We woke this morning and had our breakfast at our B&B.

This is breakfast?!

Did I ever mention we’ve been staying at Casa Vera in Orvieto? I’m not sure if I did. I can recommend it, for sure, and would encourage anyone who stays to also have dinner at their little place next door. We were only there for two nights, and I’d love to return and enjoy the area some more. If you go, tell Sabrina I sent you!

After breakfast we took our time getting ready to leave since our train didn’t depart until close to 12:30.

Next time I will take less than this:

We did need to check out at 10:30, though, so we still had time to kill after that. We enjoyed coffee at a spot in sight of the Duomo, and then caught a bus to the Funicular. Still we had time to spare, but we noticed that there were views to the right of us when we exited the bus. Right there was a portion of the wall! Dan shot some photos and I managed to take a few, even while not enjoying the drop off. What a chicken I am!

From there we took the Funicular down and waited for our train.

We actually had to take two trains today. The first was a Regionale Veloce, and I have to say trains here are pretty decent even when not taking the terrific speedy ones. Or at least that was. We saw more sunflowers, too. I wish we could stop and photograph them!

It was a short ride, and then we had time to get a lunch at the train station before getting the plain old Regionale. It was noisy, and not a super train, but still it was comfortable. For the first time in quite a while someone came by to check that we had tickets. After a few stops the guy came back since there were new people on the train and it just so happened that the four guys next to us must not have had tickets. They were escorted off the train at the next stop. I’m not sure what happened after that, but they were standing there waiting, so I’m assuming someone was going to escort them somewhere. (I read there are hefty fines.)

After a while a dog joined us. I think he had a ticket. 😉

Getting off the train we caught a taxi to get to our next city. We could have walked — it was about a 30 minute walk, but uphill. We are lazy, I suppose. But taxi it was and soon we were dropped off right in front of our B&B and we are now in … drum roll …

SIENA!

Dan and I were here for about 4 hours some years ago, when my brother (hi Greg!) drove some of us here. We just loved the brief visit, and were determined to come back. Yes, I know it’s full of tourists, but it’s also just a very interesting place. We are quite happy to be here.

Our room is really nice. (We do have to climb two flights of stairs, but I just figure we are getting some exercise, which is much needed with all we eat.) We are staying at Antica Residenza Cicogna. We are in the “Leoni” room, but I have yet to locate the lions on the ceiling. I do see some along the base of one wall, under the windows, though.

After getting set up there we went out for a brief time, enjoyed spritzes looking over the Piazza del Campo, and relaxed.

Then we went back to our room for a bit, since it was too early for dinner and we just wanted to hang out a while without a crowd. Here is an image shot from a bedroom window:

Dinner was a mere minute or so away. This has happened a number of times on this trip! And here I thought walking to downtown Willow Glen (5 minutes, or perhaps 10?) was nice. Heh. It was a nice and lengthy dinner. We haven’t figured out how to get the attention of the server quite like the Italians can do! But it was yummy and I’m glad we went there. Oh, and there was a doggy there … couldn’t help but think about my dog loving kids!

THEN Dan joked about gelato and I joked back and … well … can you guess the rest of the story?

Odds are we will regret this later tonight. But so it goes …

Ciao!