Vico Alto 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

... It was the size of a small frozen Tony's party pizza from home. We then went to get Gelato (ice cream) and we walked the main strip with all the beautiful young Italians. It is Friday night and they were out full force and dressed to kill. It is amazing how we dress big and saggy in America (boys and girls) and here and when in London everything was tight, small to the waist in coats and shirts and tight jeans. The girls all wear the leggings with boots ...

I hope this works, it has been hard to attach some of the video because it times out. FYI to all my not so computer literate friends and family. When you first open the video, it will start and then stop in the middle to keep reloading and then start and stop again. This can get frustrating but is necessary until it is completely ...

Hello friends and family,<br>We have made it to Siena from Venice thank goodness and it was almost easy. We had to change trains in Florence and thought it would be crazy, but everything went smooth and then we got in Siena and could not find our room again. We got on the wrong bus even though when we gott on I asked the mean bus driver and he said, "yes, yes". Then when we asked some fellow ...

... a fancy sit down resturaunt. Finally we all haul ourselves to the nearest grocery store, up a very large hill from the Train, find a patch of grass beneath a tree and begin our picnic. <br>We took pictures, and laughed, poked fun at eachother, at my hand, at the day, and just bascially enjoyed ourselves. We looked like a tour group!<br><br>We saw some of the spectacular buildings, with a courtyard that advances in height the farther away from the building ...

... After 20 minutes and seeing much more of the countryside then when we arrived we are starting to worry. Statzione I ask again, everyone nods. Now we are really picking up speed and going full tilt down these windy hills and we are hanging on. No one else on the bus looks worried, we try to relax. We are still seeing lots of countryside, which would be enjoyable if we were not going so fast. To negotiate a turn our driver pulls into a circle, but a large truck is ...

... feasting on. The Cinque Terre was a great vacation from our vacation. We highly recommend it to fellow foodies, beachbums, and hikers. From Monterosso al Mare, we made our way over to Volterra in the heart of Tuscany. We slept in an 800-year-old seminary that has cheaply opened its many vacant rooms to travelers. There are still a handful of students attending the seminary, but this massive building seemed entirely empty ...

... bus again and heading to San Gimignano. That town is probably the most beautiful I have seen so far. I would love to go back there. They make the only regional white wine - Vernacchia - and oh is it good. I don't usually like wine, especially not white, but this one is very nice; and the gelato they make using this particular wine somehow ends up tasting like cake in a cup. There is one pedestrian thoroughfare running right through town and everything branches off from ...

Train from Pisa took about 1 hour and 30 min and had a stop in Empoli. Turned out Empoli was playing Siena that day and we were on the train with a bunch of wild futbol fans. When we got to Siena we had to figure out how to get to our hostel and after calling we found out we had to take a local bus about 20 min outside of town. So ...