out for now......<br>Love Mick and Lisa

... Once it is finished and the black screen appears again do not close out as now you can hit the white arrow and watch it without interruption because it is fully downloaded. So hit the arrow the first time and walk away then come back and when it is the black screen again hit the arrow and you won't have any interruptions.<br>Chow

... lost. Anyway, we finally fouind our place and headed out for a short venture. That is when we found the group from St. Louis. Traveling with the group sounded like a dream. We are headed back out tonight for a little dinner and just wanted everyone to know so far so good. This place is really amazing. Hope you enjoy the pics.<br>Hugs and kisses to everyone<br>Love<br>Mick and Lisa<br>XXX<br>OO

... my left hand. <br><br>You've heard of the Michelin Man right? Well that's what my hand looked like, I was a marshmallow. Lorenzo was standing next to me and to this day can't stop teasing me about my reaction to the hot water corsing over my hand and dripping to the floor, I gasped, clenched my teeth together and didn't utter a word beyond a mutterance/growl.<br>I carefully stop pouring boiling water all over myself, Lorenzo and I slowly place my mug onto ...

... for buying a drink. So I got this orange looking cocktail that everyone gets here - some sort of spritzer which as sweet alcohol and wine in it) YUM! and Jon got some beer. We probably had 3 plates of goodies and decided not to eat dinner since we had also snacked so much on the train. Our "dinner" came out to 9.5 euros... not bad! Then we got a 2 euro bottle of wine and shared it in the hotel. Tomorrow, more touring of Siena.

... we thought they would escape their handlers and jump onto us!). After two hours of these processions, my feet were cramped from standing on tiptoe, and Ryan barely had space to turn in a circle, but it was time for the race to begin! Or so we thought. Now, I have given you an explanation of Palio as I understand it, but apparently I don't understand very much. There is a series of very complicated, incomprehensible (to us at least) rules about how to start the race ...

... in this community too. After walking around to the surrounding city we visited the basilica of St. Domenici. We learned that there is a difference between churches, cathedrals and basilicas in Italy and the defining element of a basilica is the relic that "belongs" to it. I use belong loosely because it's not like pieces of a Saint's body were given up voluntarily. In this Basilica for example we saw the head - yup - and the finger of St. Catherine. Her head was set ...

We spent a few hours in Venice before heading out to Siena. We went back to the café we had been at the night before and ordered pizza to share, wine for me and beer for Josh. We bought a few souvenirs and said goodbye to Venice. The only trains available were Eurostar so we ended up paying 30 euros extra to reserve our seats. We ended up next to a couple from Dallas. We talked to them the entire journey. When the train finally came into ...