Assisi....

We’ve had some new experiences since Florence – mainly driving in Italy! Italian drivers are CRAZY in the city especially, so Jen’s driving is fitting in super well! We picked up our car at the Florence airport and it wasn’t quite what we were expecting. We thought we’d have one of the smaller 4 door cars that we see everywhere, but we were surprised to find this parked in the space they told us to go to!

We successfully navigated to Sienna, about an hour or so drive out of Florence. The landscape was similar to some of the Pacific NW, with its green, tree-filled hills. There were some huge houses on some of the hilltops, often surrounded by grape or hay fields. Once in Sienna, we found our way (without a real map!) close to the city center and parked, so we could go see the Duomo here, along with the Piazza del Campo, a famous town square with a bell tower that overshadows it. The streets in the center of Sienna are all winding and hilly, constantly going up and down and around…easy to get lost! Fortunately there were signs to get us to where we were going.

Inside the Duomo, which is said to be one of the most beautiful in Italy, was this floor that took over 200 years to make. It had all these collages on them.

The pillars were also different from anything we’d seen so far.

Probably the coolest thing about this Cathedral was its library.

The outside was gorgeous too, similar in design to the one we’d seen in Florence. There was also a bell tower to climb to the top of, but we’d had enough stairs the day before!

After taking in the Duomo, we headed to the Piazza del Campo and had a yummy dinner – pasta and more vino!

We attempted to head back to the car, and ended up going in circles thanks to the twisty little streets. After finally getting directions, we made it back to the car and headed on to Assisi.

It was getting pretty dark by this point, so we really didn’t see too much of the country side. We made it into Assisi and had a great view of St. Francis’ Basillica all light up on the hill at night. We tried to follow the directions we had hand written to get to the hotel (Grand Hotel Assisi), but nothing was marked with what we’d written. We just kind of followed any sign that said “Assisi” on it, and somehow, ended up finding it by pure luck. It was at this point Jen and I decided we were destined to be on The Amazing Race…ha!

Our hotel here is beautiful. We had a glass of vino and chatted with some other travelers and the bartender, trying to communicate using French, Spanish, German, Italian, and English. Between all 5 languages, we could pretty much talk about anything. It was so amusing though!

We’re off to explore Assisi and the country side now! Ciao!